The robots were built to serve Man; to do his work, see to his comforts, make smooth his way. Then the robots figured out an additional service--putting Man out of his misery.
Snow in summer is of course impossible. Any weather expert will tell you so. Weather Bureau Chief Botts was certain no such absurdity could occur. And he would have been right except for one thing. It snowed that summer.
It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab in New York City. No doubt it was the only motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the stars--for far out in space a signal was registered: Something has gone wrong....for the doctors discovered their accident patient had two hearts. It was the beginning of the discovery that the Earth had been invaded by 10 such creatures from Outer Space.
Dueling as a means of settling disputes has been revived by the invention of the dueling machine, which allows two adversaries to have at each other in the imaginary world of their choosing, with no danger to either other than humiliation and the loss of the point in dispute, until the Kerak Worlds found a way to kill with the machine. Unless a young Star Watchman can solve the mystery, the warlike Kerak Worlds will gobble up the planets.
The most dangerous, utterly vicious carnivorous animal the Galactics knew had escaped. to Earth! Because contact with Earth was forbidden, they knew little of Earth. which led to certain false conclusions.