Dero

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Dero

"Detrimental Robot"a term coined by writer Richard Shaver to indicate malevolent dwarfs living in underground caverns. In his story "I Remember Lemuria," first published as a series in Amazing Stories beginning in March 1945 (and reprinted in The Hidden World in the 1960s), the deros used advanced machinery to harass human beings. This series of stories, which hypothesized a hollow earth and underground civilization, was presented as fact rather than fiction and stimulated paranoid fantasies on the part of many readers.

Sources:

Palmer, Ray. "Invitation to Adventure." The Hidden World A-1 (Spring 1961): 4-14.

Shaver, Richard. "I Remember Lemuria." Amazing Stories March 1945. Reprinted in The Hidden World A-1 (Spring 1961): 52-134.