Dero
Detrimental Robota 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
A1 (Spring 1961) 414.
Shaver, Richard. I Remember Lemuria. Amazing Stories
March 1945. Reprinted in The Hidden World A1 (Spring 1961)
52134.
