Posts Tagged ‘robot series’

Robot Dreams is a compilation of short stories by Isaac Asimov. It contains a mixture of his work, including the robot series, but also the multivac series, and unrelated science fiction stories. A few I had already read in The Complete Robot but most were new to me.

I think I enjoyed the book slightly more than The Complete Robot as a lot of the stories felt more polished. Overall, I remain more a fan of his full-length novels than his short stories, though both are good.

The story the book is named after, Robot Dreams is actually one of the worst stories in the book, in my opinion. There does not seem to be a satisfactory motive or conclusion to it.

Robots and Empire is the forth full-length novel in Isaac Asimov’s Robot series. It is set hundreds of years after The Robots of Dawn and so I assumed it would be more about the creation of the Galactic Empire.

It was in some respects but was mostly another adventure of Daneel, Giskard and Gladia, who has a spacer was still alive even after all this time.

I was originally going to get it as an audiobook, but just before I did, it mysteriously disappeared from the Downpour store. Almost as if someone was removing references to Earth from the Galactic Library…

The Robots of Dawn is the third novel in Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, following on from The Naked Sun.

It is not my favourite novel. It is approximately twice as long as the previous one, which gives it the noticeable advantage that protagonist Elijah Baley occasionally goes long stretches without yelling “Jehosaphat!” but otherwise makes for a rather long tale.

It is set on the spacer world of Aurora and while it does advance Asimov’s universe in some important ways, a lot of it feels like more of a detective novel than a science fiction story. The conclusion of which is not overly satisfying either.

The Naked Sun is the second novel in Issac Asimov’s Robot series. It follows on from The Caves of Steel.

It sees Elijah Baley travel to Solaria to investigate a murder. He is once again accompanied by R. Daneel Olivaw, though he does not play a huge part. On Solaria they find only 20,000 inhabitants who have a taboo against seeing each other (though “viewing” using a 3D video call is fine).

It was an intriguing tale, and one I was loosely familiar with from the Foundation series. I found it a little unbelievable, though. Baley being scared of the outside. Solarians being scared of seeing and touching other people? That just does not seem human.

Of course, taboos can be strong and if you have lived with someone your whole life, you will be conditioned. However, I think the human urge to get together and have sex is a pretty strong one. And studies show that even city-dwellers find the savanna landscape in which we evolved homely, even if they have never been there.

Part of reading science fiction is, of course, suspending your disbelief. However, it felt to me like there was a difference between accepting we have spaceships that travel to other planets and a fundamental change in the human condition without much explanation. At least Brave New World attempted to explain how deep the conditioning went, and even then they had to pack plenty of humans off to the islands.

If you run with it, though, it becomes an interesting thought experiment and an enjoyable read. It also takes another step in building the Asimov universe; another jigsaw piece falls into place.

Having done some background reading I made a start on the first of Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels, The Caves of Steel. It is set in the semi-near future where positronic robots have been developed and 50 other planets have been colonised.

I came into it thinking there was no way it could be as good as the Foundation series, which is amazing. However, as I go on, I’m less sure. Asimov once again shows why he is the master of science fiction. Blending future technologies with the troubles we all encounter every day he creates a half-exciting believable vision of the future.

Already having been familiar with R. Daneel Olivaw from the Foundation series, it was interesting to go back to his roots. Elijah Baley is a cool character too, walking a nice line between identifiable good guy and man who can get things done.

Definitely worth a read for all science fiction fans.