Isaac Asimov - I, Robot -8

mrdude · Post by **mrdude** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:14 pm

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0553803700.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" align="left">
I,Robot by Isaac Asimov is the first book in the Robot Series.

I have found that this book is almost always labeled as a collection of short stories about robots. This is a sad misconception in my opinion. The novel is written from the point of view of Dr. Susan Calvin, a "Robosychologis" for U.S. Robotics who is being interviewed by a young reporter. The "collection of stories" is actually her accounts of several problems concerning the development of new robots throughout her carrier.

I found the book quite enjoyable. Like most of his works, Asimov poses problems and then walks the reader through the solution. In many ways I would say this book follows much of the same form as the first book of the original foundation trilogy. The only downside I found was a lack of character development and action. Like other works I have read by Asimov, he is more concerned with the logic and science behind his writing than any amount of story telling. Therefore, he leaves out a lot of information about the characters in his books. For one, the identity of the interviewer is never revealed to the reader so he is merely used to link the stories together. Personal information about most of the other characters is quite sparse as well. As far as action goes, he seems to enjoy telling stories with least amount of this actually occurring as possible. Most of the book is spent explaining and working through problems, through dialog or experiments. In short, his characters pose a problem they are dealing with, gather information, run tests and experiments, discuss everything in great detail and then present their solution. This could be tedious and boring to some readers but all in all I would still suggest this book for those who are ready for something stimulating to read.

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Review also posted at the IBLIST

Post by **Darb** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:11 pm

Very good review

Congrats as well at becomming the current leader in the "linked reviews" metric, with 13 so far.

Superenigmatix · Post by **Superenigmatix** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:16 pm

I loved these books - and I have to say that from what I've seen of the Movie - it looks like utter utter utter utter pants, with little or no relevance to the books!

Bad Robots, Kill, Kill, KILL!!!!!!!!

Sheesh

sE

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:25 pm

Typical Hollywood butchery.

Post by **Darb** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:29 pm

Guess I'll avoid it then.

Thanks for saving me a $9 movie ticket ($5 for matinee)

mrdude · Post by **mrdude** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 6:19 pm

Brad_H wrote:Very good review

Congrats as well at becomming the current leader in the "linked reviews" metric, with 13 so far.

Thanks, I have been working hard to review everything I read. If only I read at a slightly quicker pace.

As for the movie, after talking to a few people, It is loosely based off of the books that follow this one. Although, how loosely I do not know, I would assume probably is the sort of drastic "Well theres robots and a police detective in them".