Robots and Empire

Robots and Empire takes place several hundred years after the last Robot book. The girl our hero was cheating with is still alive - spacers can live to be 3-400 years old. And of course R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard are back as well. This book basically tries to tie together the "Robot" series with the "Foundation" series.

You see, in the latter, there are few robots at all (at least, as far as I can remember). So how did we get from a society with dozens if not hundreds of robots per human to one with NO robots? You have to read this book.

This one also introduces the Zeroeth law of Robotics. A robot himself comes up with this law.

Personally, I like it when and author ties disparate series together. I know is kind of retro-fitting things together, and it can feel forced at times, but I think it's a neat idea. I think I like this book the second most (with the first being the best).

This book also subverts the first law in an interesting way, by (sort of) re-defining what a human is. But you'll have to read it to find out exactly how. Personally, I wish he had explored that a little more and resolved it, rather than use it for a small section then abandon the idea.

8 out of 10.

The Robots of Dawn

The Robots of Dawn is the third and final book where Partner Elijah Bailey is the main character. Once again, he is sent off to a foreign spacer world, again with his partner R. Daneel Olivaw. This time, we also meet R. Giskard, a less humanoid robot, but one with special gifts.

This time, it is a robot who is 'murdered'. It is a special robot, one of two humanoid robots ever built (the other being R. Daneel Olivaw). The only person who could have done it (he admits he is the only one who could have done it) denies he did. Elijah must prove the man's innocense, or Earth will suffer. You seen the suspect strongly supports Earth's right to colonize, while his opponent (and main accuser) believes in restricting Earth's exansionism.

In the end, Elijah 'proves' the bad guy did it, and his friend and Earth are saved. However, we later find out (again) that the truth is somewhat deeper than is made public.

Having now read all these, I feel Elijah is not a very good guy. He conceals the truths that would make life inconvenient, letting a completly guilty person going free (on more than one occasion), and justifies it with no moral authority other than his own.

Then, he starts cheating on his wife. I just like him less and less the more I think about it.

So, if I just read the book and don't think about it much, I'd give this one an 8. But after putting the threads together, I'm going to have to drop the whole series to a 6.

The Naked Sun

The next Robot book is The Naked Sun. This takes place on one of the spacer worlds. Our human hero is re-united with his robot partner, and off they go to the strange world. There, there are 10,000 robots per human - and one of those humans has been murdered.

I found many of the concepts interesting, but ultimately the mystery falls a little flat. I didn't find the resolution very interesting. The idea of subverting the 3 laws was cool, and indeed used something I had thought of before - the idea that a robot may not knowingly harm a human. But in the end, the who-dunnit and the how he/she/it dunnit just seemed a little too easy.

I think I'm gonna start rating the books on a purely subjective level, so I'll give this one a 7.