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.