Introduction Type Of Book: Collection of short stories.
Theme Of Book: Robots.
Essence
Of Book: Social acceptance of robots into human society.
About the author Isaac Asimov is by far the most highly respected and the most famous
sci-fi writer of all times. He is the only sci-fi author ever to have
recieved the Hugo of the Hugo awards for his highly acclaimed
Foundation Trilogy. The most unique thing about his writings was each
of his novels were connected to each other in some way or other. His
famous
series includes the Robot series and the Empire series apart
from the record breaking Foundation Series.
Peek into I, Robot I Robot is a collection of stories involving Robots and their
acceptance into the world of human society. Asimov comes up with this
interesting novelty that Robots are manufactured to be driven by three
basic laws (much like the three laws of Newton). These laws are:
1) A Robot cannot by action or inaction allow a human being to be hurt or killed.
2) A Robot must obey the commands issued by a human being as long as Ist law is not broken.
3) A Robot must protect itself as long as the first two laws are not broken.
Based on the interplay of these three laws the stories are a
delight to read. I could not bear with the thought to put down the book
till I came down to the last page.
Brief insight into some of the stories in this book :
1) Gloria, a little girl, recieves a Robot as a gift. She gets
attached to her robot so much so that it makes her mother wonder
whether it is good or not. She tries her best to keep her daughter from
getting over indulgent with the Robot but to no avail. Then, one fine
day the robot vanishes. How will the girl react? A cute little story
describing how Robots will merge into human society.
2) Second law of Robotic says that a robot must obey what a man
says. But what if the man gives a wrongly phrased command such as, "Get
me a glass of water and then get lost!!" For a Robot this means get a
glass of water and go into a hiding so that we can't find you, in other
words 'lost'. This is exactly what happens and to make matters worse,
the robot in question was a new model on which adequate testing was not
done. So this could be the next big Robot disaster. Track a robot
trying its best to hide from you using all your skills of Robo
psychology.
Just two of the interesting stories in this book. I would be
killing the fun if I would highlight the plot of the other stories. :)
There are several interesting issues raised in this book. Some of them are:
1) Feeling of insecurity amongst humans that Robots might deprive them of jobs.
2) Fear that Robots are more powerful and could kill humans if out of control.
3) How the human brain interprets things whereas what a programmed brain interprets?
Highlights One of the highlights of all Asimov novels is that he just does not
write science fictions, he writes them with a social theme in the
background. And this novel highlights it best. This same kind of
insecurity was felt by people when widespread computerization took
place. Similarly, the amount of scientific know how of Asimov also lets
him assemble real science facts into the fiction and make it gel
brilliantly.