I, Robot
(Isaac Asimov)
I, Robot is a collection of science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1950. Though the stories work well enough individually, they share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality, and when put together they tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics.
Several of the stories feature the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots. Upon their publication in this collection, Asimov wrote a framing sequence presenting the stories as Calvin's reminiscences during an interview with her about her life's work, chiefly concerned with aberrant behaviour of robots, and the use of "robopsychology" to sort them out.
The book also contains the short story in which Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics first appear. Other characters that appear in these short stories are Powell and Donovan, a field-testing team which locates flaws in USRMM's prototype models.
The collection's title was applied earlier to a short story by Eando Binder. Asimov originally titled his collection Mind and Iron, and initially objected when the publisher changed the title.
The following appeared on the back cover of I, Robot (paperback edition):
To you, a robot is just a robot. But you haven't worked with them. You don't know them. They're a cleaner, better breed than we are.
When Earth is ruled by master-machines... when robots are more human than humankind.
Isaac Asimov's unforgettable, spine-chilling vision of the future - available at last in its first paperback edition.
This is largely inaccurate. The first paragraph is a quotation from one of the book's recurring characters, Dr. Susan Calvin, but the rest is incongruous with the themes that Asimov presents in his stories. At the time of the collection's publication, robots were depicted in science fiction as either servile machines or evil creations that revolted in the manner of Frankenstein's monster. Asimov himself said that in writing the Robot stories he sought to replace both views with something more rational.
Happy Reading
Resumos Relacionados
- I, Robot
- I, Robot
- I, Robot
- I, Robot
- I, Robot
|
|
