Some Nonhuman Robots

A Boys best friend - 3.5
Sally - 2.5
Someday - 3.5


Some Immobile Robots

Point of view - 2.5
Think! - 3
True Love - 4


Some Metallic Robots

Victory Unintentional - 3.5
Stranger In Paradise - 2.5
Light Verse - 3.5
Segregationist - 5
Robbie - 3 *

Some Humanoid Robots

Let's Get Together - 3
Mirror Image - 3
The Tercentenary Incident - 4


Powell and Donovan

First Law - 2
Runaround - 2.5 *
Reason - 4 *
Catch That Rabbit! - 3 *


Susan Calvin

Liar! - 4 *
Satisfaction Guaranteed - 4
Lenny - 4.5
Galley Slave - 4.5
Little Lost Robot - 3.5 *
Risk - 3
Escape! - 2.5 *
Evidence - 4 *
The Evitable Conflict - 2 *
The Female Intuition - 3.5


Two Climaxes

Thou Art Mindful Of Him - 4
The Bicentennial Man - 3.5

* Collected in I Robot

This has been sat on my shelf for a while. There's something about an author you're not fond of and a 700 page book that's just not that inviting...
However, I Robot was announced as a group read and, seeing as The Complete Robot contained all of the same stories (minus the Dr. Calvin interviews), I figured what better time to pick it up?

I found it a real slog to start with. There's no refuting Asimov's ideas and what he brought to the genre, but I have often found him to be a pretty poor storyteller, particularly when it comes to endings; and this struck mostly true for the first half of the collection, making it a real trial to wade through. There were exceptions of course, as can be gathered from my rating of each story (above), and my enjoyment definitely reached a high when I came to the Susan Calvin stories. Not just because I found her a great character, but because it was at that point that the book became much more than just a collection of short stories. There was a bigger picture, an overarching story detailing the evolution of robotics and it's gradual acceptance by humanity. The stories were pretty much chronological with recurring characters and this made it a greater joy to read the good stories, and less of a chore in reading the weaker ones.
In fact, despite its inconsistency, I feel that reading this collection has birthed in me a stronger desire to read Asimov (but not too much). I'll certainly be proceeding with the "Robot" series.... When I get around to it. ( )

The 1st in what can be seen as the "extended" 15 book Foundation Series. A complete collection of short stories on robots that sets the foundation (pun intended) for the Foundation Series. A seminal piece of sci-fi on robotics, giving birth to the the term "robots", covering their role in human society and introducing the 3 Laws of Robotics to the sci-fi genre. ( )

So by the means of technology I have read parts of this book in English and parts in Spanish, and ..., the Spanish translation is abysmal, atrocious, avoid it at all cost.

The stories are quite good, except for the last, Asimov's favorite one, which I didn't like at all. ( )

I genuinely think the critical opposition to SF is increasingly overstated; I'm not entirely sure what "being taken seriously" even means any more except in the nerd media sense of "nothing but glowing praise from serious critics". The greats of SF - the real greats, that is, the authors who have properly endured and those new authors who have something really interesting to say - do do well. But perhaps the reason there's little serious critical comment on SF is that there's not a lot to say about it? It's well supported in the popular media, and the amateur/blog scenes, so does it need to be included in the broadsheets or LRB too?

I think the major complaint is that the very best of SF books never make the longlists/shortlists of mainstream literary awards. If these mainstream awards were marketed as best in the nebulous maybe-genre of literary fiction this wouldn't be a problem, but they're marketed as best in all fiction. If you have an award that markets itself as best in all fiction, yet continually overlooks talented writers in a certain field, then SF has a fair complaint of being stuck with an implied second-class citizenship status tag. Except that the ones who "endure" tend to be the ones with something to them often described in terms of having something "beyond" the SF exterior, and so on. You even use the term "serious critics" to apparently describe non-specifically-SF critics.

These books have "crossover appeal" or "something to say about people as well as technology". Not direct quotes but attitudes prevalent in those "serious critics"' positive reviews of SF. The problem isn't that there's exactly opposition - fantasy and SF series on TV and in the written word do still get critical praise - but there is differentiation. The SF aspects of the fiction are deemed the coating, and it's only when the SF work has some serious part to it as well that it becomes "good" or "taken seriously". There's something in the attitude there that says that SF is inherently juvenile or lesser to those great novels with something to say about the human spirit or society or whatever.

A SF novel that's a good novel shouldn't have to be a crossover novel - it should just be a good SF novel. There's still a stigma to the term science fiction that has more to do with stereotypes of the fans (and therefore writers) of those works, which are still pretty prevalent. It might not be restricted to the white male shut-in, but it's still often associated with a certain type of social ineptitude. Yeah, "mainstream" culture is happily incorporating "nerd" culture into its allusions and characters these days, but they're still a curiosity, a kind of benign freakshow. It might not be all that negative or persecuting, but it still refuses to see SF as something that can be thrilling and profound in its own right.

I don't think 'true' SF will ever win literary awards. In it's purest form it's a philosophical or intellectual genre that undertakes a fundamentally different job from 'literary' fiction. Literary fiction is descended from the novel, which stood in contrast to older forms of romance or satirical/philosophical prose in that it tried to capture the nature of human experience (albeit often with a moral or political purpose). SF's roots lie in an older satirical and philosophical approach, (and that's without considering romances, which are closer to genre fiction as a whole).

SF ideas are often used as metaphors in more novellistic approaches - that's a huge part of P K Dick's appeal as his use of androids and replicants and illusion expresses something complex about the human experience. These are mixed up with dystopic elements drawn from SF's satirical roots, but the reason for his strong critical reputation is that his works are essentially novelistic - they try and show us what it is to be alive and human (rather than tell us how we should be alive or human).

Contrast this with “The Complete Robot” (which I re-read recently after about thirty years away) which is very clearly a philosophical and Utopian work with little interest in cracking open the nature of human experience. It's not a matter of one being better than the other (although I personally think that the novelistic approach has a more enduring appeal) but that the goals of the two types of writing make them impossible to compare. To be honest, I don't think that SF fans and critics have a strong idea of what SF is really for. Even awards lists within the genre can be made of books with very different goals and approaches which makes choosing between them very difficult - it's the old business of do you prefer a book that does a simple thing well or one that doesn't quite pull off something very ambitious?

How to judge fiction? If we take literature seriously then we surely need to look at the best examples, and there are several mentioned in the article and the comments above (but nothing of Christopher Priest's "The Adjacent" - another outstanding author woefully ignored by the mainstream). However, SF fans can, in my opinion, often be their own (and even their beloved authors) worst enemies. Lots of indifferent or poor writers in SF and 'fantasy' are buttressed by undiscriminating fans prepared to buy any old crap that they churn out. Even worse, there often seems to be little or no interest in reading anything much outside the genre, with the result that fans frequently have naive and inflated opinions of the qualities of the stuff they read. I'm totally weary of excitable 'fan recommendations' taking me to books that are just shoddily written crap, and fed up of standards of evaluation that are so limited. This is partially true of any 'genre' fiction, but you rarely hear of other genre readers absolutely demanding that their chosen literature must be taken seriously by the mainstream.

Call me a snob if you wish, but just to repeat, we need to look at the best examples to judge literature, and apart from a handful of authors, much SF and 'fantasy' is really just awful.

I'm adding an additional note, because after some reflection, I think an example might clarify my criticism: take “The Complete Robot” as a prime example. I won’t even bother calling it a SF collection. Why the need to classify it at all as a SF? Why not just accord it the status of a favourite/excellent/great collection of short-stories? Place it in the company of some of the other fine collections of the last 200 years. See how it fares: does it get its ba...sorry, shins kicked? Does it stand proud? It’s a great collection even after 30 years. Period. There are reviewers who do this sort of thing with verve, intelligence, and fearlessness. The Australian writer and critic James Bradley is a wonderful example, who also, by the way, includes M. John Harrison’s “Empty Space” on his Best Books of 2012 list - note 'Best Books', not 'Best SF Books' or something of that ilk - and who also, interestingly, compares George R.R. Martin and Hilary Mantel. “The Complete Robot” will still be read when I’m not around any more. I wonder how many contemporary works (be it SF or not) will still be read 50 years from now.



SF = Speculative Fiction.

Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction ( )

My first Asimov book and I loved it, from the first till the last story included. His [b:Foundation Trilogy|8683655|Foundation Trilogy|Isaac Asimov|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347954762s/8683655.jpg|41350] is still waiting to be read, but as I saw this collection of short stories, I decided to tackle these first.

'The Complete Robot' is said to contain all of his robot stories that were published previously in other compilations or magazines, and a few other ones that didn't make it into those earlier compilations. Everything is neatly explained in the foreword (and the different introductions to each segment in this compilation) by Mr Asimov himself, topped with a pinch of humour, which I didn't know he had.

The various stories were put together according by theme: Non-human Robots (3), Metallic Robots (3), Immobile Robots (6), Humanoid Robots (3), Powell and Donovan (4), Susan Calvin (10) (a robot-psychologist - or someone who likes robots more than humans), Two Climaxes (2).

Of course, the Three Laws of Robotics return throughout the book and are crucial in how robots work and interact with mankind:
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;

About law no. 2: Which human being? A robot must therefore be able to distinguish a child from an adult, a police agent from a bank clerk, etc.

Asimov tried to show that robots can be used for various kinds of work and tasks, some more specialized than the others. And that's how they are used today: assembly plants, computers, construction, in hospitals, self-driving cars (not fully trustworthy yet, of course), and elsewhere. We just don't always think about it or simply take it for granted. And then there's the eternal discussion about jobs: Will and do robots take away workers'/employees' jobs?

With all those stories, Asimov offered a broad view on how robots are implemented in our lives, how they can be implemented and how they can become even human-like. And there are human-like robots today, as demonstrated by a.o. Honda, or in hospitals or geriatric places, to help the elderly. Who doesn't remember the cartoon series 'The Jetsons' and specifically Rosie, the household robot? She's also in this book, albeit in a different version. So is an alternative version of KITT, the car in 'Knight Rider', in this case Sally.

A few stories, one of them being 'The Tercentenary Incident', reminded me of current happenings: A president who has a robot double (why?), for example. But the robot gets destroyed during the public event, after which the real president shows up quickly to reassure the public that he's fine. Reminded me, in a way, of the coup in Turkey, the army wanting to overthrow president Erdogan.

In another story, 'The Bicentennial Man', Andrew the robot wants to be free, but is still subjected to the Three Laws, which allows for humans to abuse this and get him to do things which are harmful to himself, despite Andrew wanting to become a human being and going at great lengths to obtain his goal, even it means a quick death. But it also shows how humanity will always have a sly way to abuse others, robots or otherwise. And how people aren't ready yet to fully accept robots as equals, unless perhaps in a certain animal shape.

Or, if you want to go extreme: What if - but that's a what if many of us won't experience anymore, I think - robots become so free in thinking and communicating that they stand up against their makers?

Although there's a bit of hard SF, Asimov's writing style is quite accessible here. If you haven't read any Asimov yet (or none of his robot stories), this is a fine book to start with, since it contains all of the robot stories, more than in the previous compilations. This is also a fine work for those interested in the possible happenings in the future of robotics or how every day life could look many years from now. ( )