Robot Dreams is another of the robot short story books from Asimov. It is a bit deceptive though and frankly quite annoying because only one of the stories in the book is a robot story, and its not very long.I am of course ignoring the robot stories that already appear in I, Robot and The Complete Robot. The rest are unrelated short stories by Asimov that aren't about robots, and aren't even consistent with the universe that the Foundation books exist in. That's what makes it so annoying for Asimov to recommend that you read the book as part of the extended Foundation series. Grumble.

Don't get me wrong, the other stories are fine, its just that they're not the robot stories that I was led to believe they would be.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Isaac_Asi... ( )

The entire impetus for this collection was a piece of artwork by Ralph McQuarrie - which eventually became the cover painting for the book. Containing one new short story (Robot Dreams) and a bunch of reprints of Asimov's short fiction, the book is a very good compilation of his work. Oddly, despite the title, only a handful of the stories in the volume are related to robots, although that doesn't detract from the quality of the finished product.

The new story in the book concerns a robot that is dreaming somewhat disturbing dreams. It features a return of Susan Calvin, a figure who shows up in many of Asimov's robot stories, and, as typical of the robot stories, deals with the effects of the Three Laws of Robotics. Which it isn't one of the best robot stories, it is still one of the better ones.

The remaining stories are drawn from some of the most famous works by Asimov: Does a Bee Care, The Ugly Little Boy, Spell My Name With an S, and other stories pull from Asimov's consistently well-written body of short fiction. Unlike his later attempts to link up all his novels in a somewhat unsatisfying manner, Asimov's short fiction never seemed to suffer, and remained strong throughout his career. This collection of short fiction is no exception. ( )

Isaac Asimov's best robot book: This book is a compilation of most of his robot stories with a brief introduction and some brilliantly written essays at the end exploring the future of robotics (the word "robotics" was coined by Asimov himself!)and their place with mankind. The book has beautifull illustrations throughout by the artist Ralph Mcquarrie, the star wars artist. The only bad point is that several of the stories occur in I, Robot.

All stories herein are Asimov written and vary from good to excellent. Many of them feature a computer called MultiVac, the computer of Asimov's pulp magazine day. It took up a large warehouse bay and cost a fortune to create. Even the bard of science fiction couldn't imagine a computer the size of a package of cigarettes that could contain thousand sof books. This is a must read for Asimov fans. ( )

'Robot Dreams' is a great collection of science fiction stories. This was the first time that I've read Isaac Asimov's work and I'm truly impressed by how he manages to express various concepts from physics, mathematics, artificial intelligence, psychology and philosophy against a fictional background. Stories such as 'Eyes Do More Than See', 'The Last Question', and 'The Last Answer' express Asimov's interesting point of view on life, death, God and Universe; on the other hand, stories such as 'Breeds There a Man...?', 'The Martian Way', 'The Billiard Ball' with the inclusion of concepts from nuclear physics, terraformation of Mars, and creation of anti-gravity prove to be a very pleasant futuristic read, even today. ( )