“I, Robot” is a collection of interlinked, short stories that tell the tale of robots and their origin history with accordance to the three laws of Robotics:
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 orders given to 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.
It is going to be a rather short review, just like this read is. I don’t want to end up summarising each and every short story so I’ll just talk about “I, Robot” in a general way.
You can feel the imagination running wild in this book and it is ecstatic! We have robot-nannies, robots gone mad, robots politicians.
There is so much more to this read that what it first seems. As you progress through the stories, each one gets more complex, diving into and trying to deal with serious aspects of robotics but also that of human life – since the two are intertwined.
It’s your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion.
Asimov does an incredible job of evoking curiosity in his readers and provoke thinking. He dwells on major issues, such as feelings, rise in technology, discrimination and many more, in a very unique and intriguing way. Those are still very relevant topics of conversations today and it is staggering to me that the author had the ability to convey them to the readers is such a way – in a very coherent manner, always finding its way back to the 3 laws of robotics!
You just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.
I have enjoyed this collection tremendously but I did find it hard to read. There is a lot of heavy science jargon. It is not necessary to understand it in order to like this read but in my case, it took something away from it, baffled me at some points.
You are the only one responsible for your own wants.
All of the characters presented, especially the secondary characters, are relatable and some are even funny. It was so much fun reading Powell and Donovan’s stories. Their parts felt like a breather, helped me take a step back from all the thoughts lingering in my head.
Even though it is a work of fiction with re-imagined futurism, maybe there’s a thing or two in it, that humanity ought to keep in mind.
Thank you for reading this review, let me know what you think down in the comment section!
And until next time, Dream On, Dreamers!
The Wolf Pad 