I, Robot

The novel I, Robot by Isaac Asimov was both more and less than I thought it would be considering the influence this novel has had in both science and science fiction. In the first place, this is not a novel per se but is in fact a series of short stories. I'm not a huge fan of short story anthologies because there are usually just a couple good stories with a lot of filler added in between. But in this case, I very much enjoyed all the stories.

I expected the writing to be very technical, full of robotic jargon and minute details. But instead found a clean and very human series of stories. Often time more humorous than anything, these tales show how human and robots evolve together. I especially liked the stories "Reason" which I found both disturbing and enjoyable. Somehow I found praying robots one of the most disturbing aspects of the entire novel. On the other hand I found "Evidence" to be so funny and telling. The idea that the only way to prove whether a man was a robot was if he did something hurtful was just so funny. Only a robot could truly be a "good man."

This brings me to my one complaint, and this really has nothing to do with the novel itself, but instead what science fiction lovers have done with it. "Asimov's Laws of Robotics" is held by many to be the one and only way robotics can be trained and any deviation from it is considered some sort of sacrilege. I do not feel this to be the case. These laws are noble and would make robots the best that humanity could offer, but they are not the only way.

I was a little disappointed to see that the Will Smith movie had just nothing to do with the book at all, except for the title. I would have thought that they might have just taken one of the short stories and made it into a full length movie. But no. I was all ready to compare the movie and the novel, but it would be comparing apples and steak.

I can easily see why Mr. Asimov's writing has become so famous if this is a good example of his work. Now that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed this novel I am probably ready to try more of Asimov's writing.