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“The beginnings of the connection of The Robot Novels, The Empire Novels, and The Foundation Novels.”
Deepak R wrote this review Tuesday, November 3 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I love this series, but am sad Elijah isn't in this one. More twists on how the three laws can be bent and there is a lot of emphasis on Daneel and Giskard. These books always make you think.”
Stephanie G wrote this review Sunday, June 28 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Asimov, like Heinlein, came, towards the end of his career, to integrate the characters and universes from all of his major works into one huge, interconnected fictional world.
ctmock wrote this review Thursday, February 5 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
This was not his original intention, but it's the way that it worked out.
Chronologically, the Robot series is first - which started out in the form of short stories, and then a series of novels, of which this is the fourth - followed by the Empire and then the Foundation series. The third Robot book, The Robots of Dawn, was a sequel for which readers had to wait 25 years for. The next book, this one, came a mere two years after it.
Robots and Empire, however, represents a major break from the tradition of the previous Robot books. The three subsequent books were all murder mysteries staring the Earthman Detective Elijah Baley. This book, however, is not a murder mystery, but more of a straightforward story - and Baley has been dead for over 200 years. It picks up where The Robots of Dawn left off, in a slightly different context.
This is a fast-moving and quite entertaining book in its own right, and you will certainly want to read it if you enjoyed the previous three novels. It is sometimes painfully obvious, however, that this book was intended solely to provide a smooth transition from the Robot series to the Empire series. Consequently, the book does this job very well, tying up the loose ends from the previous Robot book, and clarifying what would have been several contradictions between the Robot and Empire serieses - the reason for the radioactivity on Earth, the motive behind the immigration of the Earth people, and the fact that there are no robots in the Empire novels, etc. However, this comes with a price: the book is not all that great in and of itself. There is not really that much in the way of plot - certainly not like the great mystery plots in the three previous novels; indeed, even the original robot short stories were more or less mysteries themselves. That said, despite this weakness, the book is still very fast-paced and quite fun and entertaining to read - and, of course, provides the necessary transition between the two series.
Whatever the book's individual merit, you will want to read it if you plan on going through the series. This vast integration of all these epic stories, this book included, show the visionary and plotting skills of Asimov, and you can not help but marvel at his unquestioned virtuosic abilities.
The vast scale of this fictional universe - including also three books by other authors - can be very daunting to the neophyte. I suggest you make use of the several very helpful "Listmania Lists" at Amazon, so that you will know what order in which to read the books, and so that you can start on and enjoy the unparalleled fictional world of Isaac Asimov.”
“this is a typical asimovian story. racy with numerous twists. a nice read....”
sathish kumar wrote this review Wednesday, January 14 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This is one of the books that connect robot, space, and Foundation series.
Dr. J. G. wrote this review Thursday, October 16 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The space settlements series before this - Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, and so on - that follows the original robot stories (of how they were developed and how the relationships went with humans) deals with humanity retreating to cities that are elaborate and completely covered so humans on earth do not venture out, often debilitated with agoraphobia, while space settlers are far better off with more land on their planets and more wealth, and robots to care for all their needs of manual work, whether personal or those of any other sort.
This brings about a state of affairs where the settlers look down on those that never ventured out from earth and live crowded and are afraid to be in open air, and restrict migration to their wealthy planets.
An obvious take off from the colonial era with robots representing the slaves of various nations on western continent.
This one explains how the state of affairs came to be as it was found in the foundations series, with the galaxy settled all over by humanity and robots (again, representing slavery) replaced by machines that do not resemble humans - as indeed various machines in use today including the ubiquitous computers do not. ”“Absolutely superb ending to the robot series. Its quite amazing, how Asimov's image is so prophetic.”
Shantanu M wrote this review Friday, November 2 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“a good read.”
manukmanohar wrote this review Monday, October 8 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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