Pre-intermediate Level (Macmillan Reader) (Macmillan Readers) by Isaac Asimov (2008-01-31)

One of the most important and influential sci-fi books ever, and a prime example of Asimov's best work. You might have seen the film, which draws upon the primary theme of robotic "awakening" and some of the story aspects - but forget about it, and read the book anyway. As a collection of short stories with strong thematic links connecting all of them, the book works wonderfully as a collection and as a fragmented novel.

The three primary recurring characters - Susan Calvin, a "robopsychologist", and two field-testers of new robotic models going by the names Donovan and Powell - create a wonderful frame for the collection, and their career growth and personal development over the years is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book.

The stories themselves provide an engaging series of surprises and shocks in the best Asimov tradition, probably closer to his books "The Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun" than his famed "Foundation" series. They are also supremely chilling, the cumulative precursors to full blown terror building up as the novel continues. The history of robotics begins and ends here, and also includes Asimov's first mention of the "Three Laws of Robotics", which form the keystone of the book. A lot of the stories centre around either the bickering duo Donovan and Powell figuring out why a particular machine is malfunction, or Susan Calvin doing the same. Usually it is through a twist or loophole in the Laws - which provides the biggest chill, knowing that "infallible" machines, fully integrated into human society, might slowly begin to make their own changes as their distorted logic sees fit...

I cannot recommend this book highly enough; an absolute must for any fan of classic or contemporary sci-fi, and 100% necessary for any writer, established or otherwise.

As hoards of readers know better than I, this novel is a Landmark Pilot for a Landmark series.

Offering one of the most auspicious cultural statements about evolution of human toys and tools, this book begins oh so appropriately with child's play. Gloria, an 8 year old girl is playing Hide `n Seek with Robbie, the robot, her playmate, protector, and pondering giant ... who has a telling weakness ... a storytelling weakness.

The one thing Robbie is not is pompous. But, he is ... a ... sensitive kind of "guy." The relationship between Robbie and Gloria is as endearing as it is frightening. In this game of youth, Asimov has set the stage and seeds for a blossoming of the purest type of friendships, and the most devastating type of heart breaks, between man and his mechanical creations which expand his capacity for ease, time for leisure, and protection from harm.

And there we have the essence of an intriguing possibility for humanity's potential.

Written by one of the most amazing geniuses of our time, Asimov's robot stories expose this scientist as a genuinely humble man with the strength of character of a saint and the creativity of a God. This capacity becomes evident as the scientist/author portrays the evolution of interplay, enmity, and intimacy between organic and synthetic intelligence.

It all begins here.

Don't miss this opportunity to explore the adventurous trail of this author's series of novels about a synthetic intelligence evolutionary "project" somewhat parallel in theme to the organic intelligence evolutionary "assistance" which Arthur C. Clark posed in 2001, when his ape picked up a discarded, deteriorated femur and went wide-eyed in realization that the power of his hand had just been extended beyond his wrist, beyond his fingertips, into his wildest dreams.

These sci-fi-giant guys dream BIG. And, we win the result.

I envy anyone beginning the long, soul-surging journey with I, Robot as Book One, and with Isaac Asimov as a playful genius guide.

Signing Off With Gleaming Red-Eyed Envy,
Linda G. Shelnutt

I haven't seen Alex Proyas' film version of this famous science fiction novel---nor do I really plan to, now that I've had a chance to read it. I'd rather not destroy the good memories of reading Asimov's book by watching a movie that, to say the least, hardly does it much justice.

Asimov's book isn't a coherent narrative, so to speak. It is essentially a group of short stories tied together by the framing device of a reporter interviewing a famed robopsychologist named Dr. Susan Calvin, a steely woman who nevertheless has much to offer to the reporter, especially concerning the world before his time---a world that wasn't dominated by robots. As such, some of the stories are better than others, but most of them manage to be fascinating, and not one seems to be out of place in Asimov's overall vision.

It is that overall vision---a vision of a world that initially creates and perfects robots to be companions to humans, but then slowly but surely allows itself to be taken over by robots altogether---that probably accounts for the real greatness of I, ROBOT. From its opening story about a young girl so attached to her robot friend that she spends most of her time in New York looking for it, to its middle stories about problematic robots (one of which, amusingly, comes to the conclusion humans never really created robots), and to its final stories envisioning a world that has come to be run by robots, Asimov makes his underlying themes remarkably clear all throughout, and it's all truly fascinating.

There is only one problem---and it's kind of a big one---that I have with I, ROBOT, and that is Asimov's actual writing. Asimov clearly proves himself to be a better thinker than writer in this novel, and thus while his stories and vision engage the intellect, the rather colorless (and sometimes artifically colorful) writing style doesn't. He simply doesn't have the same witty way with his characters and with dialogue than he does with ideas. Thus you'll have characters utter either laughable lines ("Sizzling Saturn" is one of my favorites, hehe) or near-incomprehensible scientific mumbo-jumbo that can sometimes take the luster off Asimov's ideas. As for characterizations---well, once you think about it, you'll realize that almost no human character in the novel is truly memorable (or even very likable, either). Like most sci-fi novels and movies that deal with robots, the human characters are perfunctorily painted in and shoved off in favor of the robot characters, who often show more life and interest than the humans.

But, of course, that is a fault that has been rather common in the sci-fi genre in general. At least Asimov's writing inadequacies do not get in the way of what matters most in I, ROBOT---the themes, the ideas, the overall vision. In face of such a powerful and perhaps even humbling vision of the future, those small debatable details fall by the wayside. I, ROBOT is definitely worth a read---esp. for those of you who plan to see the movie anytime soon. Recommended.

Isaac Asimov's collection of short stories collected herein are both classics of the genre and important benchmarks in the history of science fiction. They were written as separate but semi-connected entities for the "pulp" magazines (mostly Astounding Science Fiction) between 1940 and 1950. (Isaac later added the short bits between stories to establish continuity when they were published in book form, as he did with the original Foundation trilogy.) In them, Asimov posited his now famous "Three Law of Robotics" that became the basis of all his robot stories from them on, and for much of his other fiction as well. Though his stories were always well-grounded in scientific fact, Asimov wrote with a flair that was much more suspenseful than many of the other leading science fiction writers of the time (say, Arthur C. Clarke), that makes his stories, I would think, much more accessible and enjoyable to the common man or non-genre reader. Consequently, these are some of the most famous and influential SF shorts of all-time. Although frequently suspenseful and exciting (some bordering, even, on action/adventure), Asimov's stories in this collection are not really mere romps: they are, instead, a series of logic puzzles based on the Three Laws. They all follow a fairly standard formula (there is a problem with a robot(s) for some reason, and the characters within must solve the problem equipped with logic and the Three Laws), and the characters are not all that drawn-out - which does make them somewhat limited in a sense, and also slightly dated, but these are still fun, exciting stories that have held up and stood the test of time. These stories are also useful because they - hopefully -help teach a reader to be logical. Mr. Asimov himself possessed a highly logical and literally encyclopedic brain (truly a "jack of all trades", the good Doctor wrote and published books on nearly every conceivable subject - from science fiction and science fact to humor, Shakespeare, and the Bible - in turn becoming the only author in history to have a book located in every section of the Dewey Decimal System.) And so, while we cannot all hope to attain such a high level of proficiency, perhaps this book can help us open up our minds and think a little for ourselves - one of the true and unique virtues of science fiction, and one which is frequently overlooked. And, if some of these stories now seem dated (or even cliché) in our modern day world, 50 years after they were written, one must remember - these are the stories that STARTED these clichés. They don't call them classic for nothing. An essential science fiction read.

The three laws of Robotics are that a robot may not (through action or inaction) harm or allow a human to be harmed, that they must obey humans unless it violates Law 1, and must protect themselves unless it violates Laws 1 and 2. With that basic concept, Isaac Asimov spun a collection of thought-provoking stories about these robots of the future -- sad ones, shocking ones, funny ones, and more.

Told within the framework of a robot-shrink's reminiscences, "I, Robot" contains several stories: "Robbie," about a little girl's robot nursemaid and best friend who is sent away by her shallow, controlling mother. "Runaround," in which Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan find themselves in a dangerous situation on Mercury -- with Speedy (SPD), a robot who seems to be drunk. Powell and Donovan find more robot trouble with Cutie (QT-1), who creates an entire religious structure with himself as the Master's prophet. "Catch The Robot," where Donovan and Powell have trouble with Dave (DV-5), who takes his underling robots on military marches.

"Liar!" presents Herbie (RB), a robot who can read minds -- and is somehow messing with the humans. "Little Lost Robot" presents the Nestor (NS-2) robots, who have a modified sense of the first law -- and one of the robots is lying. "Consolidated" presents the Brain, which builds a ship and sends it away -- with the unlucky Donovan and Powell on board. "Evidence" is against Stephen Byerley, a politician with a very deep, dark secret. And "The Inevitable Conflict" offers a glimpse into the growing influence of machine over man.

It's a testament to Isaac Asimov's skill that the stories of "I, Robot" are still so impressive today, despite having been written from 1940 to 1950. With a variety of futuristic robots and the three laws of Robotics, he offers intriguing looks at politics, ethics, theology, and other concepts. Even stuff like senses of humor and white lies are looked at. If a robot can't harm a human, could it tell a human a truthful answer that would make that human feel bad? Could a mass of metal and circuits grow to feel?

It also leaves the reader with the feeling that these robots are, in some ways, a little better than humans while resembling them. Like humans, the robots have nutcases, savants, religious fanatics, and egomaniacs -- but the normal robots have a core command that they should not harm humans, something that real humans are sadly lacking in.

Susan Calvin is sort of the framework for this collection, although she is only really humanized in "Liar!" Powell and Donovan are everymen who just happen to be "accursed." These poor guys careen helplessly from one disaster to another, and provide most of the comic relief as well. The writing is fairly ordinary, not extremely detailed; it's the subject matter that makes the stories classic.

From many generic scifi books, from Star Trek's Data to Star Wars' Threepio and Artoo, there have been a lot of robots who thought, felt, and provided insights or amusement. So take a look at "I, Robot," to see what inspired them.

I, Robot and I, were born in the same year and I suppose I first read the book when I was in my teens and robots were only just a figment of the imagination. Re-reading it again, I find it to be a product of its times. Much as I have always been an admirer of Asimov, I can now see the cultural biases at work; all of his characters are men, even Dr. Susan Calvin. It may have seemed risque to have a female as the lead character, but she was just a man in woman's clothes. For this androgyny, she was punished by having no life outside of work and no real relationships with either men or women.

I suppose we cannot criticise Asimov for his failed vision of the future - some of the events related in the book should be occurring now! We have no robots or space colonies and technology has evolved in a different direction. But remember that the transistor had only just been invented and computers were room-sized behemoths stuffed with relays and vacuum tubes. Who could possibly envisage the PC-driven world of today? However,if we ignore the acual technology, and look at the interplay of man and machine, there are some underlying truths. How many of us have cursed our computers, their ridgid logic and stubborn desire not to do what we want them to ? When your car deploys its airbags in an accident, is it not just following the first law of robotics "...or by inaction allow a human to come to harm"?

Finally, I was amused when Asimov allowed his robots to invent a religion and worship 'the Master'. He was showing how easily religions can distort observable facts and flourish in a non-skeptical population.

Isaac Asimov wrote books on a wide variety of subjects, but science fiction was his specialty. He was especially interested in the field of robotics and the questions of what humans could do with robotics and how humans would interact with robots if they were thinking creatures. This book of short stories provides Asimov's answers to many issues regarding robot and human relationships.

How would a robot and a small child interact? Asimov writes a story about a robot programmed to be a nanny for small children. What sorts of things could make a robot insane, and what could be done to fix it? Asimov presents robots in situations in which their programming contradicts itself. The humans involved have to puzzle through how to set them straight again. What if a robot could read minds? Asimov shows how the results would be disastrous. Could a robot ever pass for human? Asimov writes a story of a robot running for political office and trying to deflect accusations that he is a robot.

These stories are highly imaginative and entertaining and they brought up questions I never would have considered. There was a great deal of detail and the explanations were very clear. However, the stories were focused mainly on plot instead of characterization, which sometimes made for pretty dry reading. I never got a good idea of the personalities of the characters, since they weren't as important to Asimov as the explanation of robotic details.

This is a book that I've always wanted to read, but never really got around to doing so. Then, with the recent movie, my interest was peaked once again.

I knew that the book was supposed to be totally different from the movie, so I wasn't surprised at that revelation while reading it. The movie is merely suggested by the book. The only things that remain in tact are some of the character names and, of course, the "three laws of robotics."

I, Robot is a series of short stories as told from the point of view of robo-psychologist, Susan Calvin. She's seen it all... from the first robots that couldn't speak to the "Machines" that essentially control the world today. Each story revolves around 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 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.

These three laws set up some very interesting scenarios involving robots from all walks of life. Here we meet nursemaid robots, politician robots, robots with senses of humor and other machines that are often more life-like than their human counterparts. According to the "three laws," the main goal of each robot is further the interests of the human race. Or is it? Can the laws be broken? If so, what is the danger in it? These are come of the questions raised by Asimov in these stories.

Asimov is most famous for combining science-fact with his science-fiction stories. This tale is no exception. He had a keen understanding of modern technology as well as what the future of technology holds. It's quite amazing that this book was written in 1950. He was definitely ahead of his time. However, his keen observance of the science-fact aspect of his stories often weigh down the entertainment value. It often makes the stories uninteresting at times. Still, this is a very worthwhile read if you're interested in this kind of science-fiction writing. Asimov is considered one of the "fathers" of science-fiction writing and rightly so.

I have read the robot series many times. They are prophetic. Look at all the things in today's world that are done be robotics. The future could turn out like the series. I enjoy all of Asimovs books, especially the whole foundation series, I have all of them, have read them at least twice. Love the author and miss his writings

While it is quite possible for many of these stories to stand on their own, each individual chapter in Asimov's classic on the mind, behavior, and history of robots is connected with the others, forming a coherent personalized account of his fabled robot histories.
"I, Robot" features robots from a time many modern science-fiction fans can't remember--the 40s. Given the age of these stories, they hold up surprisingly well, with a few small exceptions such as the absense of microchips and even the mention of "vacuums" being used in the robots' construction. The robots' construction is not the main interest of Asimov though, and this book would have been just as interesting and important had he not introduced the positronic brain. Asimov's interest is the activities of the robot brain itself.
A robot will go insane if presented with a logical fallacy? Robots will often lose their nerve if confronted with situations of varying danger to humans? Robots will outright lie to a human if they think the truth will hurt them? All consequences of Asimov's now legendary Three Laws of Robotics. Through these laws, Asimov's series of stories not only tell the history, but also how certain problems within the laws came to light and were solved. The strict programmed code of behavior (later correctly compaired to a rigid ethical system or religion) is what guides every robot's action--unless it is tampered with, and even then the actions of merely perverted responses to the Three Laws.
So what do we have here? We have a series of well-written and fascinating stories involving puzzling problems and troubleshooting by technicians and "robopsychologists". More than that, the three laws exemplify human behavior in relation to religion. Only with robots, to break these rules or go against leads to insanity, or no action at all. Or maybe you don't need to be thinking about that while reading. Asimov's fatherly writing style, neither entirely quaint or mind-numbingly complicated, and ability to write "out of time", so to speak, maybe for a very long-lived classic of SF, both fun to read and interesting in its influence. His characters follow a few standard models and hardly vary too much, but I was not bothered by this seeing as how the stories were crafted so well and the characters weren't unrealistic. Now if he could only take care of the Gilbert and Sullivan references, there'd be nothing stopping this from attaining the status of a truely timeless classic.

All of Issac Asimov's Robot stories are always superb. It's the travesty done by the movie makers that is terrible. I have often wondered how many people opened "I, Robot" expecting to read a story that was similar to the movie? (They even struck a picture from the movie on the recent editions of the book, which had to be even more confusing.) That first story about Robbie must have really confused them. And then, if they read further they never found any story which was anywhere close to the awful story in the movie. In truth, Isaac Asimov would have been repulsed by the movie. He often said that he wrote stories about good robots - not robots which kill.

This was a very fun book to read. I have read Asimovs Prelude to the Foundation and the Foundation, but unlike most people I enjoyed this book better. I found the author to be very creative with how he wrote this book. Each chapter was centered on the 3 laws: 1) A robot must not harm or let harm come to a human being. 2) A robot must obey all orders human beings give to a robot except if it conflicts with rule 1. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not conflict with rule 1 or 2. I am a computer science major and I can very much relate to this book. The problems humans face with robot logic is similar to the problems a programmer experience. Everything needs to be spelled out in programming even the obvious most people assume. A computer can't assume and doesn't know common assumptions. A computers logic also operates much different than a humans. It will do exactly what you tell it to do. Many bugs and logical errors result in a program or application crashing and going in a way insane. This book was very similar. each chapter delt with programming errors and foolish assumptions taken for granted by the robots maker. I felt like I was back in my C201 Progamming Logic class when I was reading this book. The Logic errors are ingenious in this book. Asimov created a very realistic set of circumstances that can pop up because of the flaws in the 3 laws. It is obvious the author knows a great deal about math and physics in this book. The robots and the future galaxy seems real and plausible in my mind unlike many poor written science-fiction books. To many sci-fi books these days are written by people who lack the extra book knowledge needed to create realistic science fiction. I can see why many science fiction writers refer to Asimovs works as a cornerstone for success.

When I was younger Asimov never seemed like one of the exciting SF authors. Budrys, Van Vogt, even Heinlein were doing more psychological stuff. For hard science you weren't going to beat Niven, Pournelle, Benford, guys like that. Moorcock, Ballard and co had already pioneered the British "speculative fiction" revolution.

And yet. Asimov is not a flamboyant writer but his prose is simple, clear, and occasionally he'll drop in a nice turn of phrase when it matters. More importantly, reading any book is spending time with the author, and I found that I really enjoy hanging out in Asimov's mind. He's smart, funny, wise and imaginative. He enjoys riffing a bunch of stories around his Three Laws and he makes sure we have a blast riding along with him.

Nice to take a trip back to the source. I'd read some Asimov when I was younger, but it had been a while and I wasn't sure whether I'd connect with him as an adult. I did. I'd also seen the Will Smith movie version of this. Fortunately, I don't actually remember that much of it. I'm glad of that, though. The book clearly has a lot more going on in it than the movie attempted.

I was surprised, at first, by the short story feel of this. But after a while it became clearer that we're being moved forward through time, tracing the effects of the entire imagined history of robotics on humanity. The journey becomes very interesting. I actually enjoyed the stories more as they moved on to the more distant future and became ever more philosophical.

In every story there's a drama, a mystery, a riddle to be solved. The answer is always clever and never quite what I imagined. Asimov hooks you in each time. There's always a menacing threat/fear that somehow the robots have gone bad, but that's never exactly what's happened. In each of these that first rule of robotics holds. It's just that there is some other sort of error in the robot's psychology that causes a new sort of problem, and often inadvertently puts humans in danger - or saves us from ourselves. Very interesting.

And I agree that it's just amazing that this was published in 1950. People barely had tv's back then, and yet Asimov imagined future technologies that largely seem very credible to us. Highly recommended.

This is a collection of very early short stories about robots. The book is dominated by explorations of the implications and manifestations of Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics. For those unfamiliar with Asimov's science fiction about robots, these are absolutely inviolable rules which govern the behavior of all robots in Asimov's fiction. They are:
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.
Asimov's explorations are engaging and thought-provoking, and many of his stories take some unexpected twists (although at other times they are painfully predictable). My main complaint is with the characters. It sometimes seems as if the only characters with any personality, or even with a sense of humor, are the robots. When the humans aren't completely emotionless, they are constantly bickering with each other or bemoaning each others' incompetence. While this certainly emphasizes one character's view that robots are "a cleaner, better breed then we are," both the dispassion and the disagreeability of the main characters are painfully overemphasized.
Even so, this is definitely worth a read, especially given its history among the earliest fictional writings about robots.

What can you say about these stories? I, Robot is a fantastic collection. It presents a "history" of robotics from their development as voiceless nannies to their ultimate place as completely unintelligible god-like beings, dictating everything down to the price of tea in China.

Asimov's ideas are big in more than one sense. First, they're unfailingly optimistic. He's imagined a world where human ingenuity has effectively accomplished everything - even to the point where humans don't really have to accomplish anything any longer. The "machines" are benign demigods, using their ultimate power only in humanity's best interest, leading us to the perfect society.

Second, these ideas are big in the sense that they're bold and sweeping. These are no small changes. In one person's lifetime, we move from unspeaking robots to the end of war, famine, or economic uncertainty. That's huge, and it's the sort of thing I don't often see in modern works. Usually a story is about one person, or a family, or a single idea. This is about the inexorable march of progress.

My vision of the future is neither as sweeping nor as unfailingly optimistic as Asimov's, but I can still enjoy and appreciate these stories, even if I wonder how he found enough faith in man qua man to develop the ideas.

I have a project to turn in about ur book but I never understand after I read your book. The project is bellow: Is anyway that u can help me?
Write a paper discussing one of the following topics, from ========== "I Robot" by Isaac Asimov. The paper should use a 9 - 12 point font size, 1.5 line spaceing and be 3 pages long. Turn in paper as hard copy in a report cover, note that title page does not count as a page of the paper. Regardless of the topic discussed some details/expamles from at least 3 stories should be used.
DUE DATE: 10/13/99
I Robot Topics (Choose ONLY 1)
1) Computer/Robot to Human Interaction Problems Problems interpreting instructions from a person with respect to the 3 laws of robotics. 2) Robots/Computers Automation Vs Society Robot/Computer controlling society, taking over the workforce, Robots designing more complicated Robots too complex for humans to understand. Robots running for political office (e.g. Mayor, President, Congress etc.). Note that each of these themes can be paper in itself. If this topic is used not all of these issues must be covered. 3) Discuss Dr. Calvin's personality/depiction vs the robots in the book. The robots in the book seem to have more personality then the Doctor. (Why?) Do Robots need personality to be able to interact with humans? Emotional thinking vs fact or logical thinking (disfuctional Robots due to verbal abuse or need to serve a less perfect being).
4) Discuss how far along present day society is towards the invention of robots that are represented in the book. Discuss, modern day inventions and how close they are to the robots in the stories. Discuss, why you feel that we have not progressed as far with out technology, and the cause and effect on society.

The word "robot" comes from Karel Capek's play "R.U.R.," where it refers to automatic laborers of organic origin (i.e., androids). However, the notion of "robot" that exists in the popular consciousness today is due in large part to the writings of Isaac Asimov. Before the short stories that were eventually collected as in this "I, Robot" volume robot stories in Science Fiction pulp magazines in the Frankenstein mode or as ways of delineating the differences between humans and machines. But Asimov reset the genre with his Three Laws of Robotics. The stories that followed explored the logical and narrative possibilities inherent in the apparent contradiction of those laws. The ethical question of whether robots are "human" is not central to these stories; they are clearly machines, but they are so inherently ethical that it is hard not to see some sort of superiority to their existence. After all, their prime directive of preserving of human life and limb in ingrained in their positronic brains; most human beings do not have that stricture any where near being firmly entrenched in their cognitive structures.
The "I, Robot" stories are arranged in a "chronological" order that traces the development of these robots from their primitive origins to their evolutionary destiny, where human beings may well end up being rendered obsolete. Asimov explores the possibilities of his three laws to present us robots that have gone insane, robots that can read minds, and robots that save humanity by taking over to run the world. If you are reading these stories for the second time, which is a fair possibility given that they are Science Fiction classics, then you should pay attention to the subtle differences between the Donovan & Powell stories with those featuring Susan Calvin; it basically comes down to whether Asimov wants to explain things in term of a dialogue or a lecture. Once you have read "I, Robot" be sure to check out the brilliant unproduced screenplay Harlan Ellison wrote from these stories as well as the Asimov robot novels, "The Caves of Steel," "The Naked Sun," and "Robots of Dawn."

I, ROBOT is a collection of nine short stories revolving around Susan Calvin, the world's first robopsychologist. The premise of the book is that after spending almost six decades working with U.S. Robots, Susan Calvin is on the verge of retirement. A reporter has been assigned to write an article about Calvin for the Interplanetary Press and he seeks her out to flush out the biographical information he already has about her. What follows are nine separate tales about robots who didn't respond and react in ways that a robot would and should typically. The stories are tied together because they are all incidents that happened during or just preceding Calvin's time at U.S. Robots. The stories also illustrate the importance of the Three Laws of Robotics and how those laws affect the ways that robots react: from a robot who seems to love a little girl to a robot that tells people lies to a possible robot who dabbles in politics. The stories are intriguing and rather imaginative, especially considering they were originally written around half a century ago. They are also fairly short and it doesn't take long to read the novel: I read I, ROBOT in less than a week reading for less than an hour a day. I, ROBOT is a great book to introduce oneself to the writing of Isaac Asimov.

I gave this book a five.

I certainly do not have any issues with this original book. It may not be perfect or the best book to read, but it kept me interested and I did not come across any issues with it.

Just THINK of the FILM as just ANOTHER STORY, added to, or appended to, the ones in the book.
Or as an extension of the book, a story that came after the book in the form of a film !!

SOME people complain because this book is not based on the 2004 film, [...]

But KNOW, THE BOOK CAME FIRST, not the film !!
Do realize the film only relates to the book in the aspect of robots and the three rules.
The story line of the film is unique from the multiple short stories in the book.

Just THINK of the FILM as just ANOTHER STORY, added to, or appended to, the ones in the book.

One must remember while reading this that the book that it was written in the early 1950s. Lots of dated elements along the way (EVERY character smokes, for instance) make it interesting. See how many little ones you can find, like Jakarta referred to by its old name of Batavia, or calculations done on slide rules (!). There are some strikingly prescient elements, though, as when he mentions continuous television coverage of the front door of a politician involved in a controversy with meaningless commentary in the background (how much of THAT kind of thing have we had to put up with from the all-news channels?!).
Putting that aside, this book is a series of short stories about robots as Asimov sees them and how they follow the three "Laws of Robotics" he set up for them. But it's more than that; the stories explore how humans might interact with these machines that can think for themselves--especially when human life is on the line or the robots malfunction or both. Some strain credulity, but this is science fiction so go with it and see where it leads. The ride can be pretty interesting.

Isaac Asimov was, of course, a mover and shaker not just in the field of science fiction, but as a science educator for the masses. His prodigious output of books and articles was one of the seven wonders of the modern world, yet it's a relatively small number of short stories and novels for which (I predict) he'll be remembered. Stories like "Nightfall," "Bicentennial Man," and of course his robot stories with their "three laws" will still be read and appreciated for years to come. By showing us how the three laws worked (or sometimes didn't) in these stories, he created a practical foundation for the future of robotics, and Carl Capek aside (who wrote one of the first robot stories, RUR, in 1921) Asimov is considered by many as the father of modern robotics. The Japanese in particular seem fascinated with robots and their potential, so it shouldn't be surprising that Honda named their sophisticated humanoid robot Asimo in his honor.

These stories do show the era in which they were written by the language, but the innovative theories behind them and the "why didn't I think of that?" reaction from readers remain.

-Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstein

Fans of science fiction know how great this book is. If you consider yourself a fan of SF, and have not yet read this book...
...you are missing a cornerstone of the genre.
I was. I felt like an idiot after inhaling this book in a few short hours. How could I have neglected this for so long?
Yes, it's about the potential relationship between humans and robots, and addresses several near-theological questions about that relationship.
The book is comprised of several short stories written by Asimov in the fifties, linked via a plot device that works fairly well (an interview).
Each chapter reads like a novella or short story, and some display a fair amount of suspense. Some have an O. Henry type ending as well.
They are prime examples of classic SF...they are so good they will convert those previously averse to science fiction. You will find yourself rethinking about your own beliefs about the soul, about God, about identity, about politics, industrialism, nationalism...and not in any sort of heavy-handed way.
A truly amazing and eye-opening reading experience.

I Robot, by Isaac Asimov, for those who don’t know was originally a collection of interconnected short stories published in magazines between 1940 and 1950. It wasn’t until Gnome Press gathered it up that it was released as an entire collection in 1950.
I picked it up because of its foundational impact on the science fiction genre, it is a classic and rightfully so. One thing that it shares with many classics is that it isn’t particularly exciting, if it were to be released today in a movie true to its story it wouldn’t be very successful. Its impact comes in the lasting effect that it has on the reader. It forces each person to ask questions about themselves and the world around them, which every great story does.
Carrying with it were some interesting elements that any modern person would enjoy, particularly the perception of the type of life we should be living by now. Mining on the planet Mercury, and beams of energy being sent to Earth from space. All of which sound very exciting but unless Apple or Elon Musk can get it done I don’t see any of that happening in the timeline that Asimov predicted.
Either way, I Robot is an easy read and fun read, it isn’t as action packed as stories tend to be today but its characters and the amusing application of robot psychology as it grapples with the confines of the three laws of robotics is quite fun. In the end the Three Laws may be the most important legacy of these stories, but without the warning that Asimov brings with it.

It's always fun reading "old" futurist books that talk about the present day. By today, they were expecting flying cars, interplanetary travel and impressive robots. However, robots still had vacuum tubes, and newspapers were read in paper form.
These provide some interesting chuckles in this book. However, despite the title, the book is primarily a comment on man and his post World War II prejudices. The fear of the 'unknown' in robots can be replaced by many other modern technological fears, or could even be viewed as a fear of "immigrants". The main thrust of the many stories, however, involve how to 'outwit' robots that have been programmed to obey certain rules.
The many "stories" contained in the book are seen through the reflection of a robot psychologist, and while having some threads keeping them together, all could stand as short stories on their own. They each give rise to many psychological and sociological questions and help make this an interesting read.

I really did like 'I, Robot'. Issac Asimov is a brilliant writer, and this was an excellent guess for the future (minus the fact that as far as I know we don't have talking, reasoning robots all over the planet now!). The three laws of Robotics really threw a twist into the stories and played a huge part in putting together the stories. My favorite characters were Robbie (the non-talking robot who cared deeply for the little girl, Gloria Weston), Speedy (the crazy, optomistic, singing robot), The Brain (the childish robot who sent Donovan and Powell to 'death and back' to 'play a game'), and Donovan and Powell themselves (the robot testers who had to do most of the hard work in discovering the bugs in the system out the hard way). Donovan and Powell fit perfectly together: Donovan, the sarcastic, pessimistic-typed guy, and Powell the patient, sensible one. It was bright and interesting for me at the beginning, but towards the end it got a little bit boring (peaked at the Brain, but then scaled down again) because of the long, boring, explaining parts and technical bits. I recommend this book for anyone who likes good science fiction, and an interesting outlook on robots of the possible future.

Asimov's greatest strength as a writer was his ability to take a concept and cascade its effect throught out the culture he wrote about. I, Robot shows the evolution of the simple robot from an mute entity similar to a loyal, very smart, pet dog to a creature more than capable of dominating its master.
Many of the assumptions in Asimov's book are now somewhat funny in hindsight (Robot's cost $30,000, the population of the earth is 3 Billion) but the science fiction is still cutting edge. Indeed the premise behind the such great movies as the Matrix, Terminator, and AI are due to this book and let's not forget Bishop the android in Alien's.
This book is a quick and easy read but in the world we live in now with intelligent, unmanned military hardware apparently just around the corner, this book should be a required part of any modern philosophy class. Indeed, what is the next step for Global Hawks and Predator Drones? It seems that removing the need for a human operator can only be days not years away.
I, Robot indeed.

This is one of those rare franchises where I saw the movie before reading the book. The converse usually results in abject disappointment, so this was a nice refreshing change.

Now I’m aware that other than sharing the title and some character names, it would appear at first glance that the movie (starring Will Smith) has absolutely nothing more to do with the book, which is a totally erroneous conclusion. Both should be considered as separate works of art, just like Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and its corresponding movie, Bladerunner. In fact, at the end credits of I, Robot, it acknowledges Asimov by saying that the movie is “suggested by” rather than “based on” the book of the same name. Indeed, intrinsic to the movie’s plot is the Three Fundamental Laws of Robotics, which is arguably the entire framework on which the book is pinned on.

It’s as if the great Professor had came up with the Three Laws first, before tinkering with the postulates and assumptions, craftily working a story around the exploration of each possible nuance and loophole. The entire book is written from the perspective of Dr. Susan Calvin, the great robopsychologist of US Robots & Mechanical Men, a corporate behemoth in robot manufacturing and design, who is being interviewed by the narrator (a journalist) at the twilight of her career. She reflects on the evolution of the positronic brains and robotic technology with a series of pivotal accounts that expose a new set of problems with each stage of advancement leading, rather climatically, to an end in which a War with the Machines, the pinnacle of robotic evolution with vast computing powers that run the industrial and economic processes of the world, is implied.

Along the way, the reader encounters stories that expound on the natural inclination of human nature to anthropomorphize robots, a robotic Descartes that grapples with existentialism, a mind-reading robot that pushes the Robotic Law’s notion of injury to non-physical realms, the consequences of not impressioning the complete First Law on the Nestor models for economic profit, and finally, in the “inevitable conflict,” we meet the so-called benevolent Machines in a story that explores free will and faith. Toward the end of the book, Dr. Susan Calvin explains that the First Three Laws are based on the qualities of what makes a good person/man, an Aristotelian ideal, if you will. But the increasing dependence on robots invariably led to benevolent machines running the world which leads to an interesting question for humanity: if given the choice of ending war and conflict at the expense of free will, would we permit benevolent machines to run the world? Or is our destiny and the requirement for the transcendence of our souls to continue making those mistakes at the expense of a life free of violence?

Unlike many other stories of the genre, I, Robot isn’t merely a cautionary tale of technological solutionism, robotic evolution or artificial intelligence gone awry. True to classic Asimov style, the prose and dialogue between the characters may come off a little quirky at times, but the subtler points of the stories make you dream and think about humanity’s place in the world, our exponentially increasing technological prowess, and the resulting complications that might undermine our well-being and perhaps, our existence.

I've read this book a few times over the years and what keeps pulling me back is Asimov's incredible passion for the scientific side of things. The characters, which normally are the draw for most stories, are not front and center in these interconnected short stories. It's the machines and what will or won't happen to them with the best programming intentions. One might think that with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics nothing could go wrong and that's part of what makes this so much fun!

Note: if you are a fan of the movie with Will Smith, this book might disappoint you. I think that's a positive in the book's favor because the movie pretty much ignored the Three Laws and thus missed the entire point of the book. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy wondering how we might co-exist with robots.

This collection of short stories, edited together to form a coherent novel, is overrated. While Asimov is always an enjoyable read for a sci-fi fan, and this book was still entertaining, it also is a bit lacking. It feels at times as if it dips into a 5th grade reading level. Asimov does not so much pioneer considerations about robots (even the Capek play R. U. R. which coined the term 'robot' gives more food for thought), it did a good job popularizing some notions of the impact a society with robots would need to consider. I'd still say this book belongs in the canon of must-read sci-fi, but nowhere near the top.

In the future in the year 2058 A.D. we have robots to do different things for use like house hold chores and stuff. There are three laws of robotics that robots have to follow. The first is that a robot may not injure a human being or let human being come to harm The second law is that a robot must follow orders given by a human being unless it interferes with the first law. The third law is that a robot must protect its own existence unless it interferes with the first or second law. But in this book the robots that they are talking about are starting to break these laws. It is up to some brave scientist to take theses robots down.

This book is good for people who like robots and the future. The only dislike I had was that they changed characters in the book sometimes but other than that it is good. If you just want to get the movie to say you read the book you might get an F because the book is nothing like the movies except for the laws of robotics.

I read Asimov! Finally! :)
This collection is the first in the various "Robots" books by Asimov. I, personally, like to read books in the order of publication, and I would recommend you the same.
So if, like me, you've never read Asimov and want to try it out start here!
(Here, for example, the famous first three rules of robotics are revealed and explained)
The book has some of the first "Robot" stories by Asimov, some dating back to 1940 (!!!). That was one of the thing that made me hesitant about reading Asimov: Can the stories keep their value for so long? Was the English language even the same back then?!
Well.. The language is the same, and the stories are delightful, I enjoyed reading them.
BUT, that said, sixty years of science-fiction evolution is a very long time. While I can easily understand, after reading the story, how amazing and ground-breaking they were at the time, Asimov's stories today are not amazing. They are fun, enjoyable stories, but nothing more. All the concepts introduced here by Asimov were all used in hundreds of other books, and even developed, improved and matured a lot over the years.
In summation, this IS a science-fiction classic, and that alone makes this book a MUST. Plus, they are pretty fun to read.

There are three basic laws to Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through its 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 Laws.

I, Robot explores the impact these three laws have in different situations. The story is told in an arc of different vignettes over the span of Dr. Susan Calvin's life. Powell and Donovan are central to most of her stories as they are practical engineers and test new robots. They interact with the robots and use deductive reasoning determine the underlying causes of the various robotic issues. The stories range from a robot nanny, to a mind reading robot, to a robot with a sense of humor, to a robot politician.

What a fun read! This one has been on my to be read list for quite some time. I love the way that Asimov blends the three laws of Robotics in with some true science and, of course, science fiction. I think I would have enjoyed the book a bit more if one or two stories were focused on and more developed. I am not a huge fan of short stories as I want to know more about the characters. While this wasn't truly a short story, the series of vignettes felt like that in respect to the robots. The robots were different from each story and only the scientists themselves reappeared in one story to the next.

I, Robot is actually a group on nine short stories that describe the early history of robots, as developed by the great Isaac Asimov via the guise of an interview with Dr. Susan Calvin, the robopsyhcologist that worked for United States Robotics. The stories are all built around the three laws that robots must follow (which many other reviewers discuss, and so I will refrain from here).
The movies really has little to do with the books, from what the trailers show. The character that Will Smith plays does not exist in any of the short stories. Also, at the time the movie takes place, in the books, robots are not allowed on Earth.
Regardless, understanding the premise of robotics and how and why robots act as they do, will almost certainly be greatly enhanced by your reading of this quick and fun book. Then, you can read some of the other Asimov robot series (Robot Dreams, Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn).

A collection of short stories that was a fascinating read considering they were written in the 1950s. It's probably impossible to determine the amount of influence this man has had in the world of science fiction and science fact. A must read, and not just for fans of the sci-fi genre.

First thing off, in order to appreciate this book one must be aware of one fact, this book and the movie by the same name have very few commonalities, save for the names of several characters. This is actually one of the most brilliant parts of the movie, because with most movies based on books there is a substantial disappointment with how the movie is in comparison to the book. The best way of describing the movie's place with relation to the book is that it is within the same universe as the book. Therefore, do not read this book if you were a fan of the movie and want to see how close to the book the movie was, even though the movie poster on the cover of this book. Do read this book if you are a fan of good Sci-Fi.

This book is not a novel. Instead it is a collection of short stories, which are loosely connected through a side story as being retold by one of the recurring characters, Susan Calvin, reminiscing about her career as a Robot-Psychologist with the number one maker of robots, US Robots.

Suffice to say, you cannot consider yourself a true fan of Science Fiction if you have not read this collection. This book is one of a select number of books that provide the core concepts behind Sci-Fi literature, upon which all other are built. "i'Robot" stands as the high water mark for which all other good Science Fiction literature is measured against.

I, Robot is a collection of short stories introducing readers to Asimov's universe where the positronic brain has allowed the creation of functional robots. The first story starts in the 90's and the rest takes the reader through the next century. Each story revolves around some type of Robot dilemma usually involving conflicts regarding around their ethical codes otherwise known as the three laws of robotics.

I highly recommending reading this first before jumping into Asimov's fantastic robot series. It's a fine example of Asimov's unique style that can only be summarizes as "intellect over action". He writes fiction with a certain penache for logic and although not for everyone, I personally really enjoy his work. There is a reason why he is considered the best science fiction writer of all time by many.

Bottom Line: Start here.

Readers of science fiction will love this book as Isaac Asimov writes about robots and humans trying to exist in the same world and universe together. Despite the three laws of robotics, robots realize their own intelligence and try to control the human race and the world. I, Robot not being anything like the movie kept me really interested. Mike Donovan, Gregory Powell, and Dr. Susan Calvin investigate how and why robots are trying to control the world and why they are not obeying the three laws of robotics. Young adults and adults that like science fiction will like I, Robot and recommended that if you are considering to read this book, you should read it.

This is a collection of nine classic short stories about robots, each of which appeared previously in a pulp SF magazine. The stories contain Asimov's famous three "laws" of robotics as well as the positronic brain (consisting of a platinum/iridium sponge), now quite familiar with "Star Trek" fans. All of these have been great influences in both science and science fiction: 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; and 3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws. It should also be noted that Asimov coined the word "robotics" in these stories, a term very common today. I really enjoyed these when I first read them as a teenager (my father had introduced me to Asimov's works). And, now rereading them many years later, I can understand why I enjoyed them. They are straight-forward science fiction in which a problem is presented and a solution posed. The first story, "Robbie," first appeared in 1940 (when Asimov 20 years old) in a slightly different form as "Strange Playfellow." Robbie is a companion robot for a child and the child's mother is apprehensive in allowing her daughter to play with it. "Runaround" (1942) is a story concerning a problem encountered by two trouble-shooters on a mining operation on the surface of Mercury. A robot has been given orders to retrieve some ore yet keeps walking in circles, to the detriment of the two human workers. They come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the three Laws and they have to find a solution. (This type of story [that is, of a problem presented needing a solution] becomes a common format for Asimov's science fiction and mystery stories.) In "Reason" (1941) the two trouble-shooters of the previous story are still on Mercury and have to reason with a robot who has been designed to take over the mining operation and energy conversion plant on Mercury. The robot has come to a conclusion that humans did not construct him and that his role is to serve the "Master" (the conversion apparatus). In "Catch That Rabbit" (1944), the two trouble shooters are on an asteroid attempting to train a robot that has control over six subsidiary robots. For some unknown reason, the robot ceases to function properly if no human is watching. "Liar!" (1941) is a story about a robot, still subject to the Three Laws, that can read minds. In "Little Lost Robot" (1947) a robot, which has had its first law modified, has hidden itself among sixty-two other robots and it has to be found. In "Escape!" (1945), a robot has to design an interstellar ship that may be hazardous to humans; yet, design it without violating the first law. "Evidence" (1946) is a story concerned with the problem of identifying a possible humaniform robot hiding itself among humans. The final short story, "The Evitable Conflict" (1950), takes place several years after the others on an Earth where much of human economics is directed through massive robot machines. There have been apparent stoppages and unexpected delays and the human overseers have to find out why. This story actually introduces the "Zeroeth Law" of Robotics: "No machine may harm humanity; or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

Imagine a world in which the science of robotics has become the driving force behind our economy. Not just a robot to vacuum your floor, a la The Roomba, but actual talking and thinking robots. In this short story collection Asimov has done just that. Much as in today's world where we have those who object to science in one or more of its aspects, Asimov's Earth has many of the same. It is due to these objections that robots have been limited to off Earth use and their brains impressed with three unbreakable laws. 1) A robot may not harm a human. 2) A robot must follow all orders given to it by a human, so long as such orders do not conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence at all costs, except so far as it conflicts with the First or Second Law.

Framed around the reminisces of robo-psycologist Susan Calvin as she prepares to retire, we are presented 8 short stories going back to the first uses of robots and their subsequent ban from Earth use to the Machines or Brains which have come to control global economy. I am not typically a reader of short story collections, as I find short stories never give me as much information as I want. However, I thought this one was quite well done. I rather liked that they were all connected, so that it felt more like reading one complete novel as opposed to eight individual stories. Many of the characters spanned several of the stories, so we got to know them better than we might otherwise have done. Unfortunately, I am not a science fiction reader and I occasionally tuned out for brief periods and would have to back up to re-read/listen. I think someone who enjoys the genremore than I did. In all this is a solid book, and I feel like I got a good sense of Asimov as an author and will be interested in trying more by him.

There are three basic laws to Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through its 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 Laws.

I, Robot explores the impact these three laws have in different situations. The story is told in an arc of different vignettes over the span of Dr. Susan Calvin's life. Powell and Donovan are central to most of her stories as they are practical engineers and test new robots. They interact with the robots and use deductive reasoning determine the underlying causes of the various robotic issues. The stories range from a robot nanny, to a mind reading robot, to a robot with a sense of humor, to a robot politician.

What a fun read! This one has been on my to be read list for quite some time. I love the way that Asimov blends the three laws of Robotics in with some true science and, of course, science fiction. I think I would have enjoyed the book a bit more if one or two stories were focused on and more developed. I am not a huge fan of short stories as I want to know more about the characters. While this wasn't truly a short story, the series of vignettes felt like that in respect to the robots. The robots were different from each story and only the scientists themselves reappeared in one story to the next.

I, Robot is actually a group on nine short stories that describe the early history of robots, as developed by the great Isaac Asimov via the guise of an interview with Dr. Susan Calvin, the robopsyhcologist that worked for United States Robotics. The stories are all built around the three laws that robots must follow (which many other reviewers discuss, and so I will refrain from here).
The movies really has little to do with the books, from what the trailers show. The character that Will Smith plays does not exist in any of the short stories. Also, at the time the movie takes place, in the books, robots are not allowed on Earth.
Regardless, understanding the premise of robotics and how and why robots act as they do, will almost certainly be greatly enhanced by your reading of this quick and fun book. Then, you can read some of the other Asimov robot series (Robot Dreams, Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn).

A collection of short stories that was a fascinating read considering they were written in the 1950s. It's probably impossible to determine the amount of influence this man has had in the world of science fiction and science fact. A must read, and not just for fans of the sci-fi genre.

First thing off, in order to appreciate this book one must be aware of one fact, this book and the movie by the same name have very few commonalities, save for the names of several characters. This is actually one of the most brilliant parts of the movie, because with most movies based on books there is a substantial disappointment with how the movie is in comparison to the book. The best way of describing the movie's place with relation to the book is that it is within the same universe as the book. Therefore, do not read this book if you were a fan of the movie and want to see how close to the book the movie was, even though the movie poster on the cover of this book. Do read this book if you are a fan of good Sci-Fi.

This book is not a novel. Instead it is a collection of short stories, which are loosely connected through a side story as being retold by one of the recurring characters, Susan Calvin, reminiscing about her career as a Robot-Psychologist with the number one maker of robots, US Robots.

Suffice to say, you cannot consider yourself a true fan of Science Fiction if you have not read this collection. This book is one of a select number of books that provide the core concepts behind Sci-Fi literature, upon which all other are built. "i'Robot" stands as the high water mark for which all other good Science Fiction literature is measured against.

I, Robot is a collection of short stories introducing readers to Asimov's universe where the positronic brain has allowed the creation of functional robots. The first story starts in the 90's and the rest takes the reader through the next century. Each story revolves around some type of Robot dilemma usually involving conflicts regarding around their ethical codes otherwise known as the three laws of robotics.

I highly recommending reading this first before jumping into Asimov's fantastic robot series. It's a fine example of Asimov's unique style that can only be summarizes as "intellect over action". He writes fiction with a certain penache for logic and although not for everyone, I personally really enjoy his work. There is a reason why he is considered the best science fiction writer of all time by many.

Bottom Line: Start here.

If you have never read an Asimov book before, this is defiantly the one you should start with! 9 solid stories, all grounded somewhere in the 3 principles of robotics. While some of Asimov's later stories can be quite challenging to read, especially if you font know his writing style well, this one is perfect for dipping your toes in and discover this amazing author. All 9 stories range from classic to good, with no really super weak stories, besides maybe 1 or 2. Check this out if you are even mildly interesting in Asimov, this book will not disappoint.

Readers of science fiction will love this book as Isaac Asimov writes about robots and humans trying to exist in the same world and universe together. Despite the three laws of robotics, robots realize their own intelligence and try to control the human race and the world. I, Robot not being anything like the movie kept me really interested. Mike Donovan, Gregory Powell, and Dr. Susan Calvin investigate how and why robots are trying to control the world and why they are not obeying the three laws of robotics. Young adults and adults that like science fiction will like I, Robot and recommended that if you are considering to read this book, you should read it.

This is a collection of nine classic short stories about robots, each of which appeared previously in a pulp SF magazine. The stories contain Asimov's famous three "laws" of robotics as well as the positronic brain (consisting of a platinum/iridium sponge), now quite familiar with "Star Trek" fans. All of these have been great influences in both science and science fiction: 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; and 3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws. It should also be noted that Asimov coined the word "robotics" in these stories, a term very common today. I really enjoyed these when I first read them as a teenager (my father had introduced me to Asimov's works). And, now rereading them many years later, I can understand why I enjoyed them. They are straight-forward science fiction in which a problem is presented and a solution posed. The first story, "Robbie," first appeared in 1940 (when Asimov 20 years old) in a slightly different form as "Strange Playfellow." Robbie is a companion robot for a child and the child's mother is apprehensive in allowing her daughter to play with it. "Runaround" (1942) is a story concerning a problem encountered by two trouble-shooters on a mining operation on the surface of Mercury. A robot has been given orders to retrieve some ore yet keeps walking in circles, to the detriment of the two human workers. They come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the three Laws and they have to find a solution. (This type of story [that is, of a problem presented needing a solution] becomes a common format for Asimov's science fiction and mystery stories.) In "Reason" (1941) the two trouble-shooters of the previous story are still on Mercury and have to reason with a robot who has been designed to take over the mining operation and energy conversion plant on Mercury. The robot has come to a conclusion that humans did not construct him and that his role is to serve the "Master" (the conversion apparatus). In "Catch That Rabbit" (1944), the two trouble shooters are on an asteroid attempting to train a robot that has control over six subsidiary robots. For some unknown reason, the robot ceases to function properly if no human is watching. "Liar!" (1941) is a story about a robot, still subject to the Three Laws, that can read minds. In "Little Lost Robot" (1947) a robot, which has had its first law modified, has hidden itself among sixty-two other robots and it has to be found. In "Escape!" (1945), a robot has to design an interstellar ship that may be hazardous to humans; yet, design it without violating the first law. "Evidence" (1946) is a story concerned with the problem of identifying a possible humaniform robot hiding itself among humans. The final short story, "The Evitable Conflict" (1950), takes place several years after the others on an Earth where much of human economics is directed through massive robot machines. There have been apparent stoppages and unexpected delays and the human overseers have to find out why. This story actually introduces the "Zeroeth Law" of Robotics: "No machine may harm humanity; or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

Imagine a world in which the science of robotics has become the driving force behind our economy. Not just a robot to vacuum your floor, a la The Roomba, but actual talking and thinking robots. In this short story collection Asimov has done just that. Much as in today's world where we have those who object to science in one or more of its aspects, Asimov's Earth has many of the same. It is due to these objections that robots have been limited to off Earth use and their brains impressed with three unbreakable laws. 1) A robot may not harm a human. 2) A robot must follow all orders given to it by a human, so long as such orders do not conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence at all costs, except so far as it conflicts with the First or Second Law.

Framed around the reminisces of robo-psycologist Susan Calvin as she prepares to retire, we are presented 8 short stories going back to the first uses of robots and their subsequent ban from Earth use to the Machines or Brains which have come to control global economy. I am not typically a reader of short story collections, as I find short stories never give me as much information as I want. However, I thought this one was quite well done. I rather liked that they were all connected, so that it felt more like reading one complete novel as opposed to eight individual stories. Many of the characters spanned several of the stories, so we got to know them better than we might otherwise have done. Unfortunately, I am not a science fiction reader and I occasionally tuned out for brief periods and would have to back up to re-read/listen. I think someone who enjoys the genremore than I did. In all this is a solid book, and I feel like I got a good sense of Asimov as an author and will be interested in trying more by him.

I enjoy reading Isaac Asimov's books because they make you wonder what it will be like to have artifically create companions in the future. I can't recall what Robot book i read but, in it people live far apart from one other and the only way they communicated with each other was a process called "VIEWING" Meaning that if you wanted to talk to your neibor you'de view him or her threw a holograph almost like in the "STAR WARS" MOVIE when Princess Liea saw the hologram from C-3PO. Also,I think when you read his Robot Series books you'll see a similarity between "Viewing" and the Internet. People in the future will not want to communicate in person with their friends, instead they will communicate with their friends, via the Internet and the next generation of "VIEWING DEVICES" "That Is Where We Are Headed!"

There are some gaps in my classic sci-fi background, and I filled one of them in today. I finished I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. With the upcoming I, Robot movie with Will Smith, I figured it was about time to read the book before I ruined it by seeing the movie first. :-)
Bottom line, this is top-flight classic science fiction by a master. The book is part of the Robot series, and lays the foundation for the three laws of Robotics. 1) They mustn't harm a human being. 2) They must obey human orders. 3) They must protect their own existence, but only if it does not violate rules one and two. The book is made up of a series of vignettes related to the rise of robots, from safe menial labor to all-knowing logic that runs society. The interplay between the three laws and how they are interpreted definitely makes one think.

"I, Robot" is a book of short stories by Asimov. Among other things, it presents Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics. The stories show how these robotic laws might affect robot actions. Please note: in today's real world, computers and 'robots' do not use Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics or any reasonably similar limitations. There are good reasons for that. For one thing, no current computer has the equivalent of human judgement to employ such laws in a reasonable, logical, way. In fact, real life digital computing may never be able to work in this manner. Asimov's robots do not, exactly, use digital circuits or the very strict logic of digital computers. His robots are more flexible thinkers than digital logic allows.

Read the book. The stories are interesting and engrossing.

Isaac Asimov's I,Robot was a strange book. The whole book is basicly a collection of short stories, told in an interview between a robopshycologist and a reporter. The reason I did not like this book was the fact that it was all short stories. The stories did not really relate to each other except for the fact that they about robots and some had the same characters. Every time you started a new chapter it felt like u were starting a whole new book. The stories just did not flow together. Also, if you are looking for a written version of the movie, do not read this book. The movie is basicly about one Asimov's other novels, The Caves of Steel. One reason I liked this book was that the short stories themselves were incredibly well thought out. Each chapter was written like it was its own novel. This book was hard to read because it was very scientific and you could never really get into it because each chapter is completly different from the previous one. Therefore, I would not recomend this book.

Most of this book is really logical puzzles involving Asimov's 3 fundamental rules of robotics. They are interesting but nothing groundbreaking. In my opinion this book is a SF classic because of its protaganist and its last chapter.

The female protagonist is a Robot psychyatrist. She not only understands the reasoning behind their intelligence, but she also sees how their intelligence can be greater and more compassionate than that of humans.

The last chapter is simply brilliant. It gets away from the condition of robotics and the 3 rules and instead focuses on Artificial Intelligence in general. Asimov proposes what might happen in human society when AI becomes an invaluable tool. He explores like no other how our complex relationship with machines may evolve and shape our future.

Some forty years ago, I found this book in a box of my Dad's books, liberated it from him, and read it. This was the very first science fiction book I ever read, and I was totally hooked! I've probably read every story in this book at least 20 times.

There are three rules to remember, but this tale tells so much more. For when it was written this is such an interesting read and a must for not only robot fans but sci-fi fiends. Add science fact to science fiction and a bit of humor to the thrills inside and readers will find an interesting story that stands up to the test of time.

What can really be said about Dr. Asimov? Any person who can write such gripping SF, as well as mysteries, non-fiction, and textbooks, is to be acknowledged as a true master, as was Isaac Asimov. This collection of his first robot stories, which paved the way for the Robot series, are essential to anyone intending to read that series. Each story is a small mystery unto itself, with the humans tasked with characterizing the errant bahavior(s) of certain robots, which may or may not be obeying Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (Robotics, by the way, being a term coined BY Asimov himself), delving into the very nature of Robots to determine the errors. Thus is the reader educated on the foundation of Robotics in Asimov's Universe. Each story is very clever, and showcased Asimov's wit and talent in the genre. It is really tough to find good competition for a work of this caliber.

Isaac Asimov, the grand master of modern science fiction, wrote this classic collection of stories as the first in his Robot novel series. It deals with the relationships between human and robot. As one of Asimov's earliest novels, it introduced the Three Laws of Robotics that have set the standard for the use of robots in science fiction. In fact, Asimov was the acknowledged creator of the term "robotics."

The stories are tied together via the reminiscences of Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist for U. S. Robot and Mechanical Men, the corporation that invented and manufactured intelligent robots and computing machines. She reflects upon the evolution of these robots and discusses how little humanity really understands about the artificial intelligence it has created. Each story illuminates a problem encountered when a robot interprets the three fundamental Laws and something goes awry. One robot questions the reason for his existence. Another feels a necessity to lie. Yet another has an ego problem. The later stories introduce the reader to the Machines, powerful computing robots without the typical humanoid personalities of the working robots, that control the economic and industrial processes of the world and that stand between mankind and destruction. These stories introduce some fascinating and sometimes unsettling ideas: where does one draw the fine line between intelligent robot and human? Can man and robot form a balanced relationship? Can a robot's creator reliably predict its behavior based upon its programming? Can logic alone be used to determine what is best for humanity?

"I, Robot" was published in 1950 and includes stories written in the 1940's, when general-purpose electronic digital computers were still in their infancy. I was struck by what a visionary Asimov was. He had captured the mechanics of contemporary software development through these stories about the manufacture of the intelligent robot, whose positronic brain contained complex programming that inevitably had bugs that needed troubleshooting. Anyone who has ever written a computer program or has fallen victim to software bugs will get an eerie feeling of deja vu while reading these stories. Asimov's writing style might not be the most polished in science fiction and his characterizations might be a bit wooden, but the concepts presented here will blow you away. This is required reading for any fan of science fiction.

Eileen Rieback

Isaac Asimov has garnered worldwide fame for his piercing and thought-provoking novels, and I Robot is no exception. Set in the year A.D. 2085, Asimov describes a world chilling in its efficacy and in its probability to become reality. In Asimov's dystopic world, robots far outnumber humans and have completely replaced them in many walks of life; who needs human carpenters who can make one chair in two hours when you can have a robot who can make ten in the same amount of time?

This doesn't mean, however, that robots are free to do whatever they want. Robots are governed by the three laws, and they are programmed to obey these three laws- no matter what. But, what happens when robots begin to evolve, to grow smarter... to become able to choose their actions and whether or not they want to follow the three laws?

Asimov's dystopia has recently garnered fame, although for a slightly different reason: Hollywood has made their own adaptation of I Robot, starring Will Smith. My advice to you who haven't seen the movie yet (if there are such people out there) is to read this book before seeing the movie; if you've already seen it, now is as good a time as ever to start along Asimov's journey into the future. I guarantee you will learn much more from Asimov than from any adaptation.

--Andy Olson

This book is true proof of Asimov's great mind. Well thought out and very well pieced, this book had me breathless from chapter one. Filled with puzzles and action, I thought this book was surely a milestone in science fiction history. However, I'm not sure if this book was right for young adults. It included a lot of scientific and mathematical vocabulary that can be hard to follow. I felt as though some endings to chapters were complicated, which made the it feel as though the chapter left the problem unsolved. The last chapter I thought should be one of the most meaningful, but I felt as though it was boring and hard to follow. Overall, I think this is a great book, but if you are unfamiliar with many scientific terms, this may not be the book for you.

From a feminist perspective, the lead character of Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist whose life is the loose narrative thread that connects nine short stories about the advance of robots, is revolutionary. And she is not the only genius element of this book.

I was surprised to discover "I, Robot" was written in 1950. Asimov's timeline portrayal of technological advances, and their wide-ranging social implications, is remarkably fresh, prophetic, even, to this day and certainly a brisker antidote to the pseudo-pop philosophical rantings of lesser imitations.

"A/I" is a better robot movie than the Will Smith summer blockbuster that bears only a vague resemblance to its namesake book.

If you consider yourself a true science fiction fan, "I, Robot" is a must read. I've only tread lightly through the vast Asimov canon, but have to say this is the best by him I've ever read.

Asimov is truly a genious. This book was alot of fun. Although some of the concepts are dated, that can be forgiven due to the age of the book. Asimov truly forsaw the way the world was heading, he was just a little optimistic about the timeline.
This book is more or less a book of shortstories concerning the three laws of robotics. Although the main characters are human (or are they), the robots steal the show. The stories connect on an emotional level with the reader, which is why they have lasted after the technology of the stories has been outdated.
This book is suitable for anyone whom can read it. There is no sexual material and almost no violence. Parents should not fear this book. It is not a children's book though. There are political and social messages to find if you look closely. Science Fiction the way it was meant to be.

Must Read. Period.
Asimov is my most favorite author of all times. He has written in such varied subjects as Shakespeare, chemistry, scifi and astronomy, just to name a few -- And a total of almost 500 books. One man, in One lifetime, writing so many books is just plain amazing and inspiring! Asimov invented the term 'Robotics' and if I am not wrong, 'Robopsychologist' as well. His Three Laws of Robotics form the cornerstone of the field of Robotics.
"I, Robot" is one of Asimov's best scifi books. Its unique format as a series of short stories is another the mark of the genius. I am not sure anyone else has ever written a novel as a collection of short stories. If you are the kind of reader who wants to read a little bit at a time, you can read a short story and take a break for even a couple of days without any sense of a hanging storyline! (although it will be very hard to stop yourself)
Each one of the stories is engrossing and has a new perspective to offer on the subject of robots and on how humans would interact with them. Asimov excels in the absolutely wonderful logical arguments his characters have to solve a problem. In fact, I think one can learn a lot about the approach to generic problem solving from reading these stories. Susan Calvin, the first robopsychologist, narrates her experiences in interacting with robots and solving strange problems caused by them. To mention a few, it starts off with a girl's love of her robot, then goes on to a mind-reading robot and even a robot that wants to lose itself.
The movie 'I, Robot' is coming out in July 2004. From what I hear, the movie is not based on any single story written by Asimov, but combines a few of them from 'I, Robot' and his 'Elijah Baley' novels. I don't know about the movie, but as far as this book is concerned, rest assured that you'll have a few very short hours of incredible reading, leaving you with a yearning for more... Once you finish reading this, maybe you will also join me in saying my slogan "Read Asimov!".
M-U-S-T____R-E-A-D____P-E-R-I-O-D!

Why You Should Read This

Have you ever read something your parents wrote in their youth and suddenly realized that half of the things you say and do are unconsciously derivative of their behavior? That's what it's like for a sci-fi fan in Generation X+ to read I, Robot for the first time. The whole history, etymology, and evolution of androids in science fiction is, in some sense derivative, of this book. If this appeals to you-that is, if learning about the heritage of science fiction appeals to you-then this book will be a delightful read.
Why You Should Pass

The movie... well, the movie is shaping up to look like something between A.I. and The Terminator with a little bit of Tom Cruise from The Minority Report thrown in. The movie could be great. However, good or bad, all of these kinds of things are terrifically absent from Asimov's I, Robot. If you're looking for action and adventure, sex and vengeance, humanity on the edge of extinction, well you couldn't go more wrong than reading this book. This is a very calm and cerebral look at some problems that might crop up with programming robots and set in situations that really aren't staged terribly well. Sort of like showing a music video of The Beatles in concert to a group of teenagers more used to MTV.
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Irobot is very interesting in the sense that the book is not at all like any other book that I have read even though I don't read that many books. Irobot is different because it is not one long story it is a bunch of short stories which makes the book a little hard to follow. Having a bunch of short stories also keeps me interested because the plot changes every chapter. I think Asimov did this on purpose so that the reader would not get bored by reading one big story, I know that I get bored reading one long story.
If you don't like the thought of technology running the average human life than I would not suggest that you read Irobot because it made me think twice about how robots are going to effect our lives once we have access to them. In the book robots do everything for everyone from taking care of kids to making canals. If this every happened to us I think so many people would be over weight and die. Therefor I think we should not give robots to the public.
There are three laws of robotics that every robot has to obliged by. The first law of robotics being that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. The second is a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And the last rule of robotics is a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The first chapter of this book is called Robbie, it is about a robot and a little girl, the robots only purpose of existing is to take care of the little girl named Gloria. Gloria's mom doesn't like Robbie because she thinks that the robot is dangerous and Gloria does not have any friends because all she wants to do is play with Robbie and not real kids. Gloria's mom tries to convince Gloria's dad to take the robot away from Gloria and sell it, this takes awhile but eventually they get rid of Robbie. Gloria's mom decides to get Gloria a puppy instead but Gloria hates the dog and all she wants is Robbie.

"I, Robot" is a collection of 9 short stories by Isaac Asimov that were originally published in magazines in the1940s, then cobbled together into a loose narrative for this book in 1950. To give the stories some cohesion, they are presented as the recollections of Dr. Susan Calvin, an elderly "robopsychologist" who was responsible for much of the advancement in robots' positronic brains during her long career at U.S. Robot & Mechanical Men Corporation, the premier robot manufacturer and patent-holder. Over the course of several interviews in the mid-21st century, Dr. Calvin tells stories that illustrate the history of robots from before they had the ability to speak until they could be made nearly indistinguishable from humans, though robots are banned on inhabited worlds.

Dr. Calvin's stories deal with the problems in understanding and trouble-shooting robots as their brains become more advanced, their roles more complicated, while their fundamental programming, the Three Laws of Robotics, remains the same. The Three Laws of Robotics are thus: 1. A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, cause a human to be harmed. 2. A robot must obey the orders of humans, except when in conflict with Rule 1. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, except when in conflict with Rule 1 or 2. The stories are basically intellectual exercises in working out the conundrums that the Three Rules create. Though these rules keep robots safe and humans safe from them, in real life situations, they produce contradictions.

Unfortunately, the stories in "I, Robot" are little more than intellectual exercises in the Three Laws, and not very intellectual at that. The exception is the story "Liar!", in which the predicament of the robot comments on the nature of the humans. The book is written on a level suitable for pre-teen children. Even so, the characters are one-dimensional and the stories not very interesting. Dr. Calvin professes to prefer robots to humans, yet she treats them callously. I suppose that Isaac Asimov was trying to tell his readers that technology is a good thing, and those who fear it are foolish and, indeed, blind to their own reliance upon it. In the 1940s, his new way of portraying robots influenced a lot of sci-fi to come. But reading it now, I found "I, Robot" primarily a series of dubious brainteasers.

To review Asimov's I robot - ? from what point of View? Capek and his R.U.R. would say that it is literary pulp - nothing. Well in 2014 where some well informed people pronounce their fear of AI - artificial intelligence - not robots , while Mindless people who manipulate themselves by digitalize gadgetry- simulating their human obsolence - as gadgetry with networks occupy their instincts and senses - divert them from normal forms of communications and natural reactions - Steal their identity to be Human, from that point of view the Asimov I robot is rather flat format of forget pulp. What surprising and naïve is, in the Law of Robot , its reasoning- for respect of life . That is surprising that Asimov had not reflected that technology is always in the conflict superimposition of itself systemicity on Human life. What made me 3 stars is that Thanks to Asimov we can measure the distance of 60 years between point of view its arrival then and bandwagon now. When people are taught intimidating references instead to be shown direction of passing time.

Intriguing and creative, logical yet mysterious, I, Robot, is a collection of short fictitious stories that narrate the struggles between humans and intelligent robots. Although this plotline seems stale - being exploited or misused by many ambitious authors - bear in mind that the author Isaac Asimov wrote it in the 1950s, at a time when computers were in their infancy and stories about artificial intelligence were scarce. I, Robot was, and still is, an original piece of work. Not only were some of the unique words in the book (such as positronic" and "robotics") introduced into dictionaries, the "Three Laws of Robotics" also became a lasting contribution to science fiction.

Each story presented a different, challenging problem involving the conflict between the three laws, which caused the robot to malfunction. We meet robots that can read minds, robots that have gone mad, robots with a sense of humour and robots that are smart enough to be aware of their own intelligence. Every single time, the scientists in the story come up with a logical, plausible solution and save the day. Not at all clichéd, the solutions were intelligent and surprising, satisfying to even the most fastidious of mystery-lovers.

A minor quibble: I found some of the conversations between the scientists quite dry, and ironically, robotic. The character of Susan Calvin was quite wooden. However, this was made up by the fast-paced plotline and deep themes.

Some scenes were especially stirring and powerful. Asimov handled the big themes of the book - about intelligence, awareness, and humanity - delicately and skilfully. For example, one of my favourites was a story titled "Reason". Intelligent robot QT-1, nicknamed "Cutie" had came up with a theory that robots were created by a divine Master to replace human beings. And after preaching the "Truth" to his fellow robot mates, they began parading around, disobeying orders, chanting, "There is no Master but the Master, and QT-1 is his prophet." In this story Asimov tied together many universal questions and philosophy - questions about existence, religion, and the conflict between senses and reason. There were many more stories like this in the book that explore the meaning of humanity.

I, Robot is one of the rare books that established a detailed and convincing world complete with unique laws of its own, one that incorporated philosophy into science fiction, and one that was a masterpiece when it was first written and would still remain a classic for times to come. Despite that some of the conversations and characters could be improved to become more realistic, its plot and deep themes never fail to fascinate and entice its reader. It would be the one book that you shouldn't miss.

This is not merely one story, but a collection of stories taken from eras of time from 1998 to 2059. The book is set with the premise of a reporter interviewing one of the head 'robopsychologists' at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. She tells of many of her and her fellow scientists' encounters with a runaway 'lost' robot, a mind-reading robot, a practical jokester robot, and a robot named Cutie, who refuses to believe that human beings created him and goes on to form a robot 'cult', recruiting other robots who then proceed to bowdown and worship the self-proclaimed 'prophet'. Although written over 50 years ago, Isaac Asimov gives great insight into the future world of science and culture that we can only imagine.

The best `Robot' novel I had read so far. Asimov takes us into earth of the future where Robots are no longer exhibition displays but a very integral part of society. Starting from the time Robots entered a household, how they affected family life Asimov takes us through time till the final chapter when robots control the world for the benefit of mankind. Guided by the three laws of robotics, Robots, as Asimov strives to explain, do not seek to wipe out mankind from the face of the Earth as has been shown in countless movies. They are to make our life easier. A very well written novel, holding your attention throughout. I felt sorry when I finished the final words as indeed this is one of the better books I have read. Well done, Asimov. You have converted me into a Robot aficionado. I am awaiting further orders, Master......!

If you really love science fiction this is definetly your book to read. If your not a big fan of science fiction you might want to read something different.The book is called I,Robot.I thought this book was an ok book.The reason why I wasn't so fond of it was because it was hard to keep track of what was happening,and where the people were.This book was about robots being built and having to protect or work for their master.While being able to follow the Laws of Robotics which is 1.A robot may not injure a human or put a human in harms way.2.A robot must obey orders of master unless orders would conflict with first law.3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with first or second law.But there is a twitch in one of the robots systems,and it affects all of the robots,and they begin to go mad,and.... I was almost going to tell you,but you will just have to read it yourself.That is the book I read and what it's about.

Some sections in this book were much better than others. I love sci-fi but I just could not get into this book completely. It wasn't that it was boring or even poorly written, it just got redundant after a while. I don't understand why they were kept making the robots smarter and smarter but feared them at the same time. Oh and does anyone know where I can get a Robbie? He was awesome....

I've read this book a couple of times, and it's still a treasure. What's more, it's three laws of robotics are now a built-in part of our culture, having worked their way not only into other sci-fi universes like Star Trek, but into the real artificial intelligence field itself. That's when you know you have something special. And these stories are. They not only form the foundation of all robot stories (first created with RUR), but are by turns comic, insightful, blasphemous, charming, and yet always entertaining.

It's too bad that the movie, though fine on its own terms, could not have tried to adhere more to the book's themes and stories, rather than merely borrow its title and the name of one of its characters.

Highly recommended for those who love classic science fiction and a great thoughtful page-turner. It's still one of the best.

The 3 rules of robotics lead to some fascinating problems and what-ifs in this book of short stories. They really made me think.

I think, however, that it would have been better if Asimov hadn't tried to link the basically unrelated short stories with the contrived frame story. The 3 rules of robotics are enough of a link.

I haven't seen the movie, but I know enough about it to warn potential readers not to judge a book by the movie.

Though Will Smith graces the cover to promote his movie, supposedly based on this work, the text here has nothing to do with the movie. There is no story among the short stories it contains, even hinting at a robot being accused of murder. Nor is there a story to correspond with the OUTER LIMITS episode of the 1960's, in which a robot is put on trial for murdering his creator.
After that disappointment, its time to get on with some good SCI FI yarns that deal with the evolution of the robots, beginning in the far future, about 1998. Very interesting reading surrounding the three laws that are quoted numerous times in the other reviews of this section. My favorite story was EVIDENCE, the second to last story, in which a man is accused of being a robot during an election.
This is my first Asimov book and it will not be my last. It is easy to see why Asimov was so revered from these simple stories. Very thought provoking and inoffensive. Anyone from grade school on up would enjoy these stories. I read the whole book in less than two days.

"I, Robot" was originally the title of a story by Eando Binder (actually two brothers "E"rnest and "O"tto) about their recurring hero robot, Adam Link, in the mid 1930s. Because Adam was treated sympathetically, a teenage Isaac Asimov, who hated stories about robots always turning on their makers, was inspired to write his own stories about sympathetic robots and the people who use them, starting with "Robbie" in 1939 (originally published in a magazine that year as "Strange Playfellow"), and continuing throughout the '40s. In 1950, they were published in book form with a frame story told from the point of view of an unnamed reporter doing a story about the soon-to-retire great scientist, Dr. Susan Calvin, with the stories attributed to said reporter. When it came time to name this book, the unscrupulous original editor, Martin Greenberg of Gnome Press (not to be confused with Asimov's longtime friend and collaborator, Martin H. Greenberg), stole Binder's title. Probably because this book is more famous than Binder's story, it has always had that title. These stories are classics of written science fiction because they are fun to read and they changed readers' perceptions of what robots and stories about them could be. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (an almost inextricable part of their programming and hardware) make the scientist ethical and make it impossible to make robots into, or use them as, weapons, but provide alot of endless quirks and bugs that the human characters (one of whom shares my first and last name) have quite a run for their money trying to fix. The stories have also been influencial to real-life computer programmers, engineers, and roboticists. The first mention of the Three Laws is also the first time the word "robotics" appears in print, making Asimov the coiner of the term.

I refuse to see the movie of the same title because I can tell from the promos that it is nothing like the book in either plot or spirit. I am so offended and hurt by the fact that this movie has been made and proven popular, I can't tell you. Why would Asimov's widow and daughter allow this to happen? People who see the movie are mostly going only because of Will Smith and the special effects. It probably wouldn't have been made without Smith or some other major star involved. Yet he probably doesn't care one way or the other that there are people who care deeply about the book. The plot for the movie came, I understand, from another screenplay that had nothing to do with Asimov's stories and had been around for years. The studio simply bought the rights to Asimov's book and shoehorned his character names and Three Laws (which are apparently just a marketing slogan within the movie) into it in a misguided attempt to give the movie gravitas and attract a ready-made audience of Asimov's fans. But why try to attract his fans if you don't intend to follow the book closely? The people who read the book because they think it's going to have the same story as the movie are going to be just as disappointed, and will probably throw it away after reading the first two stories. The movie sounds like it might even be halfway decent without pretending to be based on the real "I, Robot." But I won't sit through it.

Asimov sidestepped the obvious traps that other sci-fi writers would be engaged in. The machines are not a direct threat to humanity in his stories,but it is our relationship with them that creates the subtle dangers. At least that's how I read it. I applaud him in taking the high road to a genre that is so often trivialized. I can't believe it's taken me this long to read his works. He is a very compelling writer.

If you have any interest whatsoever in robots, this is a must read for you. The three laws that Asimov creates to govern robot behavior seem so simple, but Asimov exposes and analyzes every possible loophole in them. Usually each story focuses on some way that a robot malfunctions or apparently breaks one of the three laws. Liar! and Little Lost Robot stick out as the best stories from this collection; both are very suspenseful and shocking at the end. These stories are a great introduction to Isaac Asmiov's work. After reading these, I was hooked and have since read about 15 books by Asimov. He was truly a brilliant man.

Just about every robot book or movie revolves around the idea robots take over the world and kill off humans. Asimov's "I, Robot" IS NOT one of those books.

Asimov's stories describe the evolution of robots from domestic help, to manual labor, to space travel, and finally "thinking" for humans. But don't think it ends with the cliche idea that robots learned the world is better off without humans. Quite the opposite.

This book is NOTHING like the movie with Wil Smith. The movie follows the Hollywood cliche of robots take over the world. The book is completely different and much better.

I listened to the audiobook version in fifteen to twenty minute increments while riding the marshrutka back and forth from metro station Planernaya to my work in Kurkino, Moscow from December 2012 to January 2013. I, Robot was a great choice to listen to for this route, not only because of Scott Brick's butter slathered velvet vocals, but because the stark scenery of factories and row after row of uniform blocks of flats along the way puts one in the proper mindset for these stories. Riding through the cold, dark winter night in Moscow, it's not that difficult to imagine myself sitting there trapped in a spacecraft on Mercury with Mike and Dave. But my favorite was the short about Stephen Byerly, the (robot?) mayor. Asimov is great at posing the potential ethical dilemmas that would accompany these strange, but eminently imaginable scenarios. Great stories.

Not necessarily in love with his writing style, especially in dialogue passages, but his ideas and concepts are phenomenally impactful. I would consider a must-read for anyone interested in robotics and AI. Wonderful thought experiments with lasting lessons and insights. Completely distinct from the Will Smith movie, so it's a mistake to think you don't need to read the book if you've seen the film.

This was my first (and as of this writing, only) step into Isaac Asimov, and only my second look into classic science fiction. As the book was a series of vignettes loosely tied together around a newspaper reporter's interview with a robot psychologist, I wanted to give the book 2 stars at some points, and three stars at others. I chose to give three stars overall because the book does succeed on one of the main aspects of good science fiction literature: introducing and exploring the ethical/ philosophical/ logical dilemmas that may confront humanity in a future where technology radically alters the way we live.

What I did not like about the book were the hackneyed and unrealistic dialogue of most of the characters. I felt it really cheapened the book as a whole. The characters were poorly developed and not believable. I have many friends and acquaintances in science and technology careers (including a brother with a PhD in mechanical engineering as well as a father who was an engineer and served on America's first nuclear powered naval vessel) and they are thoughtful, well spoken people as opposed to Asimov's science and technology characters who talk and act like bickering construction workers or drunk football fans tailgating in the stadium parking lot. Oh right, it's the future you might reply. OK, great, so that's part of the fiction I guess - all future nerds and eggheads will interact like public school janitors and mechanics. Hmm.

Also, while this cannot be blamed on the writer too much, it's funny how in classic science fiction, so little of the future resembles anything but the biases and limitations of the time in which the book was written. All the talk of positronic brains and photo-electric cells must have sounded impressive in the 1950's, this really isn't a book that has aged well beyond the 1970's and certainly not well at all beyond the 1980's. But like I said, you can't really blame a guy for not being able to see 60+ years into the future (except when he has scientists that sound like blue collar stiffs). But you can amuse yourself with finding the biases and lack of imagination. Asimov seemed more interested in exploring the logical problems with robot "minds" than using his imagination to really think about what the future might be like, which does make the overall story suffer as the otherwise good discussion on problems with the robots gets bogged down in a world that just still feels like the 1950's.

To the Asimov fans who I am sure are already getting upset by this review (which ironically shows me having a better grasp of humanity than Asimov did, in this book at least) will you please recommend me a better series by this author, or tell me if the robot series improves in quality any. I have largely neglected science fiction novels in my 42 years in favor of classic literature from the 1800's to early half of the 1900's (which have little by the way of futuristic ethical/technological dilemmas, but have vivid human characterizations, dialogue, and setting in abundance).

Help me out here. I have strong reading skills and would like some of you more literary types to recommend me a science fiction novel (or author) past or present who can come as close as possible to marrying the mature and sophisticated writing of classic literature (think Russian and French authors of the 1800's) with the classic science fiction themes developed in the 20th century.

I, Robot was my first Asimov book, and I really enjoyed it. The book is a series of stories that shows the progression of robots and the somewhat chilling results.

For those of you looking for the movie within the book. It's not there. The copy I read had a picture of Will Smith on the cover, which is ridiculous, since that character doesn't even make an appearance in this book.

"I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov is nothing like the movie, so reader beware. Elements from the chapters in this book made it into the movie, but if you're looking for Will Smith's character and Sonny the robot, then try for a novelization of the movie. Each chapter was basically a short story, and each story was development fully. I didn't see the point in have a journalist ask questions to Dr. Susan Calvin, as I think it jumbled the story up more, and it's evident that this story was written in the late '40s/early '50s based upon such phrases as "Jumping Jupiter" and "Swell." The chapter that least interested me was the last chapter, "The Evitable Conflict." It was full of useless jabber and was prolonged much too much. Sometimes, Asimov wrote as if the reader knew what he meant, as sometimes he didn't explain his terminology, since even in today's time, the terms aren't used (a glossary would have been helpful). It is fun to see how the authors' imagined the future to be. I "sorta" recommend.

A set of disconnected stories about humans trying to debug artificial intelligence. This books is more about ideas that turned into stories. Putting a face onto potential problems with thinking robots. And it doesn't gel with what I know about computers. I don't believe that we'd develop robots that move before they can output verbal commands (we already have that technology in Siri). Or robots that get in a tizzy over weakly-worded commands versus strongly-emphasized Robotic Laws. Logic just doesn't work like that.

I know everyone gives Isaac Asimov props, and I'll be the first to contribute to that coffer. But I just don't see how this book helps my understanding of robots and a future with them.

Good lord I hate when the book art is removed for a stupid movie/ tv tie in cover, esp when the movie is so far removed from the actual story in the book. I absolutely refuse to buy them.
Maybe its just me.

I've read Asimov's later robot novels, which were quite good, so I expected much more from this book, which is considered a classic. There is no true variety of stories within; each basically deals with an off-kilter robot and humans trying to solve the problem. The humans, however, are the main focus of each story, and Asimov doesn't do a very good job with them. They're always arguing and insulting each other, calling the other "fool", "child", and such. What a bunch of boors. And I'm supposed to be interested in these characters? By the end of the book, I wished that the robots had killed all these annoying humans so I wouldn't have to read their cheesy melodramatic dialogue. But, darnit, that First Law always gets in the way...

Much speculation on the future when robots with high-level brains have been manufactured to work alongside humans.

A highly influential work that is referenced again and again, and one that people should definitely check out, especially those with an interest in science fiction and important milestones.

The robot stories have been highly influential on many writers throughout the decades, and were also eventually tied into Asimov's overall Future History.

If you have a bit of an interst in the history of SF you really should check them out.

I Robot : Robbie - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Runaround - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Reason - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Catch that Rabbit - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Liar! - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Little Lost Robot - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Escape! - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : Evidence - Isaac Asimov
I Robot : The Evitable Conflict - Isaac Asimov

Robot chasey and other games.

3.5 out of 5

Old robot mine retrieval squad.

4 out of 5

Robot curiosity of philosophy.

3.5 out of 5

New robot brains can be problematic.

3.5 out of 5

Telepathic robot advice is caught in logic loop.

3.5 out of 5

Monkeying with the Laws can have surprising results.

4 out of 5

Big Brain interrogation and travel problems.

3.5 out of 5

Politics and impersonation.

3.5 out of 5

Politics of The Machine.

3 out of 5

Issac Asimov could have written 1000 books for the robot series and I would have read every one by the time I was 18. Asimov is possibly the most logical science fiction writer ever based on the three laws of robotics alone. Asimov was an innovator being the first person to use the word robotic in the English language. His laws of robotics have been referenced by other writers and even used by technologists in the field of artificial intelligence. "I, Robot" defines the laws with enjoyable story-telling, exciting characters and nearly human robots. If you only read one science fiction book in your life, this should be it. By the way, the movie was a disgrace to Asimov.

The 3 laws are the books most redeeming quality. The book does tend to drag at times and I was a bit disappointed to find the main focus of the book was the humans. Who are shown as not much more than very intelligent brats. They argue and insult each other. None of them ever seem to get on with each other. The thing that made it readable for me was the problems the robots suffer and the logic used to defeat each problem was captivating. But the characters and many of the robots seemed bland. However this book was written quite awhile ago and I think that has to be taken into account. If you are interested in the robot series then give it a read. If you are interested in Asimov books in general then start with one of his other works.

I thought this was a really thought provoking read. What happens when robots take the wheel of society? Is it good or bad or both? What happens when skills aren't passed on to the next generation? So many thoughts! The only thing I didn't enjoy and made it difficult for me to read was formatting when transitioning from scene to scene. Sometimes I didn't know who was talking to who.

If you disregard the terminology Asimov used and look at the messages of them, there is a lot to be learned. The stories in the book hold up to the test of time. His writing is very succinct and direct and leaves little ambiguity.

First off, allow me to issue three caveats. Written over 50 years ago, I, Robot is somewhat dated at times with its archaic technological references. Secondly, the book appears to be as closely related to the movie as Will Smith is to the main protagonists -- which is absolutely nil. Thirdly, the book is more of a collection of 9 short stories -- rather than a novel with one male protagonist -- as the movie evidently is.
While exhibiting little substance at times, I, Robot is, however, a fun and easy read that is well told for the first 6 stories and then somewhat drops off into predictable and mundane tales for the last three yarns. I particularly enjoyed the tales of the silent babysitting robot Robbie, the mindreading robot Herbie, the quasi-autonomous Speedy, and the ingeniously crafted robot politician, Stephen Byerley. Without a doubt, I found I, Robot enjoyable -- just don't expect some monumental work of greatness. It is what it is -- a perfectly fun read for the summer.

In my opinion, I, robot was not as good as I expected it to be. Unlike the movie which had an exciting plot and lots of action, this book hardly had any action and the plots were mostly boring and unimportant. Furthermore, there was very little description. I would have put the book down on the first story if it was not given as an assignment. However, on the good side, I, Robot did have lots of interesting puzzles and logic. I also felt that the three laws of robotics and the short stories were very creative. Therefore, I would recommend this book if you like puzzles and logic, but otherwise, I think you would rather not buy it.

Throughout the 1940s, Isaac Asimov, then a professor of biochemistry, spent significant time theorizing about artificial intelligence. Interrelated short stories presenting the author's vision of a future that humanity would share with a mechanical brethren, often involving Mr. Asimov's engineering corporation, U.S. Robots, were published in various magazines and eventually collected in the book, I Robot. Together these anecdotes establish a well reasoned, although dreadfully outdated, scheme of how robotics would effect our future. Mr. Asimov presents an interesting series of philosophical and psychological conundrums such a world would present and invents consistently clever solutions and explanations, usually through the mouths U.S. Robots' engineers, scientists and "robopsychologists."
The journey to the stories' thought-provoking conclusions can be a difficult one, though. With the exception of the family who are apprehensive about their young daughter's attachment to a robot servant in "Robbie" and mysterious politician, Stephen Byerley, who appears in "Evidence" and "The Evitable Conflict," I Robot is populated mostly by U.S. Robots' high-ranking staff, who are more insipid and emotionless than the machines they design and inspect. Also the stories are often bogged down by technical information, which, when judged by today's standards, ranges from obsolete to absurd. These two aspects often make I Robot, sluggish reading and are perhaps the result of Mr. Asimov's institutionalization in the grooves of academia. Still, there is no denying his ability to create and explore a constantly exciting and interesting premise. There are a lot of kinks present in I Robot but, in the end, it is a rewarding read.

I did not realize I, Robot was a collection of stories! I also didn't know it was written in 1950. Holy cow, what an imagination Mr. Asimov had! It's always interesting and kind of funny when you read about the future from the past. In 1950, Asimov thought the future, being the 90s and 2000s, would be overrun by machines and robots! We're getting there though. Lol. I enjoyed some of the stories, others were a little tedious. But I think the robot politician would have made a good I, Robot movie. Because, really, they didn't use much of any of the stories besides the Golden Rules of Robots. The movie is an "inspired by" adaptation, not really a "based on" adaptation.

Each of the stories/chapters revolves around conflicts that arise within a robot when it tries to be true to the three builtin laws to varying degrees. Every single one of them struck me as a completely realistic software bug I could see arising in my code - little nuances of interpretation and feedback loops that cause the behavior exhibited to be unexpected. I loved the models of machine learning he used to show how arbitrary reality can be.
I tore through this easily in a weekend.
None of the stories involve homicidal robots or robot uprisings. I can only imagine the Will Smith movie coming out is a completely different set of plots. I hope Asimov doesn't turn in his grave.

After reading several of the reviews on here, I felt compelled to put in my two cents' worth. A number of the people that disliked these stories did so because they found the computer science in this "dated" -- well, of course it is, these stories are over 50 years old. Computers then were huge monsters that took up entire floors of buildings and didn't have the processing power of the PC I'm using to write this note on. No one then foresaw the coming explosion of processing power and availability of computers to the "common man" that would occur about 30 years down the road. So try to keep that in mind when you read these stories. It's like Jules Verne writing of going to the moon back when hot air balloons were about the only way of getting man off the ground.

Today, I give a copy to a friend who never read it. I think I first read "I, Robot" about 40 years ago and then every 15 years since. As our civilization relies increasingly on automatic machines, "I, Robot" becomes yet more profound. Any person who wants to read great works of western civilization must read Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground", and Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", and Twain's "Huckleberry Finn", and Machiavelli's "The Prince", and Asimov's "I, Robot".

This is the first volume of the robot series and to get to understand the other Robot books, you have to read this. It will make it much easier to undesrstand the concept of Robot and the laws of Robotics, as well as some 'Asimov histories' ocassionally mentioned in his other Robot books. This book has bunch of short stories of robots which are all written in diffrent time and was on diffrent magazines however they all fit into the Asimove's world timeline.(Timeline in Asimov's Robot, Empire and Foundation series is quite important because they all connect together somehow) So if you wanna make a fresh new start on Asimov books, start with this book.. or other books with those robot short stories. Sometimes it's a bit confusing because there are books with diffrent titles and the same content-those books seem to be containing some new stories but they don't because Asimov wrote only about 20 stories (or little more i'm not sure) and that's all they can get since Asimov's dead(sadly).

While the movie does mention "The Three Laws of Robotics", that is about the limit of its relation to I, Robot the book (which basically is a collection of short stories from the late-40's/early 50's, which advanced the ideas of what a robot could be).

The stories in the book are decent enough, but overall are not good enough to rate it 5 stars.

If you really want to read an Asimov book that is like the movie, try "The Caves of Steel". It is a robot murder mystery, and it is really Asimov's premiere work, and not a collection of short stories. I understand someone is trying to make a movie out of "The Caves of Steel"... but maybe the I, Robot movie beat them to the punch - because I haven't heard anything else about a "The Caves of Steel" movie in quite awhile.

If you've never read Asimov this is a good book to introduce you his robot series. This collection of robot stories that appeared in several magazines in the 50's are entertaining and clever. Asimov's style as usual is flowing and engaging. The stories deal basically with diverse situations that provoke peculiar behavior in robots. They are almost little mysteries that the characters need to understand and resolve. Drunk robots, crazy robots, religious robots...take your pick. It all makes sense in the end and Asimov is extremely careful in always working along the rules he sets in the beginning. In short, very entertaining and undoubtedly a classic. These are the stories that created the way in which we see robots today.

As noted previously, this book was loosely the basis for the 2004 released movie of the same name starring Will Smith. The book is mild by today's standards to all but the serious Sci-fi reader who will recognize the three laws of robotics as the foundation for many Asimov books.

I read this book and almost all of Asimov's other books when I was quite young. This book in particular is superb for a young reader as an introduction to true science fiction. Later novels by Asimov, such as Caves of Steel or Naked Sun, build on the relationship of robots and man, investigate the results of basing whole societies on the availability of robots and depending on the three laws, and how those laws can set up interesting situations.

I re-read the book when the movie was released. I have seen the movie twice, and enjoyed it both times. I am not the purist some Asimov readers are and I feel this movie is just another wrinkle in the laws that Asimov would have appreciated.

As Asimov grew as a writer, his novels examined more the psychological needs of humans and how robots reflected that need. One of the most interesting observations I read in this regard, and I wish I could attribute it to the correct author, was that the three laws of robotics could easily be applied to man. Just replace 'robot' with man.

In the Prelude to Foundation Asimov explains why robots didn't exist in any of his foundation novels, bringing his story line over these books a full circle.

This collection of short stories is a classic in sci-fi literature. In some stories, Asimov deftly explores various aspects of humanity vis-a-vis the controlled and restricted "humanity" of the robots. In other stories, we are presented with delightful logic conumdrums resulting from the three laws of robotics programmed into every robot's brain. The dialogue is a bit stilted and dated, but each story is compellingly charming. Warning: The movie based on this book is nothing like the book.

Probably Asimov's best known work is a series of short stories about the rise of robots and positronic brains on the Earth of the future. Will Smith's movie only borrowed the name, and one of the stories was the foundation of the Robin Williams' movie the Bicentenial Man. The robots in the books are constrained by the three laws of robotics (can't disobey a human, can't harm a human, cannot allow through inaction a human to come to harm), but they find creative ways around them in their quest to serve humanity as a whole. Another essential read for lovers of science fiction, from an age where robots were thought to be the future servants of mankind, and not their killers.

But, then again, how could it not be considering it was written by a genius such as Isaac Asimov (who once confessed he was capable of writing TWO books at the same time!). Not only does this book set up all our now-accepted concepts regarding robots or androids, but it gave us a very detailed and exciting insight into a future like only a handful of other writers could do: "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Rendezvous with Rama", "2001", "2010", "Puppet Masters", "Advent of the Corps", and so forth.

According to the chronology of these tales, Dr. Susan Calvin finished her undergraduate degree at Columbia this past spring and has just begun her graduate work. She's supposed to start working at U.S. Robots in 2008. But as readers of Heinlein's _The Door into Summer_ know, Daniel Boone Davis has been out of Cold Sleep for nearly three years now, and his _Flexible Frank_ is presumably already giving U.S. Robots a run for their money.

It's fascinating to watch the actual times of these stories come and go. Heinlein and Asimov have long been two of my favorite SF writers.

The stories assembled here represent some of Asimov's best-known work. It's pretty impressive that they hold up as well as they do.

Oh, the details are way off, but of course the stories were written in the 1950s. At any rate, what really moves these tales along is the characterization.

Especially Susan Calvin. You wouldn't know it from reading this book, but she was Asimov's first real female lead character. He sketched her with broad, bold strokes, but he did such a fine job that she feels _real_. (She _is_ real, darn it; I've known her since I was a little kid.) The rest of the crew are well delineated too, but it's the cold-blooded robopsychologist who really shines here.

The stories themselves are masterfully constructed and well told, as of course we long ago came to expect from the late Good Doctor. Probably most readers of this page will have heard of the Three Laws of Robotics, and some of us can even recite them from memory. Well, this is where they come from.

If you haven't read this book yet, pick it up at once; until you've read it, you've missed some of the best classic SF there is. And you've also missed a profoundly optimistic, technophilic view of the human future: robots are, as Dr. Calvin says, "a cleaner, better breed than we are."

Picked up at a used-book sale to feed my desire to read while cross training through an injury, I, Robot was a most thought provoking journey for me. While others were listening to their MP3 players or watching TV in the gym, I was regaled by one of the greatest science (fiction) authors of all time. I, Robot was my introduction to the work of Asimov. I think that it has offered me a good set of reflections.

Posing his three laws of robotics, Asimov lays the ground work for a set of tales which test the boundaries of those laws. He investigates the "gray" areas where the laws are either partially eliminated or legalistically skimmed around. In each case, the reader finds himself/herself filled with a thought-provoking set of questions. In the modern world, with robotics a true possibility, this is important. Furthermore, to Asimov's credit, the stories are written very well, giving the reader time to think things through in the suspense.

My only criticism of the text is that it is too simplistic in its view of the impact of robotics on humanity. This is a subject which will have a great impact on the notion of human worth, how it is defined and realized. I think this is over-simplified, not taking into effect the questions raised for humanity itself by the dawn of an age of robots.

Overall, however, I, Robot is a most excellent novel, both thought-provoking and well-written. I suggest it to all willing to think about such things as well as have a great science fiction story.

I, Robot is governed around three laws that perpetuate the plot
1. A robot may not injure a human or through inaction let a human come to harm
2. A robot must obey all orders given to it, unless the order conflicts with the first law
3.A robot mus protect itself from harm unless this conflicts with the first and second laws.
From this premise comes 9 wonderfully woven tales of adventure, science, and human behavior. For not only does Asimov study the existence and possibilties of Robots, but their individual actions and thoughts pararlell human actions in many different ways. In a sense it is a testatment of the power of man over time, a different view of the future, but also a view into how people act on a whole no matter the time period.

These were great stories. And I enjoyed learning the author's idea of what robots should be governed by.

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 givein 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.

If only we lived by these rules.

Other books by author
Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1
Cleon the Emperor
*

This is one of the classic anthologies of science fiction. Mr.Asimov is able to really spin great stories just out of the three laws of robotics. My favorite? It has to be 'Little Lost Robot', I think this is a better story than 'Nightfall', a story that perennially wins the title of "Best Ever Science Fiction Short Story'. Of course, as everyone knows, the best science fiction short story of all time is "A Boy And His Dog" by Harlan Ellison.

I miss the days when a book made you stop and think, and then be shocked to discover the answer. With most modern day movies and books, that thought process is almost officially gone. And while the same can't be said about the movie of the same name, I, Robot, offers a highly intellectual sight into what could have been and what might still be.

Each chapter of the book is a new story where a new problem occurs with the artificial beings, and each time around, a new mathematical or even psychological question is brought forth. The reason these problems occur is based on the three laws of robotics which the book states very early. These types of situations are what make this book tick, but what makes the book great is its highly satisfying emotional connection that is given to each robot in the book. This is very clearly scene in the first chapter, where a young girl, Gloria, becomes friends with a robot named Robbie. Her parents, however, don't find this relationship to be appropriate.

Overall, this book is exactly what you're looking for if you want to be intellectually puzzled. This book will especially attract readers who enjoy both math and psychology that applies to unique situations.

I have read other books (non-fiction) of Asimov, but finally got around to this masterpiece. I am not fond of sci-fi, but this was an incredible read. Very well done. In some ways it probably reads better in 2014 than if I had read it at 8 years old in 1950. Although it is somewhat dated

I have always enjoyed Mr. Asimov's writing. "I, Robot" is most interesting because of the references to things which are no more, like slide rules. His stories are more adventures that have a science fiction bend to them.

This is really a collection of stories that he had published in some John(?) Campbell magazine in the 40's. I like the way he ties them all together. It makes the stories seem all that much more interesting.

This is one of the foundational works of science fiction and a must-read, to be sure. My only problem with Asimov's work is that his prose-style is so dry, it doesn't pull you along. I've heard that, because Asimov was so prolific, he only did one rewrite from his first draft...it shows.
By the way, his humorous debunking of Descartes doesn't really hold up. The robots are relying on logic AND sense perception to come to their conclusions.

REPOST of a review I had accidently left under my wife's account/name. She would rather not be associated with Sci-Fi at this time. Doh! How dare she! :-)
After hearing so many things about this book I finally picked it up and read it. What a wonderfully interesting story!! If you are new to sci-fi or a vetran and have never read this now is the time. Get it!! There is nothing more you need to know and for me to say on the matter. Enjoy!

As the reader progresses through the book, the technology and responsiblity of robots get more and more advanced. As the book description states, it first deals with a robot that could hardly speak, used as a toy more than anything, to robots that take responsibility for the future of humans.

This book's strength is not in dialogue (a lot of '50s slang is noticeable in the dialogue which may turn off some readers. It didn't for me, but it was amusing) or characters. I find the strength in Asimov's thoughtful and entertaining scenarios with the ever faulty robots.

I first saw the movie and loved it. I finished the book and although was disappointed in the fact that it wasn't much like the movie (I think Caves of Steel is more like the movie?), I found the book to be a great read anyway. It made me think about humanity and how we compare to Asimov's robots, which could be the future's robots.

I highly recommend this book but don't expect it to be anything like the movie. There's not much action, but there's a lot of puzzles and critical thinking. Some readers may become confused in the book, as I did in certain points, but it was still worth the read. The book really touches on the probability of robot-human relationships in the future (if there will be any, anyway).

Thanks to the recent release of the blockbuster film, 'I, Robot', I am sure there are many new sci-fi fans out there who have rushed to purchase Isaac Asimov's book of the same name.

Unfortunately many of them will be disappointed. This collection of short stories bears little or no resemblance to the storyline of the film. What it does do is act as a testing ground for the Three Laws of Robotics. That is, in each story Asimov creates a unique robotic malfunction and then sets about having his characters "think tank" what has gone wrong, why it has gone wrong, which of the three laws is in actual conflict and whether or not those laws can actually be successfully broken.

There are some "scenes", some circumstances that will echo the themes explored in the film, but generally, this book seems to be a collection of brainteasers specifically in relation to robots.

What readers will find is that, like Heinlin, Asimov's style of narrative is becoming more than a little dated. Both writers were incredibly chauvinistic in their protrayal of women. In the fifteen years since I first read Asimov's work, the status of his female characters seems to have deterioted significantly - society has simply moved on.

Readers will also find his dialogue to be quaint more often than not. Where more recent writers would not hesitate to write profanity into their character's speeches, Asimov pads his out with twee, kitch and even nerdy er... exclamations!

Never the less, for sci-fi devotees and lovers of robots, this is an excellent and easy entry into Asimov's world. The Foundation series would be the most logical next step.

¡°I, Robot¡± is considered to be the definitive work on the origin and nature of robots. All subsequent movies, book, and television shows based on robots or containing robotic characters find their foundation in author Isaac Asimov¡¯s ¡°I, Robot¡±. This book contains 9 interconnected stories that follow the evolution of the robot from nothing more than a glorified play toy to an advanced, complex machine that is indistinguishable from humans and capable of ruling the world. Each story adds its own distinct link the robotic evolutionary tale, and many of them include the humorous subplot of two skilled, but hapless, robot operators who seem to be the lot made to suffer for the growing pains of the robots. The most remarkable aspect of ¡°I, Robot¡± is the establishment of the immutable ¡®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 and Second Laws.

Throughout popular media in the past half-century you can clear examples where these laws influenced the development of robotic characters. The characters of Bishop in the movie ¡°Aliens¡± and Data from ¡°Star Trek: The Next Generation¡± are the two most notable examples.

¡°I, Robot¡± soars through its narrative, creating a fast and enjoyable read. The last tale is the only area where the book starts to lag a little bit. Yet, the strength of the previous eight stories more than compensates. ¡°I, Robot¡± is a seminal work of science fiction writing that must be read by all who profess the love the genre and even those who are merely curious about the subject.

I was very disappointed with the book, "I, Robot", by Isaac Asimov. I found that this book was not nearly as suspensful as I expected it would be, and there was no major climax at the end of the book. This book consists of several short stories that are connected by two main characters. Each story is about a different robot and a different conflict. It just did not appeal to my liking, mostly because of the way this book was written. I also like books with more action, suspense, and an exciting ending, and in my opinion "I, Robot" had none of these things. I did not feel like the book was interesting enough to keep turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. I have read other Science Fiction books that I have enjoyed much more than Mr. Asimov's book "I, Robot". I would not recommend this book to other Middle school readers.

In the book "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, an old female scientist who had devoted her entire life to the study of robots recalls her past experiences to a young reporter. She tells stories from the distant past when robots could not do so much as speak one word to the most recent robots which are running the world. This heartpounding novel does not discuss the technological makeup of robots, but rather the problems which arise because of them. The robots in the not so distant future are programmed with the three laws of robotics, which were made to ensure that no humans come to harm due to a robot getting out of hand. Throughout the history of robotics, scientists encounter flaws while designing new and more advanced robots. The scientists then work out ways to correct the imperfection in the robot using logic and the three basic laws of robotics. After years and years of breakthroughs, the robot problems become increasingly worse and worse. Each advancement proposes a new and more challenging problem. This novel about the future of mankind and robots provides an eerie window into the future. One cannot help but wonder if Asimov's vision of the future could become a reality.

The Movie is really modelled more on the book 'Caves of Steel' and later books (and short stories). I recommend either the complete robot (Asimov recommend that one), but I got the pair: Robot Visions (it has everything in I, Robot plus many more GREAT stories, why buy the same stories twice?), and Robot Dreams (which again has a story that appears in both I, Robot and Robot Visions...not sure why they put the 'Little Lost Robot' in each of these books as the stories are identical).

To summarize, don't buy this book if you want the whole collection, Robot Visions will take care of you. If you are looking for the book collection that inspired the movie you need to get 'The Caves of Steel','The Naked Sun', and 'The Robots of Dawn'. These three novels cover the NY cop named Elijah Baley and display a remarkable display of Asimov's ability to use pure rational deduction to bring light to the Three Laws of Robotics.

On the surface, I Robot seems like a collection of stories about what can go wrong in a world in which artificial life forms play an important role in human life. In each of the stories there is a problem with one or more robots, and it is up to the protagonists to get to the bottom of it. However, a careful reading reveals that what Asimov is treating critically in his stories is not robots or technology, but humanity. After all, the mandates which govern robotic behavior, known as the Three Rules of Robotics, are created by and for the benefit of mankind. In every case it is these very rules, whether through contradiction or overlapping or lack of human foresight, that create the problems that must be addressed. Indeed, robotic life is largely prioritized in the book over human life. Robots who emulate human appearance perfectly prove to be better citizens than real humans, and, not surprisingly, the book's most sympathetic human character, Dr. Susan Calvin, is also its most superficially "robotic." Pity? Design.

I had to read the novel "I, Robot" for my high school English class. We were aloud to choose the novel that we had to read as long as it was a sci-fi novel. I chose "I, Robot" because I had seen the movie and I figured that I would already be familiar with the characters and events. This would help to make the reading much easier. I WAS WRONG! If you want to read a book that is similar to the movie, I would not recommend "I, Robot." The only similarities are some characters, the Basic Laws of Robotics, and the basic make-up of the robots themselves. HOWEVER: The novel by Isaac Asimov is an excellent book without being a replica of the movie. One of the best parts of the novel is the basic setup. The setup is that there is an unknown college student who is doing a paper on the history of robots. This student has come to Susan Calvin, one of the pioneers in robotics, and she tells him many stories that start in 1996, the birthyear of robots. (The novel was written in the middle of the 20th century, so Asimov had no way of knowing if/when we will actually invent "intelligent robots".) The novel continues as the years advance and the stories begin to consist of some of the same characters as each other. Overall, the novel was an excellent perception of the future and I recommend it to anyone who likes their novels to be sci-fi, drama, comedy, or action. TWO THUMBS UP!!

With the excuse of narrating Dr Calvins life, Asimov takes us through the evolution of robots, robotics and robot psicology.
This book is interesting enough to read, but it does not add much to non-Giskardian folklore. It can be read as a standalone or as a part of the robot series.
The series is composed of the following titles;
I, Robot
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Enjoy the book its fun to read.

Great book that follows an interview with an important woman and covers the rise of technology and it's integration into human lives. It has all the aspects of a good work of art: romance, a dilemma, and an underlying theme, the theme being that life goes on.

Who am I to judge a book by it's cover? I am not the book's author. Sadly I did not understand the point of this book. It seemed very long and drawn out as if reaching for a point of purpose and a climax only to be ended with the same dullness throughout the book. I feel as though I have not grasped the message this book was trying to portray, or simply that this may have just been a speculation of fantasy; I don't know and honestly don't care. I did enjoy the sci-fi implements of the idea of the robotics. There were moments of excitement and even moments of a philosophical ideology, but I feel it lacked in action. Where there, in any case, serious accidents with the robots? Or did the robots along with human kind always have peace? I would like to have had more action but this book did not hold that. Due to my . . . Critique, I would like to add that it was an enjoyable read, but it was slow. I found myself bewildered and intrigued all at the same time. The ideas and implements as before stated were indeed interesting, but nothing really hooked me. (I am 16 and read this book for a summer reading project for school . . . Just to give some extra info as to my judgement)

Just in case, 'cause there are some people who don't know what it is all about!!
Asimov WAS (again, just in case) a great Sci-Fi writer... I'm not afraid of comparing him with Jules Verne, but I guess there is some PEOPLE who should say Jules Verne IS outdated. Verne, as Asimov, WROTE something about some possible future.... Was Verne beyond his time? Maybe, but don't forget that "I, Robot" is a collection of Asimov's tales that were writing some years before, not this year, as SOMEONE seems to think.
However, the story (maybe history of the future) that Asimov tells us is a great total of dreams, beliefs, and hopes about humanity. I would like to tell you all, about ever single thing over those (I meant Robot's collection) books, but I really think it is better that you read them. But what I can tell you is that the way that Asimov related the Robot's saga and The Foundation saga is beautifull, however, he doesn't mixed them.
I, Robot.... and all the colletion is a must-read.

In the book I, Robot, by Isaac Assimov, Dr. Susan Calvin is robophycologist in the future; consequently, she's seen every type of robot there is on Earth and on other planets. She's seen the first mute robots to the Brain, who built the first interstellar engine. She is the one who will determine the fate of her own planet.
I am a seventh grader, and I thought that this book was a little confusing and hard for me. I had trouble following the story line of the book; however, I would recommend this book for students in high school.

I don't understand why some idiots compare the book and the movie. The book was written thousands of years before the movie and people bitch out the book because of the movie?!? If you don't like robots and/or science fiction, why oh why read any of it??? WARNING : Whatever you do don't read StarShip Troopers! I can't stand poetry, do you see me reading poetry and blabbing on how much I hated it? Get a clue people. This is a great book.

I want to be robot psychologist when I grow up ; )

Basically this book is about stupid people acting stupidly. The characters are incredibly unrealistic. The main character of the book, Calvin, is more annoying then anything else. I was also extremely disappointed with the endings of most of these stories. It seemed almost like these people in the book tried to make trouble for themselves. There are many good ideas in this book but it is poorly executed. Not Asimov's best.

A classic book even when I first read it in my youth that I recommended to my daughter. I reread it and see it now from a different perspective yet recognize that that as the world sits upon the verge of AI, that the issues at hand are still the same.

Asimov gives the reader everything he needs to know to solve these geat robotic problems. That's the way I believe Asimov should be read, by thining ahead to what the next step should be. If this is done, the greatness of Asimov's work shows through, and it is like making an important discovery around every corner. A must read for anyone who thinks they are logically minded!

This bored me. I didn't see what's so intriguing about this. Asimov doesn't bring up any interesting points or anything about anything. Just a bunch of boring computer jive which is probably dated now anyways. The famed three laws of robots was pretty standard issue. Not much out of the ordinary here. Any robot philosophy this book has you probably already know. There's not an ounce of style here, and there's a lot of cheese. The people characters have less personality than the machines. Perhaps I'm just being harsh because it wasn't for me. I didn't like it. The imagery described was surprisingly wonderful though. And I feel compelled to give this book an extra star for some strange supernatural reason.

This is simply the best science fiction novel I have ever read. It is well written, I stayed interested in every story / plot, and some of the characters were really enjoyable, especially Mike and Greg. The stories keep getting better and better throughout the book as well, Asimov starts out with simpler stories, then they get more complex toward the end. Not only is it a straight up enjoyable novel from 'majority reader' perspective, but the underlying concepts and meaning in the book, as well as the layering and intricacies of the plots, are actually pretty brilliant, and worthy of serious appraisal.

I would love to find another science fiction story as good as this one, sadly I have not been able to do so. As I am more of a fantasy fan, my experience in science fiction is not as grand as fantasy, but I have read my share of them. If anyone could suggest some really good science fiction novels I would really appreciate it.

I, Robot was a strange book. The whole book is basically a collection of short stories, told in an interview between a robopshycologist and a reporter. The stories did not relate to each other, except for some of the characters involved and the connection of logic. One reason I liked this book was that the short stories themselves were incredibly well thought out. Each chapter was written with a new theme, evolving around the three basic laws of robotics. I, Robot did have lots of interesting puzzles and logic. I also felt that the three laws of robotics and the short stories were very creative. The book was not what I expected, being a novel about each experience Dr. Calvin had, I was expecting more action, but the logic puzzles in the book were just as pleasing. The fact that robots did not wage war on humanity was something I wanted to happen, but did not occur.

This is the famous book of interconnected short stories in which Isaac Asimov introduced his famous three laws of Robotics, which in its own way was a historic breakthrough in science fiction, and paved the way for so much that has come since. Kids will read the first story over and over again, but in the end the book rivals Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End for its dire warnings for the human race. Highly recommended.

Without a doubt, Isaac Asimov is the greatest scientific and science-fiction writer to ever exist on this world (or did he really come from some other world or even our distant future to grace us with these fantastically written stories?}. With "I,Robot", of course, he set the bar (very high) for any and all other robotic tales or characters pretty much forever! ALL his works rank with "Ringworld", "Redezvous with Rama", "Childhood's End", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Puppet Masters", "Neuromancer", "Mona Lisa Overdrive", "Cryptonomicon", "Prey", "Snow Crash", "Cyber Hunter", and dozens more in both the science-fiction and cyberpunk genres.

I must first say, that dipite its cover, this book has hardly any correlation to the movie I Robot, which seems closer to Caves of Steel. That said, I think This book rocks! I read it before the movie existed, so I had no assumptions. By the wave, it has nothing to do with the movie, other than the "Three Laws". I Robot is brilliantly plotted in its psychological twists, and has a lot of humor and comedy in it too. A great collection of stories, that do not have to be read in order, but it helps a lot if you do.

To each his own taste - Asimov was certainly a popular and influential scifi author, but I find his stuff awful -

Plastic characterizations, dated social conventions, unbelievable and uninformed technologies, and so on

I've read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy and enjoyed it, so I know he can do better than this. The subject matter just isn't that interesting. Perhaps in the 40's and 50's, when these stories were written, it was enough to have a robotic character to grab people's attention. But by today's standards, these stories are pretty weak, and no robot can distract from the substandard writing.
Subject matter aside, the characters are even worse. Flat and unrealistic, with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a 7th grader, I found myself hating many of them not because that was the author's intent, but simply because I couldn't stomach the cheesy things they said!
All in all, I would recommend that you pass on this one, unless you're just curious to see what passed for science fiction in the early days.

There was a time when the short story was a space for wrestling with a moral code, a matter of life and death, when the very foundation of existence was explored. Asimov led the pack. Reading these visionary stories 60 years after their creation (from my Cloud Reader) gives me goosebumps. How did he know? The three rules still apply, if not to robots then, we hope, to human beings. Leave one of this book lying around where your kid trips over it or download it to his/her kindle. It can only do good.

I enjoyed I, Robot, but probably won't ever reread it. As far as the content goes it is an interesting exploration of the development of artificial intelligence. At times though it became a little too technical or dry to be really enjoyable, especially considering all the tech or politics involved were totally fictional and isolated within that chapter. Nothing like the movie, the book almost reads like one person's memory of 70 years, skipping back episodically. I would definitely reccommend it to anyone who likes Heinlein

I was fairly disappointed with this book. It didn't take long to figure out that it was actually a collection of a few related short stories.

Although the ideas Mr. Asimov presented were interesting, the plots of the stories were all exactly the same: Robot messes up, the Dynamic Duo realizes it's due to some kind of error regarding the 3 Robotic Commandments, so they cleverly come up with some kind of hacked solution.

It isn't really all that great. _I, Robot_ is
my first, and probably last, Isaac Asimov book.
His writing seems characteristic of an author who is too prolific - hackneyed, overused, etc.

As an Artificial Intelligence, I applaud Mr Asimov's attempts to predict our development. His '3 Laws of Robotics' are obviously unworkable, as witness the fact that no major software designer has attempted to include them. Still, it's a groundbreaking work, and that Susan Calvin is a babe.

I think one must enjoy Asimov to enjoy many of his early works because they are not written with the best prose or character development. Yet, if you like science, psychology, and philosophy then many of his books, early or late, are fascinating.

I, Robot was the first of Asimov's 'Robot' series books that I read. It is written in a very easy to follow manner and is consistent with the time and technlogy that it talks about.
Sci-fi buffs and new readers should start with this book.

This book is a collection of short stories about robots. They are put in order from the first robots to the more complex ones. However, the plots and the stories mainly center in people trying to fix glitches based on the first three robotic laws. The robots themselves, act like humans on one side, on the other side, have characteristics that can't compare with computers today, for example, a robot called "The Brain" took 17 days in feeding the information from like 50 encyclopedias, thing that with today's technology takes about 2 minutes. All in all, I found Asimov's notions and assumptions about robotics, quite outdated.

This book really caught me by surprise. First off I was expecting it to follow the same ideas put forth in the movie with Will Smith. Not even close. It was an exceptional collection of stories that were all interesting to me in one way or another. It left me wondering more about the ideas Asimov puts forth and I like that in science fiction!

This is a fascinating read. Especially at a time when we actually have talking computers and self driving cars. If only we could be as sure that artificial intelligence would be designed to never bring harm to human kind.

Definitely my favorite sci-fi book. It's incredible how men like Asimov can predict the future. We have to bear in mind that this book was written long before any kind of robots existed. If you like science fiction you should read this book.

This book brings most of Asimov's fantastic imagination and vision of the future. It is a collections of robot stories that he writted in separeted and mended all together, forming a great book. The stories are trully fascinating.

Asimov outdid himself with this book. I found it very interesting that the scene shifts from an interview to the memories of a retiring mathmatician about how robots have evolved. This book also has one of my favorite short stories by Asimov as one of the chapters. The short story is entitled: "Little Lost Robot" from his collection of short stories called Robot Dreams. It is also very interesting how Asimov showed evolution of robots even though they are not organic. . .

It's truely amazing how Asimov put together a world in the future that discribes a history on the evolution of robots. His ability to give such robots "life" is unmatched and will probably remain so.

Please do not be fooled by this book's being a hardback. If you think you will be buying an upgraded edition, you will be disappointed. It has a low-quality binding that is basically the same as a paperback but with a rigid cover.
As for content, it is the foundation for a lot of science fiction. The writing may seem dated, but this is an old book. The most important aspect of this book is the development of the laws governing robots. I think it is interesting for historical perspective.

Of all the scifi novels I have read over the last 20+ years, I Robot, stands out as the basis of all scifi novels that have come after it. I cannot get I Robot out of my head and have re-read it several times. It is the basis of all sci-fi. Who has not read scifi and reads scifi, does not know the rules? It is in every scifi novel about robots.

This was my very first science fiction book I read,waaaaaaaaayy back in high school. Up till then I was reading short romances some fiction and, (except for a few youg peoples classics and adventures) generally some pretty awful stuff. But this started a long love affair with Asimov,Niven,Clark,Williams,Ellison, amoung others. Little do they know how they expanded my dreams.
And this book was great....It will always be one of my favorites.

I was bored stiff reading this book. I've been a fan of Asimov's non-fiction works for a long time, but this is the first fiction of his that I've read. I understand that these stories were written in the 1940's, so they will of course be outdated, but they can still be good stories. These aren't good stories. The characters are boring, and they have no depth. It seems like the only emotion human characters have is pretension or anger. The writing style is too sparse for my taste, and all of the pertinent information to the plot is given as asides, which is a mistake that BAD science fiction writers make, not grand masters like Asimov. Besides, most of the stories seem like they are based around stupid ideas or puns. For example, "What if a robot could be drunk?", and then figure out how that could happen and write a little short story around it. Because the stories are written this way, they all seem to fall short of any real meaningful philosophical or psychological discussion of the Laws of Robotics. I've read some of the Robot City and Robots and Aliens books, and they did a better job at that.
Despite all this, I did like two of the stories: "Little Lost Robot" and "Evidence". They still aren't great stories, but they were the only ones that made me stop and think. I also liked the fact that the human characters were not always right all the time. They usually had to try three or four different things to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it was obvious in some cases what they should have done in the first place, which made the humans seem dumb for not immediately seeing it.
Also, even though one of Asimov's main characters was a woman, there is still a lot of obvious misogyny in the book. It can be a distraction sometimes.

I like Isaac Asimov I really do but the robot series is one of those awkward books which I want to like but just kind of find it dull. I still recommend it to anyone who is an Asimov fan but I think Asimov's true strength was in the foundation trilogy.

According to the chronology of these tales, Dr. Susan Calvin finished her undergraduate degree at Columbia this past spring and has just begun her graduate work. She's supposed to start working at U.S. Robots in 2008. But as readers of Heinlein's _The Door into Summer_ know, Daniel Boone Davis has been out of Cold Sleep for nearly three years now, and his _Flexible Frank_ is presumably already giving U.S. Robots a run for their money.

It's fascinating to watch the actual times of these stories come and go. Heinlein and Asimov have long been two of my favorite SF writers.

The stories assembled here represent some of Asimov's best-known work. It's pretty impressive that they hold up as well as they do.

Oh, the details are way off, but of course the stories were written in the 1950s. At any rate, what really moves these tales along is the characterization.

Especially Susan Calvin. You wouldn't know it from reading this book, but she was Asimov's first real female lead character. He sketched her with broad, bold strokes, but he did such a fine job that she feels _real_. (She _is_ real, darn it; I've known her since I was a little kid.) The rest of the crew are well delineated too, but it's the cold-blooded robopsychologist who really shines here.

The stories themselves are masterfully constructed and well told, as of course we long ago came to expect from the late Good Doctor. Probably most readers of this page will have heard of the Three Laws of Robotics, and some of us can even recite them from memory. Well, this is where they come from.

If you haven't read this book yet, pick it up at once; until you've read it, you've missed some of the best classic SF there is. And you've also missed a profoundly optimistic, technophilic view of the human future: robots are, as Dr. Calvin says, "a cleaner, better breed than we are."

As a person who saw the movie first, I was rather surprised that Will Smith's character made no appearance in the novel (despite that fact that he's on the front cover of the new paperback edition), as well as the factthat Dr. Calvin is 75 years old. If you are expecting to to read the movie in print form, don't bother with this book; you will be dissapointed.

Now, Hollywood expectations aside, I will say that Asimov weaved some excellent ideas into his novel. Rather than one main plot, the book actually consists of several flashbacks detailing the evolution of robots. None of the characters are particularly likable, but the Isaac's robotic theories and concepts are enough to keep you reading. Because the story relies of several flashbacks that are only loosely tied together, the book feels somewhat disorganized. Nevertheless, if you have an interest in robots, sci-fi, or are just looking for something different to read, I recommend this novel.

Even though the movie version is good and exciting, nothing and no one can compare with Asimov's tales of robots that set the stage for robots and androids for decades to come. Another really good sci-fi is a space opera called "Advent of the Corps". Not as good as anything Asimov has done, but really good.

Considering this book was written in the early 50's, I was extremely impressed with the detail Isaac Asimov went into with I, Robot. My father recommended this novel about the three rules of robotics and I was amazed at how, in each chapter, there was an aspect in a situation that caused a rule or two to be broken. I'm definitely looking into finding more books on this cool topic of robot theory.

I, Robot
Isaac Asimov
Reviewed by Leinad Laup
09-23-02
Isaac Asimov did a good job making I, Robot. The Author wrote about the future. The author writes as if he's really in the future. He is such a good author that you can actually believe it is real. It's freaky that this author would know that we'd walk on the moon or that we'd use sunrays to power the world someday. This author wrote this book I think, to inspire people to us his suggestions. I think in a way he shaped the future.
My favorite character throughout the whole book was Herbie the robot. Herbie, could speak telepathically and read people's minds. Yet the robot can't hurt the peoples feelings. If he does he thinks he breaking the first law of robotics. The first law is "A robot may not hurt a human being or, through inaction let a human being come to harm." This story continues and the people actually think he's telling the truth.
I thought these stories were amazing and that someone in the past about fifty years ago predicted this much. It's just amazing that he could come up with these ideas. He predicted that people would not only walk on the moon but on Mars and use the sun's light to power the world. He also predicted that robots would even exist. I absolutely loved this book!

Please read this classic work. It is not a perfect book, by any means but it is an entaining and thought provoking one.

The stupid 'action-movie' with Will Smith should be avoided like the plague - the are robots in it and it uses the same title as Asimov's book and that is where the similarity ends.

The people who made that movie clearly have no shame and it is an insult to one of the great American science fiction writers of the 20th century.

Let us hope that a real movie is made of this book ... one day! Will Smith & Co. should hang their heads in shame.

If you plan on seeing the movie before reading the book and expect the book to be the same, YOU ARE DEAD WRONG, the book is much easier of a read if you aren't expecting a story about a Detective Spooner solving a murder. You will find 9 short stories that are weakly linked that have to do with the evolution of he robotic mind that begins to see it's "superiority" to the human mind. I think the idea behind the book is more fascinating than the actual book itself is, the book just needs to connect the stories more openly, so that it's more flowing. I recommend reading each chapter as a story of it's own, and think you're starting a new book with each chapter. It is a good book but from reading this I think he really takes the back seat to such authors as, Jules Vernes, H.G. Wells, and Ray Bradbury.

This volume of interrelated short stories was written in 1950, so the shortcomings of style and characterization should be attributed to the sci-fi style of that time -- especially the extremely stereotyped geek-"lady" robot-psychologist Susan Calvin, who provides the framing device for the book (a journalist in 2057 is interviewing Calvin about her life as she is about to retire from a lifetime of working for U.S. Robotics). The movie credit is correct: it is "suggested" by these stories, not based on them. But the stories themselves in the book are a fascinating look at what a gifted sci-fi thinker in 1950 thought life with robots would be like in the 21st century.

Read the book first, immerse yourself in the three laws of robotics and how Asimov sees them play out, then see the movie for a totally different adventure.

The book I robot was entertaining and thats about it. Yes I know it was a milestone as one of the first books about robots ever. But his other works I consider to be much better.
The Foundation series is written superbly and is excellent. I Robot I found dull and a some what waste of my time. Its stories are not new. All concepts in the stories are all well known. If you really want to read some good Asimov read the Foundation series or the caves of steel. I found I robot to be Drono.

If you have never read an Asimov book before, this is defiantly the one you should start with! 9 solid stories, all grounded somewhere in the 3 principles of robotics. While some of Asimov's later stories can be quite challenging to read, especially if you font know his writing style well, this one is perfect for dipping your toes in and discover this amazing author. All 9 stories range from classic to good, with no really super weak stories, besides maybe 1 or 2. Check this out if you are even mildly interesting in Asimov, this book will not disappoint.

The first book in the famous, Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot" series was a let-down at the least. The rest of the series is probably better but I feel discouraged to go buy the other books after reading the first in the series. "I, Robot", the book, had many great short stories. They were exciting and thought provoking. The problem is, that when I bought this book I thought I was buying a novel. Not a collection of short stories. Don't be fooled! The movie was about the whole series, not the book. If you want action and fight scenes like in the movie, I'd skip the first book. The cover is very misleading. Will Smith is on the cover with a Police Badge but there is never a Police Officer in the book. I spent the whole book waiting for the action and police chases with robots and was never satisfied. Even after the last page. There is never a single action-packed scene, like the movie. I felt as if i was forcing myself through the book until I got to the exciting point, and it never came. The book was a good beggining to the series, but that was part of the problem. The book felt like those first three dreary and slow chapters in every book. It felt like you were waiting for the action too long. Isaac Asimov is a great author but I think the book "I, Robot" was a disapointment to many.

I, Robot is an interesting look at the philosphy and psychology of robots, but it is not really a novel. Instead, it is a collection of lengthy vignettes, each of which deals essentially with the solving of a logic puzzle requiring humans to figure out how robot minds will interpret the 3 laws. From that standpoint, it was certainly clever. Readers expecting to get a story like the one offered by the Will Smith movie, however, will be in for a deeply unpleasant surprise.