Rating: Summary: science fiction detective mystery continues [no spoilers] Review: "The Robots of Dawn" is the third fascinating novel in the awesome science fiction series involving Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. The gifted roboticist Han Fastolfe asks the agoraphobic (afraid of open places) plainclothes cop Elijah Baley, since he solved previous mysteries, to unravel a crime committed on Aurora. The offense entails the murder of one Jander Parnell and as Fastolfe is the most likely candidate to have caused the crime, he trusts only Elijah and Daneel, a technological masterpiece restricted in his behavior by the Laws of Robotics, to pursue the case. Although Elijah faced the open airs of Solaria, he will struggle with his phobia on Aurora while becoming accustomed to the robots of a different society. Another lovable robot enters the picture to associate with the dynamic duo in the crime solving process. The story is well written and kept me interested throughout with a gripping ending.Thank you.
Rating: Summary: science fiction detective mystery continues [no spoilers] Review: "The Robots of Dawn" is the third fascinating novel in the awesome science fiction series involving Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. The gifted roboticist Han Fastolfe asks the agoraphobic (afraid of open places) plainclothes cop Elijah Baley, since he solved previous mysteries, to unravel a crime committed on Aurora. The offense entails the murder of one Jander Parnell and as Fastolfe is the most likely candidate to have caused the crime, he trusts only Elijah and Daneel, a technological masterpiece restricted in his behavior by the Laws of Robotics, to pursue the case. Although Elijah faced the open airs of Solaria, he will struggle with his phobia on Aurora while becoming accustomed to the robots of a different society. Another lovable robot enters the picture to associate with the dynamic duo in the crime solving process. The story is well written and kept me interested throughout with a gripping ending. Thank you.
Rating: Summary: science fiction detective mystery continues [no spoilers] Review: "The Robots of Dawn" is the third fascinating novel in the awesome science fiction series involving Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. The gifted roboticist Han Fastolfe asks the agoraphobic (afraid of open places) plainclothes cop Elijah Baley, since he solved previous mysteries, to unravel a crime committed on Aurora. The offense entails the murder of one Jander Parnell and as Fastolfe is the most likely candidate to have caused the crime, he trusts only Elijah and Daneel, a technological masterpiece restricted in his behavior by the Laws of Robotics, to pursue the case. Although Elijah faced the open airs of Solaria, he will struggle with his phobia on Aurora while becoming accustomed to the robots of a different society. Another lovable robot enters the picture to associate with the dynamic duo in the crime solving process. The story is well written and kept me interested throughout with a gripping ending. Thank you.
Rating: Summary: Read for fun or to study artificial intelligence Review: ... With a backdrop of human cultures on several worlds with enormous social and political differences, the context of the story creates subtle plot lines that can be followed many ways. There is the crowded planet Earth, where the population has retreated under domes and no longer experiences weather and has extreme phobias towards robots. The Spacer worlds are sparsely populated, and the population avoids human contact, except when necessary for breeding. Nearly all of the work on the Spacer worlds is done by robots, which outnumber the humans by hundreds to one. The Spacer worlds consider humans to be dirty creatures, harboring many infectious agents and it is socially unacceptable for humans to travel to Spacer worlds. However, there is no better investigator than Lije Baley, and when a prized robot on a Spacer world has it's mind destroyed, he is called from Earth to solve the mystery. Like Asimov's other robot stories, the plot hinges many times on conflicts arising from the three laws of robotics. So simple to state, the number of nuances that Asimov can generate from them is amazing. ... there are so many possible angles to the story that the ending was truly a surprise. At this time, no one really knows what the structure of the brain of the first truly intelligent robots will be like. However, it is certain that social and legal pressures will dictate that the three laws of robotics must be embedded into their behavior. Asimov has given us a glimpse into the future in his stories about robots and their potential behaviors. The scientific predictions may fail, but there is no doubt that he is accurate concerning the behavior of robots. ...
Rating: Summary: I couldn't put this book down Review: Robots of Dawn was the first fiction book that I ever read that I just had to finish. Before I read this great book I had read mostly non-fiction: History; economics; religion; political science; sociology; psychology. I had always considered fiction as non-reality, and it mattered not if I finished a fictional book. However, it all changed with this wonderful Science Fiction Mystery Novel. The Robots of Dawn made me a devoted Asimov Fan. I read every work of fiction that I could find that had been written by Isaac Asimov, after completing this wonderful novel. The Story shows an intuitive understanding of computers that few in the world could posses, and yet I understand that Isaac Asimov was not trained in the science of cybernetics. The man was pure visionary genius, to say the least. Asimov was not all science. He was very human. And humanness came through in this book and all the fiction written by the Grand Master. I can usually figure out who done it, in a mystery novel. They don't usually present a challenge to me. But in this one, I missed it. I had to know who had done the foul evil deed. Asimov hooked me from the start--the mark of a great mystery writer. Though there were many more in this series, and Asimov was big on series, he could take an idea and run with it forever, no other Asimov book was the solid mystery that Robots of Dawn is. The story was masterfully written by one of the three writers who established modern science fiction. Asimov said in one of his autobiographies, he wrote three autobiographies and they are all very interesting, that Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and himself, were considered to have laid the foundation for modern science fiction. I would accept that as fact. All these writers were great scientists. A scientist who can write fiction seems to have a great intuition for what is possible in science. Asimov certainly was a visionary in the field of Science. If you like Science fiction, you will love this great book. If you like mystery stories, and don't hate science fiction, you will adore this wonderful story written by one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time.
Rating: Summary: Interesting plot; too much dialogue Review: After I read the two first robot novels by Asimov - "The Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun" - and liked them so much it was with great delight that I started reading this third novel. It was also because I knew that it was written 30 years after the first two and that Asimov had begun to link his Foundation, Empire and Robot novels together. Elijah Baley, our hero from the first two novels, is again required to investigate a murder. This time he has to travel to the Spacer world Aurora. But the murder is not an ordinary one. It is a humanoid robot that has been murdered and the prime suspect is the robot's creator who by coincidence is also the only roboticist on Aurora who prefers Earth to colonize the galaxy instead of the Spacers. Baley is on this mission again accompanied by his robot friend R. Daneel Olivaw - the now only existing humanoid robot - and a new robot Giskard who apparently posseses some extraordinary powers. The story takes place during the 3 days when Baley is on Aurora. But unfortunately like so many other of Asimov's later novels most of it consists of dialogue. It can be interesting enough at times but sometimes you feel that the characters are discussing the same matter over and over again. It can be pretty trivial and actually caused that it took me qiute a while to read through this one as it did not catch my attention as much as it might had, had there been more action and a little less dialogue. Of course I know that action is not something that Asimov is famous of but then again too much dialogue should not be it either. But the mystery part of the novel and the scope of the story is interesting enough. Just too bad that he spend so much time on unimportant dialogue
Rating: Summary: A Brighter Dawn Review: After reading this book I truly had more faith in mankind. I could not help to think that if Asimov could think like this there must be others that examined how we might interact with robots, aliens, or even people of different races, color, and so on. This book goes well beyond a great story about how robots impact the future of humans. It will make you think about many things as you are fascinated with how humans made a mess of things and robots behind the scenes rectified them at great sacrifice. A robot with a soul. A must read for anyone that enjoys any of Asimov's books or if you like Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, or any other good TV series like that.
Rating: Summary: Horrible Review: All the characters dialog sounds the same. Dull. Uninspired. 70 pages of dialog between 2 characters, broken up with "I noticed he stopped walking" and "I noticed we had stopped walking". This is one of the worst books I've read in a long time. It was like a philosophical debate on particle physics between 3 physicists. 95% dry, dull dialog. 5% interesting story. Horrible.
Rating: Summary: Daneel for President Review: Although I think there are better science fiction writers than Asimov, somehow his ability to pull one into a book always succeeds. This was one of my favorite of the gazillion Empire, Robot, and Foundation books that were all tied together (rather oddly, since they were written completely separately, but with fun twists) by Asimov toward the end of his life. If you are an Asimov fan or a fan of respectable writing, this book, plus the other robot novels, will please you.
Rating: Summary: Daneel for President Review: Although I think there are better science fiction writers than Asimov, somehow his ability to pull one into a book always succeeds. This was one of my favorite of the gazillion Empire, Robot, and Foundation books that were all tied together (rather oddly, since they were written completely separately, but with fun twists) by Asimov toward the end of his life. If you are an Asimov fan or a fan of respectable writing, this book, plus the other robot novels, will please you.
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