This book is about, you guessed it robots. I’ve always found it slightly disturbing that Asimov is so obsessed with robots in his books, and this has led me to avoid some of his works for a while now. I simply don’t see the attraction. Robots are interesting to an extent, but why do they have to play the crux of every single story you write. Ok, I know I’m exaggerating, but seriously, I was all in favour of the Foundation series (probably Asimov’s most famous books) until I got to the Thrd book (I think) Foundation and Empire; and all of a sudden Robots. Even in a book that has devoted nothing to robots previously robots became the hidden meaning behind everything. It just bugs me. Sorry, I don’t want to come off as a robot hater, I just think they get far too much attention in sci fi. Enough ranting, onto the book.
Robot and Empire is the fourth book in a Asimov’s robot series. I wouldn’t normally read the fourth book in a series, but my pickings are slim here in Africa and it turned out I knew more about it than I thought. I didn’t initially realize it but I did in fact know this series. Some time ago I listened to a book on tape of the first in the series Caves of Steel. Since robots are so long lived in Asimov’s world, even though this novel takes place 200 years after the events of that first novel, some of the players are in fact the same. As it was I didn’t have too much trouble with catching up. Asimov did a very nice job of recapping the previous stories without extraneous details. Robots and Empire itself finds the two robot heros of the previous novels in the series, Daneel Olivaw, and Giskard, in the service of the Spacer woman Gladia, attempting to track down an interstellar conspiracy to destroy the flourishing Settler movement that threatens the Spacer way of life.
What? Sound confusing? Ok, maybe it is a little complex, but really it does make sense. Daneel and Giskard are the two most advanced robots in existence. Daneel is practically indistinguishable from a human, and after many years working with them has come to reason in much the same ways of man. Giskard has, unbeknownst to anyone, the ability to read people’s emotions; that is not to say read their minds precisely, but he can feel their intent. These two robots, still guided by Asimov’s famous three laws of robotics, are in the service of Lady Gladia, a Spacer. Spacer differ from Earthmen, in that while they are both human Spacers are the descendants of the men who colonized the near earth planets in the distant past. After their colonization of 50 worlds, they stopped, and enjoyed their opulence growing more and more despondent to the woes of Earth. Eventually the Spacers came to the practical enslavement of Earthmen, who they resented and looked down upon. Recently, two hundred years ago or so, the Earthmen broke out of their subterranean cities and began re-colonizing the stars. But the Spacer’s now feel that their way of life is threatened by these Settlers, so now some Spacers are trying to provoke war between these two factions of humanity. In the middle of this empirical intrigue stand Daneel and Giskard, who may be man’s only hope of preventing war.
I really enjoyed this book for a few reasons. It plays like a classic mystery story, the characters plausibly fit right into the political thriller niche. But Asimov has written a story that involves a lot of exposition. This might sound boring, but somehow it isn’t. He writes mainly from the perspective of the two robots Daneel and Giskard, we follow their thought process as they unravel the deadly conspiracy, and subtly manipulate events to their ends. I really enjoyed the fact that no one around the robots had any clue as to what they were doing. But it was most interesting reasoning along with these two robots and seeing how the three laws of robotics stifled, or at least curtailed their thought processes. They literally cannot think of certain things and sadly, they are totally aware of this debilitation. If they came to a point where they must kill a man, will they actually be able to do it? That is what makes the book so interesting, the robots exploring themselves, is played out very sharply.
I know at the beginning of this review I sounded like I didn’t really like robots, but that really isn’t true. I do like the idea of them, I liked how this book in particular delved into the mind frame of two such characters. I just think we don’t need too many stories about them. Maybe I’m just a humanist, or perhaps I’m scared of a future populated by men and machines; but whichever it may be every now and then it does in fact pay off to read a robot story. Asimov may be obsessed with robots, and he may have written them into a great number of his books; but there is a reason he is such a revered writer, and there is further reason why he is the undisputed master of robot stories, he’s very very good at it. If you want a fascinating insight into the inner workings of a mechanical mind don’t hesitate to give this book a chance.
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