Robot Dreams

The journey through Isaac Aimov's Robot series continues.

As with most books I have purchased recently the search usually begins and ends with ebay. There seems to be less and less opportunity to buy older Science Fiction material from Second Hand shops (there seems to be less and less Second Hand Shops too -maybe there is a relationship here?). And I would love to be able to spend time hunting these books out. Nothing beats stumbling across just the book you want, or finding a gem hidden in the dark corner of a musty smelling old book shop. More of my love of Second Hand book shops in a future post.

It would be fair to say that when you want something, and in this case I needed something, to continue my march through the Robots of Asimov, then ebay was the place to go.

The Illustrations in this copy were a nice touch, and it was interesting to compare my own mental projection with an artists impression (and presumably Asimov's idea) of the Robots. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King was much richer for the illustrations that accompanied those books, particularly the original publications of The Gunslinger and Drawing of the Three.

Robot Dreams collects the title story (written for this collection) and previously published stories from the authors immense back catalogue. Some I had previously encountered in prior Robot collections.

The majority of the stories are very good, and 3 in particular are simply breathtaking.

The Last Question was the best of the bunch, and you can see why Asimov ranks this as his best. The concept is frankly mind boggling and has made me think more than any other story.

The Ugly Little Boy is a beautiful tale capturing the love and bonds that only come with parenthood. I was willing the conclusion to the story to be as it was leading towards its climax, and am not ashamed to admit reading the last few lines through glazed eyes.

The Billiard Ball was very clever and left the reader questioning the motives and actions of the lead character.

Lest We Remember, which completes the book, had more than a passing similarity to a recent film - Limitless. I'm not sure if the film was loosely based on the book, but the central ideas were almost identical.

Robot Visions next...which appears to include all but 3 stories that I have already come accross. The review of that book should be a bit shorter.