I, Robot
Isaac Asimov, 1950
Nine linked stories in which robots obey the Three Laws perfectly and still cause trouble, because the humans around them do not.
Isaac Asimov
Asimov's robot stories and Foundation novels share a plain, patient clarity: he sets a rule, then works out what it really costs. «I, Robot» is a good place to start, nine linked stories where the machines follow their instructions exactly and the trouble comes from people; «Foundation» begins on the capital planet of an empire whose long decline a mathematician has calculated. You read him for puzzles that turn on logic and consequence rather than action.
Feels like awe, curiosity and power.
Start with I, Robot.
Asimov coined the word 'robotics' in 1942 and set down the Three Laws that same year; he called the old fear of machines the 'Frankenstein complex.'
The strange comfort of learning that no one was ever in charge.
“But you are telling me, Susan, that the ‘Society for Humanity’ is right; and that Mankind has lost its own say in its future.”“It never had any, really. It was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand—at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war. Now the Machines understand them; and no one can stop them, since the Machines will deal with them as they are dealing with the Society,—having, as they do, the greatest of weapons at their disposal, the absolute control of our economy.”“How horrible!”“Perhaps how wonderful! Think, that for all time, all conflicts are finally evitable. Only the Machines, from now on, are inevitable!” Books by Isaac Asimov
Foundation
Isaac Asimov, 1951
A mathematician arrives on the capital planet of a galactic empire and finds that history itself can be predicted—and is running out.
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