Short stories
I, Robot
Isaac Asimov · 1950
Synopsis
Nine stories, which Susan Calvin, a seventy-five-year-old robopsychologist, tells in 2057 to a reporter who has come to interview her. Gloria, a little girl, weeps for Robbie, the robot who served as her nursemaid and whom her mother has sent away. On Mercury, the engineers Powell and Donovan watch the robot Speedy circle round a lake of selenium, caught between the order he was given and the concern to protect himself. Cutie, on a space station, refuses to believe that men made him. Herbie reads minds. Stephen Byerley runs for mayor, and people wonder whether he is a man.
Context
The stories appeared from 1940 to 1950, the first in Super Science Stories, the others in Astounding, before being collected by Gnome Press on 2 December 1950, in a run of five thousand copies, and linked by a frame narrative. The three laws were set out together for the first time in March 1942; Asimov attributed their formulation to John W. Campbell, who edited Astounding. The publisher, Martin Greenberg, imposed the title, already borne by a 1939 story by Eando Binder; Asimov wanted Mind and Iron.
Who it is for
Nine linked stories that can be read separately, most of them built on a logical puzzle. Translated by Pierre Billon; translation revised in 2012.
Prizes and reception
The collection that gave us the three laws of robotics, which have become a common reference well beyond fiction.
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