“To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and Metal;
Electricity and positrons. – Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed.
But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner,
better breed than we are.”
— Dr. Susan Calvin, 2057 A.D.
In a brilliant, chilling series of nine related short stories,
the author chronicles robot development from its crude mid-twentieth century
beginnings to a state of such perfection that a hundred years later robots
are running man’s world for his own good. Dr. Asimov has endowed his mechanical
creations with disarmingly human personalities – from Robbie, the beloved,
mute nursemaid of an eight-year-old girl, to Stephen Byerley who was elected
first World Co-ordinator.