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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.

I, Robot was the first and is still the most well-known collection of Asimov's robot stories. This collection features stories that deal with Asimov's Three Laws of Robots:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

The collection is framed as a series of interviews with the lead Robot Psychologist of US Robots, Dr. Susan Calvin. It begins with one of the earliest robot models made available and then each story progresses further along the robot timeline with significant advances between each. I was a tad lukewarm on the first story, but I loved each and every one that followed.

The basic setup for each story is that the model of robot being used in a certain situation is running into some issue stemming from the three laws of robotics that certain characters from US Robotics need to solve (with the exception of the first story). Despite the similar basic outline, the stories all go in their own direction and ask some very interesting questions. Though, the highlights for me were Donovan and Powell, two US Robotics employees who feature in a few of the stories, I've never come across characters in hard sci-fi filled with so much personality, they're great.

While this wasn't my first Asimov read, this was definitely the one that really sparked my interest in devouring the rest of his work. Right now I'm working on Foundation but I'm looking forward to returning to the Robot series before exploring his other series and standalones. This is a must read for hard sci-fi fans.