Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I got this book on Saturday and finished it this morning. The movie with this title is based more on the last three books in this series. Very loosely based.

So did you like the book or movie more? Or are they so different they don't really compare?

The latter. They are so different they don't compare. If I really have to choose the book is better in my opinion.

I loved the first story, but after that, the love affair ended. It now seems to have all the charm of a powerpoint presentation.

I have some great powerpoints. I will find a youtube video that is one if my all time favorite powerpoints.

The First Rule of Robotics...

The Second Rule of Robotics

The Third Rule of Robotics

Zzzzzzzz.

Between that and all the bickering between the workers and the scientists, I feel like I'm trapped in a long, tedious work day.

I want to read more about Robbie!!!

Herbie is the one I was interested in...

I think Asimov's writing can be a bit of a jolt as it is so stark in comparison to others. I also wonder if that style is what made ideas stand out and so influential.

He just doesn't seem to have much of a feel for human behavior, with the notable exception of the first story. The Robbie robot character had more personality than anybody else in the book, IMHO, and he never had one speaking line!

The conversations between people are nothing like what real people would say, and there is SO much conversation. I have a hard time following it. I guess because it's so old, it seems funny to me that they have robots and the ability to go to other planets, etc. but the workers are still like Ralph Cramden. One guy in the Nestor story comes up and sits down beside his supervisor and lights up a cigar. Just seems a little "blue collar" for the future.

It's also hard to believe that they would have had the intelligence to actually create the robots, then not be able to figure out why they were exhibiting certain behaviors. The steps the scientists are taking to troubleshoot, are pretty lame for such intelligent people.

I don't know. Maybe for people who had never pondered the ideas of robots before, but we've been so saturated with it, it's hard for me to go back in time and understand what was influential about the stories.

Although I didn't love 2312, I found it much more interesting and easy to read than this.

(One caveat...I'm only about 2/3 of the way through. Still hoping for a big finish!)

Here is the powerpoint presentation I was talking about:

Asimov's writing reminds me a lot of Richard Matheson's writing. He wrote I am Legend, Hell House, The Box and many other stories. I think a lot of the writing from the 40, 50 and 60 comes across as stiff and even a little ludicrous. It shows how dramatically things have changed.

As for smart enough to make things and not understand how it works or what goes wrong....get a Nurse's drug guide and start looking up medications. You will see quite a few of them they really have no idea how the drug works. And then there is computer programming. I learned two languages years ago and would spend hours debugging a program on one machine only to have it not work on the computer next to it. I remember one program in particular we never got to work but I still got an A because when she printed out the code she could not find an error anywhere.

It is not uncommon for us to do things before we fully understand them and then ethically if we should do them.

I mean let's think about this interesting correlation I have never heard anyone talk about. In the 70's Microwave ovens became available. As their availability and use have increased so have cancer rates increased.

I'm still reading it...when I read it, I look at it as if its a alternate place and time. I do giggle about the iron being used for robots. When I stop and think about when this book was written and where the writer thought we be, the facts are we are not as far as he thought (flying cars)but at the same time we are so much farther(tablets, cellphones...). The book is much different than I thought and can't wait to see how it ends.

Same here. That's why I'm on the last novel of the robot series. written in 83.

While reading this I found myself sympathizing more with the robots than with the human beings throughout most of the stories. (Early on I was rooting for robotic world domination.) I didn’t really care for the humans in most of these stories. There was either too much feeling or not enough depending on the person.

Of the humans, I liked the Donovan/Powell relationship more than any of the others, but I still wouldn't say I liked them. My favorite relationship, however, had to be the Robbie/Gloria one. I loved this story and it's my favorite of the ten parts.

I didn't care for the journalist angle connecting the stories together. I think this is partly because I didn't find Dr. Calvin a compelling character and having her headline these interludes didn't appeal to me. (I also preferred the stories in which she was not a main character.)

One of the more frustrating issues I had with the stories is the inaction. I felt too much time was spent in dialogue and not enough time with the action scenes. While I recognize Asimov's importance to the genre his writing style is not a favorite of mine.

Jim wrote: "Asimov's writing reminds me a lot of Richard Matheson's writing. He wrote I am Legend, Hell House, The Box and many other stories. I think a lot of the writing from the 40, 50 and 60 comes across a..."

I have to agree with Jim on his point about humankind creating things without fully understanding the effect these creations may have on society or the environment. Now whether or not humankind can actually create a sentient robot or android that is truly aware is up for debate.

you ever notice how your computer only has to restart only when you are in the middle of something important and never when you are just messing around on facebook or something.

It's begun...they're covertly taking over the world. One computer at a time.

okay now im hearing in my head shang sung saying it has begun then mortal kombat and cheesey synthesized mortal kombat them. that song is gonna play in my head forever....

Amy, I was totally ready for the robots to take over the world. I was really looking forward to the big "showdown" that was touted on the book jacket, fully expecting some obscure violation of "robot rule #1" to result in armageddon.

Instead, I got another powerpoint presentation. I was like "I'm reading about yeast farming? REALLY???"

Denise wrote: "Amy, I was totally ready for the robots to take over the world. I was really looking forward to the big "showdown" that was touted on the book jacket, fully expecting some obscure violation of "rob..."

I think one of the reasons I was expecting a robotaclypse is because the movie is so action packed. While I knew the book and movie were only passing acquaintances I still thought that the last story would be a robot vs. human shootout. I was kind of disappointed that it didn't end this way and yet I kind of liked the idea of the machines taking over the world for the good of humankind.