Required Robot Reading

Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov

As noted in my review on Robots Of Dawn, in his later years, Isaac Asimov returned to the Science Fiction writing that he had abandoned at the end of the 1950s, favouring straight science books as his contribution to the space race and the Cold War in general.

However, he didn't start writing brand new stuff -- he either revisited old subjects (e.g., the rewrite of Nightfall) or wrote new books in old series. Robots and Empire is a book that bridges two series (well, four in some senses) and provides the vital link that pulls all of Asimov's Universe together.

Asimov's Universe

A brief discussion of Asimov's Universe is in order. There are four "parts" of the Universe: Robot stories; Lije Bailey novels; Empire novels and Foundation novels.

The Robot stories are largely set in our time or the near future, and discuss the development of Positronic robots. The main character of these stories is scientist Susan Calvin. Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" stem from these novels:

1) A robot may not cause a human harm, or through inaction, allow harm to befall a human.
2) Unless overruled by law #1, a robot must follow the instructions of a human
3) Unless overruled by law #1 or #2, a robot must protect itself.

The Lije Bailey novels (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn) are a bit further along in the future -- mankind has fragmented into the "Spacers," who live among the stars, and the rest of humanity, who live in underground warrens on Earth. These novels introduce the character Daneel Olivaw, a robot who is partnered with Terran policeman Bailey to solve a few crimes.

The Empire novels are all set very far in the future, and all three were written in the 1950s. The heart of the Galactic Empire is on a planet called Trantor, and Earth has become a radioactive backwater planet. This is probably the most overlooked era of Asimov's fiction and he did not return to the subject when he resumed writing fiction in the 1980s.

Finally, we have the Foundation series, in which the main character, Hari Seldon, attempts to quantify humanity through the science of Psychohistory in an effort to make planning for the future an achievable goal. The Foundation series ends, somewhat nebulously, with the novel Foundation and Earth, which was the last (in chronological terms of the series) novel Asimov wrote.

The real gap in the Universe was between Robots of Dawn and Pebble in the Sky, the first Empire novel. While RoD hinted at the means by which the Empire would be established, there was a clear hole (how did Earth become radioactive? what happened to the Spacers?) that needed to be filled, and the "finger in the dike" was the 1985 novel Robots and Empire.

Robots and Empire

The title should be enough of a clue -- the second Foundation novel was called Foundation and Empire and dealt with the relationship between Seldon's Foundation and the dying Galactic Empire. Thus, from the title one can grasp that this book is about the relationship between the robots (Daneel Olivaw and Giskard) and the future Empire.

The book, set 200 years after Robots and Dawn brings back Olivaw and Giskard from the previous novel, as well as Gladia, a Spacer woman that Bailey befriended in the novel The Naked Sun and again dealt with in RoD. Again, there is a mystery to be solved, dealing with a last ditch effort by the Spacers to put a halt to Earth's migration into outer space, but Olivaw has to fill Bailey's detective shoes. Being a robot, he finds this difficult to do, and much of the book deals with his efforts to think more like a human and less like a robot. However, his actions are tempered by the Laws of Robotics and he finds it more and more difficult to play the role of policeman.

As the book opens, we find that Gladia's former home, the planet Solaria, has been apparently abandoned by its inhabitants. This has caused some consternation among the Spacers, as it's viewed as another sign that their culture is diminishing, while the Earth and its "Settlers" are thriving, as predicted by Bailey 200 years before. However, the Solarians have left behind all of their robots, including a special kind that can apparently kill people. Given that the Laws of Robotics prevent that, and that a Positronic Robot could not be created without those laws, something is obviously afoot.

Gladia and the robots find themselves on a tour of the galaxy, with stops on Solaria, the settler world Baleyworld, and finally Earth itself. When the book ends, the major mystery is solved (if dealt with in a somewhat less than satisfactory manner) and the course towards the Empire is set.

Commentary (Major spoilers)

Note that the remainder of this review contains spoilers about all of Asimov's later writing. Please skip to the conclusion below if you have an interest in the series and have not read it.

A fair bit of this novel is Daneel and Giskard's discussions of the Laws of Robotics. I suspect that Asimov had figured out where he was going with the entire timeline and realized that the logical outcome didn't make sense if Olivaw was constrained by the three laws. The incident on Solaria is put there clearly so that Olivaw realizes that the laws of robotics can be modified, although I'd have to say that what happens with Olivaw (the creation of a "zeroeth" law) somewhat flies in the face of a fair bit of the Robot stories with Susan Calvin.

Do I like the way that this ends, with the death of Giskard and the assumption that Olivaw will go forth and "guide" humanity to Empire? Well, Olivaw has been set forth as a likable character since the first time we saw him (Caves of Steel) so it's not a bad conclusion, although installing him in the role of God seems a bit much. The combination of the Zeroeth Law and the ability to read and modify human thoughts makes his something of a benevolent dictator.

The gradual destruction of Earth, as put in place by the Spacer terrorist, is a sad event, but required to fit the scenario outlined in the 1950s Empire novels. I like the way that Asimov had Giskard reason out why this would (eventually) be a good thing.

So all in all, it's a sad ending, between the death of Giskard and the planet, but I guess that's the way that things had to be. Given man's dislike of robots, only the humanform Olivaw could really continue to be a part of society, and when he eventually shows up again in the Foundation series, you don't have much of a problem accepting that he managed to stick it out all those years.

Conclusion

This is a necessary novel to read if you are going through Asimov's timeline. While his writing style continues to be a bit melodramatic, it's a quick read and an engaging novel. I would not recommend this as an entry point to Asimov, though. There are far too many allusions to things past to make it a casual read that makes a lot of sense. Start with I, Robot and then go through the three Bailey novels before hitting this.

--A.D. Jensen