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Robot Dreams (The Robot Series) Kindle Edition
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateFebruary 12, 2012
- File size3173 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Classic science fiction...includes many of Asimov’s best.”—Chronicle
“The collection gathers 20 of Asimov’s greatest (with Asimov, the word ‘great’ is no mere hyperbole), older short stories, plus one new tale written especially for this book, and an important essay which opens the book.”—Starlog
About the Author
Isaac Asimov (19201992) was born in the Soviet Union and came to the United States in 1923. He earned his PhD in chemistry in 1948, and in 1958 became a full-time writer. His writings include the Foundation Trilogy; I, Robot; Tomorrows Children;and numerous works of nonfiction touching on a range of scientific topics. Among his accolades are six Hugo awards, a SFWA Grand Master Award, and high praise from such luminaries as Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gene Roddenberry.
Product details
- ASIN : B0078W0X14
- Publisher : Byron Preiss Visual Publications (February 12, 2012)
- Publication date : February 12, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 3173 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 401 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0441731546
- Best Sellers Rank: #375,120 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Isaac Asimov (/ˈaɪzᵻk ˈæzᵻmɒv/; born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov; circa January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was prolific and wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.
Asimov wrote hard science fiction and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, he was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers during his lifetime. Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation Series; his other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series. The Galactic Empire novels are explicitly set in earlier history of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series. Later, beginning with Foundation's Edge, he linked this distant future to the Robot and Spacer stories, creating a unified "future history" for his stories much like those pioneered by Robert A. Heinlein and previously produced by Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson. He wrote hundreds of short stories, including the social science fiction "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America the best short science fiction story of all time. Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name Paul French.
Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction. Most of his popular science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. He often provides nationalities, birth dates, and death dates for the scientists he mentions, as well as etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Examples include Guide to Science, the three-volume set Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery, as well as works on astronomy, mathematics, history, William Shakespeare's writing, and chemistry.
Asimov was a long-time member and vice president of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly; he described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs". He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, a crater on the planet Mars, a Brooklyn elementary school, and a literary award are named in his honor.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Phillip Leonian from New York World-Telegram & Sun [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the stories mesmerizing and amusing. They also appreciate the great writing style and great book collection.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the stories in the book mesmerizing, thought-provoking, imaginative, and amusing. They also appreciate the author's introduction, which explains what he got right in predicting the future.
"...Asimov's introduction is amusing; he explains what he got right in predicting the future--and what he got spectacularly wrong...." Read more
"...The stories are highly sophisticated in their scientific or mathematical approach and well-thought out plots...." Read more
"...It's my 1st Asimov reading.I loved it. It's imaginative. But best of all, I have a new fave short story. Not the 1 recommended...." Read more
"...The stories themselves are pretty good. Not his best, but pretty good. The few Robot and Multivac stories in it were great...." Read more
Customers find the writing style great, engaging, and metaphorical.
"From a good time and the style is fully engaging.I could feel the promise of the time that this was written. QWERTY fun" Read more
"...He writes science fiction about space and robots, but his writing is beautifully human...." Read more
"The text is classic, but the Kindle edition of this book is full of OCR errors...." Read more
"...This kindle edition… eh, not so much. Formatted wrong, with several typos...." Read more
Customers find the book collection great and a perfect classic.
"Wonderful used copy. A gift to my boyfriend and he's so happy." Read more
"AS AN ETERNAL FAN....MAY I SAY THAT THIS IS ONE OF HIS BEST COLLECTIONS. I DON'T THINK THERE IS ONE STORY OR BOOK I HAVEN'T READ." Read more
"Great collection...." Read more
"A perfect classic..." Read more
Customers find the kindle version of the book terrible.
"...; however, the production values on the Kindle version of this book are terrible...." Read more
"Great book, terrible kindle edition..." Read more
"Great Writing. Poor Kindle Edition...." Read more
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Many other stories in this collection center on "Multivac," an immense computer. The name is an obvious derivative of UNIVAC, a large, vacuum-tube based computer of the early 1950s. UNIVAC became famous for predicting that Eisenhower would win the 1952 election based on early returns (against pundit predictions that Stevenson would win). That led directly to one story, "Franchise," which takes the ability to sample a small number of votes to predict a total election outcome and drives the idea to an absurd (but nevertheless interesting) extreme.
There are a variety of other stories, from ones dealing with beings without bodies to one talking about an alien medical investigator who has come to Earth to find out more about a disease. All are worth the read, and some are truly fascinating and end in very unexpected ways.
Ralph McQuarrie provides the cover illustration and several others for individual stories; they are of the style familiar to anyone who has seen original art from "Star Wars" (which he worked on). Asimov's introduction is amusing; he explains what he got right in predicting the future--and what he got spectacularly wrong. He discusses this with respect to both stories in the book (Multivac, for instance) and to other books and stories he had written decades earlier.
All in all, this book was a fun read.
I loved it. It's imaginative. But best of all, I have a new fave short story. Not the 1 recommended. And not widely known! It's called The Billiard Ball. And I read the last few pages grinning ear-to-ear.
As in all collections of stories, I found some better than others. But I never found 1 that I didn't like outright. (how often can that be said?) And ALL the stories are thought provoking (how often...?)
It's robot stories (only a few) made me think "How could they've made 'I Robot' better?"
The disclaimer/introduction is interesting too. Written in the 80s as an old man, it's not so much of his mea culpa of things he got wrong, but the timeline of his writing that impresses. 1st story he wrote was in 1939 when he was 19! Think of the (lack of) technology back then and these stories jump off the page!
The art is pretty cool, too. Kind of makes me want to buy a giant poster of the cover.
I won’t review the stories, there is plenty of information out there on Asimov and his writing, this review will only be for the Kindle copy.
Unfortunately, the publisher put close to no effort in providing their readers with a properly formatted title. The table of contents has at least one glaring error where one of the stories is a subheading of the one before it. Then there are OCR errors, spacing errors, paragraph break errors throughout the book.
The errors break up the flow of the story as you run into sentences that do not make sense and you have to pause and think to realize you’re running into an OCR error.
Overall, the stories can still be enjoyed but it’s highly disappointing to see that the publisher puts so little effort in providing a quality product to their paying customers.
I wish Amazon would use it’s muscle in situations like this to force quality checks. The publisher can correct the issue or Amazon can hire an editor to do it for them and simply take all proceeds from the sales of the books till Amazon recuperates their editing expenses.
Top reviews from other countries
Contos como o Robot Dreams, The Last Question, Bicentennial Man, fazem este exemplar valer cada centavo.