Book Review ~~ I, Robot ~

Today I read the book “I, Robot,” by Isaac Asimov, a compilation of interesting short stories about robots and the various dilemmas that come with them, as well as the Three Laws of Robotics. In one story, a mind-reading robot is created, but, because it wasn’t supposed to cause harm to humans, lies and can’t give any information of use. After all, telling humans something they didn’t want to hear would hurt them emotionally. The robot had learned why it could read minds, information which could be incredibly useful to the company that created it, but he couldn’t tell them, because even the most skilled mathematicians in the company couldn’t figure it out, and explaining it would embarrass them and hurt their ego that a robot had managed something a human couldn’t. In the end, the robot went insane because the “robopsychologist” had discovered this and was angry at the robot for lying to her; she tormented it with the dilemma and it broke down. In another story, a new and expensive robot had had its potential to avoid danger increased so that staying safe was almost as important to it as following human orders. It had been given a order that wasn’t phrased so that it seemed urgent and involved a relatively risky amount of danger, inducing a drunken state that caused the robot to leave the area he was supposed to do work at as the potential for being damaged increased and begin to return as it lessened. Eventually, one of the field “roboticists” sent to test it sent himself into danger, because, since the First Law was to keep humans from harm at all times and was a great deal more important than the other two, to the robot, the robot had to save the human. I really enjoyed the many stories in this book and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or other stories of Isaac Asimov’s. I would rate it 9.7/10.

Book Review ~~ The Immortal Bard ~~

Today I read The Immortal Bard, a short science fiction story by Isaac Asimov that can be found in a variety of anthologies and collections, including “Earth Is Room Enough” and “The Complete Stories, Volume 1”. The story is about a physicist, Dr. Phineas Welch, who, while drunk, tells an English instructor, Scott Robertson, that he can bring back the dead. At first, he claims, he tried bringing back Archimedes, Newton, and Galileo, but while they were intrigued by the many developments in science since their time, the cultures were too different and Welch had to send them back. As a result, he tried bringing back Shakespeare, thinking that Shakespeare would have a “universal mind” and be able to live with people centuries in the future. Welch explained to Shakespeare that Shakespeare’s plays were held highly in regard even in modern times and that there were college courses on Shakespeare. Shakespeare had been fascinated at the idea, so Welch enrolled Shakespeare in one of Robertson’s classes on Shakespeare. Robertson, remembering a bald man with a brogue like Welch had described, began to wonder if it was simply a fantasy of Welch’s, when Welch explained that he’d had to send Shakespeare back to the seventeenth century. After Robertson asked why, Welch explained that Robertson had flunked Shakespeare! I really enjoyed the story’s humorous ending, since the idea of someone being flunked on their own work was extremely amusing as I read it. The story suggests that the hidden meanings everyone attributes to Shakespeare aren’t there at all, which I thought was a pretty interesting idea. I recommend it to anyone who likes Asimov or wants to read a lighthearted, funny story and would rate it 9.7/10.

Book Review ~~ Fantastic Voyage ~~

Today I read “Fantastic Voyage”, an exciting novel adapted from a movie and written by Isaac Asimov. The story is well written, containing elements of both mystery and adventure, and I really enjoyed it. Basically, five people, each with different abilities, are miniaturized and injected into a very important man’s bloodstream in a miniaturized submarine, hoping that they can destroy a blood clot with a laser (also miniaturized). However, they encounter a variety of problems at every turn, and Grant, the agent running the mission, begins to suspect that one of the people is deliberately attempting to sabotage the mission, perhaps because the man they’re trying to save could provide valuable information to Grant’s side, as he was a very intelligent man who figured out how to miniaturize people indefinitely and may have explained how to do so to the other side (only referred to as “Their side” in the book), in which case they would lose the war without the information; meanwhile, if he hasn’t, they’ll win the war with the information, meaning that the defector, if there is one, has a very good reason for wanting to ruin the mission and make it take longer than the allotted hour, after which they’ll enlarge to their regular size and kill the person they’re inside. I liked the story because it was a great mystery (I didn’t know who the sabotageur was until the end, or if there even was one) and it involved a nice blend of action and adventure. I would rate it 9.8/10 and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction, mystery, adventure, or Asimov novels in general.

Book Review ~~ How it Happened ~~

Today I read How it Happened, a very short and humorous story by Isaac Asimov. The story explains why, in the Bible, the creation of the universe happened in six days. Although Moses first began to explain how it happened in fifteen billion years, his brother, Aaron, realized that they would run out of papyrus, Moses would start stammering, Aaron’s fingers would fall off as he wrote, and no one would be willing to make ninety-nine copies of it (which was necessary for publication). Instead, Aaron insisted, Creation had to be fit into six days. It was an amusing explanation of how scientists’ version of the universe could be right (any version of how Earth was created could easily be substituted), portraying the two men, revered in the Bible, as brothers who had simply wanted to be able to publish their story. I enjoyed reading it immensely and recommend it to anyone who wouldn’t be offended by this parody of Biblical belief and wants to read a funny short story. I would rate it 9.6/10.

Book Review ~~ The Ultimate Catalyst ~~

Today I read The Ultimate Catalyst, by Eric Temple Bell. The author eased me slowly into the setting, not explaining the setting in detail at the beginning, as most authors seem to do, somewhat distracting the flow of their writing; instead, he slowly revealed information as events progressed in a completely natural manner. Though this led to some confusion at first about exactly what was going on, the characters’ circumstances were quickly explained, even if their motives weren’t immediately evident. I found the idea presented in the story of changing magnesium to iron or vice versa quite intriguing, and I thought that incorporating the small chemical differences between chlorophyll and hemoglobin was extremely interesting, especially since Bell was a mathematician who published his stories under the pseudonym of John Taine. Despite his background, though, he wrote skillfully, and the conflict between Beetle and Kadir was introduced cleverly, so that I understood Beetle’s motives, but not what he was going to do. Though the author revealed early on that Beetle considered Kadir a “dictating brute” and wanted to “handle Kadir”, I had no idea how feeding him “greenbeefos”, a source of the meat and iron Kadir desperately needed, was supposed to help until he revealed his plot. I enjoyed reading the story immensely and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or is just looking for an interesting short story. I would rate it 9.7/10.

Book Review ~~ What If . . . ~~

Today, I read the short story What If . . ., by Isaac Asimov. The story is about a young couple who are wondering what would have happened if Livvy hadn’t fallen into Norman’s lap in a car. Because of it, they ended up talking and were eventually married, but Livvy wonders if they would have ended up married had she not fallen into his lap. Suddenly, they discover a person called “What If” with a sort of television, and they discover what might have happened if the streetcar hadn’t swerved and Livvy hadn’t fallen into Norman’s lap. They were shown a variety of scenes, after which the two realized that even if events had occurred somewhat differently, that wasn’t reality, and it didn’t matter what might have happened, only what had happened. After all, there are millions of ways that things might have happened, but the difference would be that those people weren’t really ‘you’, the same way that you wouldn’t act the same way in a situation that you would have ten years ago or twenty years later; you change, and though you know that you used to be that person, you aren’t that person anymore. Similarly, in a “what if” machine, you know that you could have been that person, but you aren’t. I recommend this story to anyone who likes to think of “what if” questions or is looking for an interesting, short story and would rate it 9.8/10.

Book Review ~~ To Tell at a Glance ~~

Today, I read To Tell at a Glance, a short mystery; it can be found in “The Winds of Change and Other Stories”, by Isaac Asimov. I found Asimov’s actual writing wonderful; he drew me into the plot and told me of the situation without having to explain any of the history behind the events from a point of view other than the narrator’s; a relatively difficult task, as the story, typical of Asimov, is set in a completely different world and time. I found his writing extremely skillful, but in introducing the story’s setting so that readers would know the intricacies of the plot beforehand, he revealed the crucial clue to the mystery and capitalized on it noticeably, so that it isn’t impossible to figure out beforehand how the main character, Elaine, realizes who the impostor is; in the story, there are thirteen “Orbital Worlds”, and Elaine wants them to form a union and gain independence. She lives on the Orbital World Gamma and is providing a tour for five tourists, one of whom (her informer believes) is someone from Earth who wants to sabotage the union by sabotaging Gamma, where the union’s strongest members are; however, as each is from a different Orbital World and the others are probably important members of their own worlds, simply detaining each of them would offend the others and further delay the independence Elaine and her group desire. Though the mystery was solved easily, Asimov wrote the plot and story behind it with skill, and I would rate it 9.5/10. I recommend it to anyone who likes mystery, Asimov, or science fiction.

Book Review ~~ Fahrenheit 451 ~~

Recently, I read the book “Fahrenheit 451”, a science fiction story by Ray Bradbury. Though I found the world in it extremely different from the world of today–one where firemen start fires to burn books instead of ending fires–it was also highly intriguing, and I enjoyed reading about the main character, Guy Montag, and his exploits very much. I also liked Clarisse, who, though she seemed rather odd in the beginning, proved to be enlightened and thoughtful. Many of the characters in the book proved to be well-developed and multidimensional, a stark contrast to the deliberately boring dullness of the people who conformed to society, like Montag’s wife, Mildred. Bradbury wrote “Fahrenheit 451” skillfully, making me wonder whether the sluggish people in the book could ever become the future, as people learn to rely on technology ever-increasingly every day. I hope not, since the multitudes of unthinking characters in the book, though most were not explicitly named, seemed like an extremely unfortunate future for human beings. It reminded me somewhat of the Eloi in “The Time Machine”– like them, the human beings in the story flourished so much that they didn’t have to study or learn anything, and as a result their culture declined. I recommend this book to anyone who likes science fiction or is simply looking for a thought-provoking book and would rate it 9.8/10.

Book Review ~~ The Dying Night ~~

Today, I read the short story “The Dying Night”, another mystery written by Isaac Asimov. Again, the mystery seemed to be almost impossible to solve, but for a crucial piece of evidence, and I enjoyed reading the story, as Wendell Urth was, amazingly, able to come up with the necessary evidence to solve the mystery. Three astronomers were meeting at an astronomical convention; they had been classmates ten years ago, but had all left for different planets—Talliaferro to the Moon, Kaunas to Mercury, and Ryger to Ceres. Villiers, however, who had been the best of the four handpicked astronomers, had gotten rheumatic fever and was unable to get a doctorate or even leave Earth. He sent a letter to the other three, though, announcing that he had found a method of mass transference and would soon be able to go to each of those planets. He visited them, briefly, and later on they went to his room, but they decided that he must be mad and thought little of it. Shortly after their visit, though, Mandel—an important astronomer—received a call from Villiers, discerning only the  word “classmate”, but when he called back, Villiers was dead, and the paper on mass transference, which Mandel said had been real, was destroyed. The undeveloped film was found on a windowsill, but the sunlight had already destroyed it. Mandel asked his friend, Wendell Urth, to help him solve the mystery, and Urth was successful. I really enjoyed reading the story and would recommend it for anyone who likes Asimov, mystery, or wants to read an interesting story, and rate it 9.8/10. Can you solve the mystery?

Book Review ~~ Rain, Rain, Go Away ~~

Today I read “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” by Isaac Asimov, a science fiction story set in the future. It seemed to be a normal, even slightly boring story at first, but the ending was shocking and explained the slight peculiarities in the Sakkaros, an otherwise reasonably normal family. Their house was unbelievably clean, and when Mrs. Sakkaro poured water for Lillian Wright—one of the main characters in the story—she didn’t spill even a drop of water. When Lillian invited Mrs. Sakkaro to the park, Mrs. Sakkaro was very careful to confirm that the weather would be fair before agreeing, going as far as to check every newspaper. I considered these traits rather odd, but I didn’t realize that they were all because of a far greater, far stranger secret that was revealed once even a drop of water touched them. Although I felt sorry for what happened to the Sakkaros, I enjoyed reading the story very much, as its plot was carefully woven together to provide clues as to the Sakkaros’ secret, but not reveal it until the rain hit them, and it was a wonderful mystery that intrigued me because I hadn’t even noticed the oddities and considered them to be anything more than simple peculiarities. I would recommend this story to anyone who likes Asimov’s other stories, sci-fi, mystery, or is simply looking for an intriguing, short mystery story and rate it 9.8/10.