Poul Anderson dispensed with humaniform robots in an early installment of his first future history where the first robot in the world is unemployed because human beings can used specialized machines and therefore do not need a non-specialized machine to do that for them, e.g., a man can sit in a self-driving car and therefore does not need a robot chauffeur. Consequently, after he has been scientifically studied, the first and only robot becomes an aimless wanderer. Anderson shows us an equally pointless form of immortality in the same collection.
The main parallels with Asimov are in
Genesis.
"'
They're a cleaner, better breed than we are.'"
-Isaac Asimov,
I, Robot (London, 1986), Introduction, p. 11.
This is the Susan Calvin quote that I alluded to
here, comparing it with a thought by Anderson's character, Christian.
I am looking for some more parallels.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I've come to prefer Isaac Asimov's short stories over his novels. But even the former, on reflection, suffered from the faults which made most of his novels so unsatisfactory to me. A certain flatness and colorlessness in describing backgrounds and characters.
Sean
Post a Comment