Beginning

I have a pretty limited attention span when it comes to books. I usually find myself starting a book and then getting bored with it a fourth of the way through and discarding it. Because of this, by far the most important part of a book for me is the beginning. If that opening chapter or couple pages or what have you doesn't grab my attention and really hold on tight, chances are I'll lose interest. This book does an excellent job of grabbing my attention with the first short story, entitled Little Lost Robot. It tells the story of a space station that goes into alert mode upon realizing that one of their robots has escaped. This robot is a danger to the outside world because it is not programmed with the First Law of Robotics, which prevents all robots from harming humans in any way. The robot has disguised itself among 62 other identical robots aboard a cargo ship. Robot psychologist Dr. Susan Calvin has been called in to help identify the escaped robot. What unfolds is a story of suspense and intrigue as the psychologists begins conducting test and investigations to reveal the hiding robot. It comes to an exciting finish with the robot being very cleverly tricked into revealing itself. Very gripping stuff indeed.

Robot Dreams

Title: Robot Dreams

Author: Isaac Asimov

DOP: 1986

I chose to read this book 1) because it was recommended to me by a friend and 2) because I am a somewhat of a science fiction fan. I find the futuristic worlds created in sci-fi novels very interesting because of how much room they leave for imagination. Another reason I chose this book is because I am familiar with Asimov and some of his other works such as I, Robot. I expected this book to full of your typical sci-fi stuff such as robots (duh), aliens, space travel, futuristic gadgets, etc. In addition to all this I expected it to be compelling. So far it has been living up to all these expectations. It's a collection of short stories which makes it more interesting to read because the characters and settings are constantly getting refreshed. Some of the stories can end up a bit bland when they decide to take a turn for the worse and go into detailed descriptions of the laws of robotics or some other such none sense. However, this rarely happens, most of the stories thus far have been exceedingly compelling and often times even suspenseful. I look forward to reading more of this book.