Isaac Asimov was one of the pioneers of the field of writing about robotics, and was most famous for his creation of the Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
These seem simple enough, but as with laws for humans, there can be many interpretations and conflicts that can arise out of using these laws. ‘The Rest of the Robots’ is a set of 8 short stories that all deal with robots, and many of them also have references to these laws as well as situations arising out of problems with the use of these laws. I found the collection to be very readable and interesting, and considering that most of these stories are more than 50 years old, not dated in any way. We have not had the development of humanoid robotics to the extent that Asimov had written about, so many of these are stories that we will still need to worry about.

The collection was released in 1964, and hence you can consider the book to be a very old book indeed, and yet when I was browsing through some Asimov books on an online bookshop, I found it easily available, which means there is a regular demand for it. The book starts out with a foreword by Asimov in which he explains about how books used to be about robots, they were seen as being part of the Frankenstein complex, where man created robots, and robots would destroy man, and this happened again and again. Asimov chose to move away from this concept, and wrote stories with far more complexity and depth.
The book has 8 short stories:
1. Robot AL-76 goes astray: A story in which a robot bound for the moon somehow manages to get loose on earth, and has to try and figure out its surroundings, especially when it has been fed only information about the moon. It creates a great new machine, but then destroys it when ordered to in mistake. A comedy.
2. Victory international: About projecting the power of robots, especially those constructed with a great deal of care to make extra-strong so that they can impress the ferocious inhabitants of Jupiter.
3. First law: About an exception when the power of the First Law cannot suppress the maternal instincts of a robot, and the robot is willing to let a human die.
4. Let’s get together: A political story about robots being used as terrorists. Showcases one of the biggest fears of humanoid terrorists.
5. Satisfaction guaranteed: One of the most complex stories of this volume. Deals with human emotions such as jealousy, envy and a feeling of low confidence, and how this interfaces with the First law.
6. Risk: About how the human mind can still be a much better instrument to deal with uncertainty and complexity rather than even the most complex positronic brain.
7. Lenny: About the maternal instinct in even the most seemingly hard-boiled scientist can come about when dealing with an under-developed robot.
8. Galley slave: A story which deals with the fear in a human about the advent of robotics and how this could totally destroy human creativity in a slow and gradual way.
The last 4 stories also had the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, whom Asimov used as a representative of the robopshycologist, the head in that area for US Robotics, and a pioneer in the development of robots.

If there are 2 things that Arthur C Clarke will be most famous for, my guess would be for his visionary work, including the concept of a geo-stationary satellite (most famously used to position communications satellites) and for his creation of the best seller 2001: A space Odyssey and its sequels (2010, 2061, and 3001). These were created for and along with an incredible movie of the same name by Stanley Kubrick. Together, this book, and the novel both captured the fascination with space (and its dangers), along with a fear of what an advanced computer (H.A.L) can do (somewhat similar to the fear of sharks that got positively entrenched with the movie Jaws).
Both the book and the screenplay for the movie went hand in hand, and were based on the short story ‘The Sentinel’ written by Arthur C Clarke in 1950. The novel was an important milestone in the history of science fiction, combining elements of man’s historical development, delves into development of space travel and the problems of differential gravity, aliens and the thought that there is a master race that kick-started human development, and then how mankind may not have worked out all the issues related to intelligent computers.

The book starts from an age long long ago (3 million years ago) when there were humanoid races in Africa. They managed to survive, only just, getting fruits and the like, and not knowing how to hunt. They had short life spans, and did not have either the feelings of attachment to each other, and would not have been able to do much either. They were at the mercy of wild beasts, with no instruments with which to defend themselves. And then arrives a rectangular black monolith that starts to delve into their minds, developing their minds. They learn how to develop tools from the natural materials at hand such as rocks and the sharp teeth of wild animals. And then they develop the thought of being able to even fight back against the wild animals that threaten them; and most important, get meat from the wild beasts roaming around them. Humanity gets kick-started, getting into a period of development that leads to us.
Cut to the present age. Humanity has started exploration on the moon, and there they discover something that astounds them. A sheer black monolith has been discovered underground in the moon, in a sector that the US controls, and the eminent Dr. Heywood Floyd is sent to the moon to do further investigations and help the scientists over there. He is told that they have discovered a magnetic disturbance in a site now called Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-One (TMA-1), and they discovered the monolith underground. It is clear that this is not a natural creation, and was actually created 3 million years ago, so this has to be aliens.
Soon, the lunar sunlight hits them, and the monolith, exposed to sunlight for the first time in 3 million years, sends a strong radio signal out that reaches the far extent of the solar system. Switch to the next episode in the book. A ship Discovery One carrying 5 astronauts and an advanced computer HAL 9000 is on its way to Saturn on an exploration mission. 3 of those astronauts are in a state of hibernation, and the remaining 2, Frank Poole and David Bowman, are the ones who are the ones who are supposed to be in charge of the ship (or more likely, be secondary advisors to HAL who can run the ship totally on its own).
The HAL 9000 is an advanced computer, but its designers had never thought about wondering about the impact of the orders it had been given to the intelligent brain. HAL had been given orders to conceal the real knowledge about its mission to both Poole and Bowman (to explore Japetus, the 3rd largest moon of Saturn, the destination of the radio signal from the monolith on the moon), and this was conflicting with its other orders to report all the information fully. This was causing a conflict, and in these strained times, when it felt threatened with termination, it actually decides to kill the astronauts.
So, first it kills Poole by reporting one of the critical AE35 units as malfunctioning twice, and then when Poole goes to investigate, killing him with his own space pod. Then when Bowman threatens it with shut-down, it opens the airlock of the spacecraft to the pressure of the vacuum. Eventually, Bowman gets to an emergency shelter, and then retakes control of the spacecraft by shutting down the circuits of the HAl 9000 computer. He also buries the 3 hibernating astronauts in space, and decides to complete the mission on his own control.
He reaches Japetus with a lot of help from mission control, and discovers a black monolith on the surface. While reporting all this to mission control, he decides to approach Japetus using his space pod, and when almost there, before the pod reaches the monolith, he sends out a final signal ‘The thing’s hollow — it goes on forever — and — oh my God! — it’s full of stars!’
Bowman goes through an extra-ordinary journey, realizing that the monolith is a giant switching system, similar to a ‘Grand Central Station’ of the universe. He sees things that he never thought that he would see, while in a protective shield that saves him from the surrounding regions (including a very close red sun). As he finally sleeps, his mind and memories are drained from his body, becoming a new immortal entity that can travel through space, a Star Child. Bowman now returns to the Solar System and Earth, and is now a very powerful entity, but unsure of what to do – something that he will eventually figure out.

Airframe is an interesting novel by Michael Crichton. It starts out with a normal flight returning back to Denver from Hong Kong when suddenly the whole plane starts to go haywire. The plane starts rapidly going out of control, and everything inside moves very rapidly, with passengers getting bounced around. And the plane declares a emergency off the California coast, and makes a rapid landing. A pretty horrific event. This starts the whole novel.
A typical event like this, which results in injuries and deaths to passengers will get investigated to the last bit of detail; after all, if there is a problem inside the type of plane, it needs to be found out so that the same thing can be avoided on other planes with other airlines. Part of the people who get affected by such an accident are the plane manufacturers, Norton Aircraft. They have to quickly figure out what went wrong, both to avoid scaring other airlines and to satisfy other stakeholders such as the media, shareholders, etc.

The person central to this novel is Casey Singleton, a divorced single mother who is currently the Quality Assurance Representative on the Incident Review team (the team who actually does these sort of investigations) at Norton Aircraft. She will also be the press spokesperson, a high pressure job. Unfortunately, for the investigating team, there are some constraints;
- The flight crew has already left the country
- There is a probable deal with the Chinese airlines for 50 aircraft, so this incident needs to be investigated accurately within a very short time
- The union has heard rumours about a vital transfer of technology to China, and is beginning to get hostile
AS the investigations start, Casey soon discovers that not everything is as it seems to be, and she could very well be the scapegoat. She also has to balance being a single mother on top of everything else. She is also getting attacked by a mediaperson out to get some sensational stuff. DOes she manage to do a good job and uncover the truth ?

The last review was the Volume 1 of this collection. This is the concluding review, taking on the stories in Volume 2 of this series. There are some great stories in this collection as well, and let’s get started on reading them.
Asimov has an incredible novel called ‘Nightfall’, about a society, not very advanced, that has 6 suns all around it, and does not know darkness. It’s scientists find out that the society has followed an unusual pattern, with society dying and taking rebirth every 2500 years, and almost at the same time, they discover the law of gravitation, and find that the 6 suns actually all go into an eclipse once every 2500 years, and the time for that is approaching. This society cannot stand darkness, and when the suns are all away, setting fire to society is the only response from the crazed crowd. Nightfall was developed from a short story, and this story is there in this Volume of short stories.
There are some very interesting stories – some stories about interaction with alien species such as ‘Green Patches’ – probably a form of precursor to the single super-organism concept used in his later novels; there is another moving story about conflict with an alien species in the story ‘Hostess’ – in fact, this is about a parasitic organism, ‘Breeds there a man’ is more about humanity being a lab species for a super species, C-chute is about the conflict with another species and the disparate group of people who get caught in this conflict, ‘In a good cause’ is a classic story where the focus is on inevitable conflict with another species and the different ways of getting humanity to focus on this conflict. ‘What is this thing called love’ is a humourous take at some of the same concepts.
‘What if’ deals with some what if scenarios in a relationship, and is a pretty intersting story, ‘The Ugly little boy’ is a story about the passion of motherhood and what it can make a person do, ‘Sally’ is an intersting story about a sort of robotics and how it can eventually seem scary, the same with ‘Nobody here but -’, ‘Its such a beautiful day’ is a great story about the wanting to escape from a closed society even when it is very comfortable. ‘Strikebreaker’ is a very moving story about the discrimination in a closed society and how they can make humanity veer off its basic sense of right and wrong,
In this second volume, Asimov was moving more towards a model of more conflict with other species, where eventually humans will strove to move into other worlds, and conflict is inevitable. It is possible that the basic nature of humanity being of a state of independence of thought, the possibility of humanity getting split is also possible.