Alternate Futures / One Past

I really enjoyed reading The Complete Robot. It is a collection of short stories about different types and complexities of robot. Not what you would expect as a riveting (not intended) read but it is there is a lot of emotion in some of the stories The Bicentennial Man being a prime example of this.

However the majority of the stories are of the “what could happen” variety some are simple like Runaround and some are more complex like Satisfaction Guaranteed these are mainly based on the now famous Three Laws of Robotics and what problems may arise by strict adherence to these laws.

One of the other main themes of the stories tends to be human prejudice towards robots. You could say that this has some thing to do with the Nazi's treatment of the Jews during world war 2 and that Asimov believed that Humans are always prejudiced against some thing they don't understand. But I think that is more my personal opinion based on what I have read about Isaac Asimov and a little reading between the lines.

Some thing that seems a little odd in the stories is that the robots in the stories become more advanced in the way that they think and feel and in their attitudes towards humanity. However the attitudes and language that the humans use in the stories never seems to change. It seems that it may be easier to postulate the future attitudes of robots than that of humans.

To summarise I would say that this book makes you think about the problems of creating a new inelegance. But it also shows you how much our attitudes have changed since these stories were first written.

Ice & McDonald's

I have just completed reading Dan Brown's, Deception Point. As always with Dan Brown books they good page turners took me only about a week to read this one for instance (I wouldn't say I am the quickest reader in the world). You can feel the motion in the book the characters never stay in the same place for more than a few hours. As an example he uses a F14 tomcat to fly the main character to the Arctic!? And after that little made for film moment he uses the aurora (fabled alien tech, super secret, super speed spy plane) to transport the delta team back to Washington DC. Not exactly subtle don't get me wrong I do like Dan Brown's books but they are a bit like McDonald's lots of people like it but it feels a bit like you haven't eaten anything when you've finished. I think the word I'm thinking of is shallow but that's a bit harsh, what I mean is that it lacks substance but just because its not War & Peace doesn't mean it's not a good book.

My first post what I want to do with my blog is make a list of the books I have read and am reading. I will make a small review or comment with a link to where you can buy the book if you are interested. I will also be adding in the occasional personal note about what is going on in my life.

I will say now that I am not a professional reviewer so if you think my review is bad then make a comment but make them constructive NO ABUSE PLEASE. I think that the purpose of humanity is to advance our understanding by communication of knowledge. So hopefully over time I will be come a better reviewer and maybe be introduced to books that I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.