The Science Fiction Review Books,Robot and Foundation,Robot City Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 3: Cyborg by William F. Wu

Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 3: Cyborg by William F. Wu

Robot City 3: Cyborg book cover

This review will most likely contain spoilers for any previous books in the series, read at your own risk.

This book has a nice intro from Asimov talking about cyborgs that is quite interesting. I always like reading these. Derec and Katherine have proven they didn’t commit murder, and stopped the rapid expansion of the city. They still stuck in Robot City though and are still searching for a way out. They are sidetracked by a rogue cyborg that escaped from a medical facility. I like the repercussions that are explored by transplanting a human brain into a robot body. The book goes by really quickly with lots of action and a few tidbits of information to keep the main plotlines going also.

2 thoughts on “Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 3: Cyborg by William F. Wu”

  1. I enjoyed the first two books in the series. The problem with this book was the constant repetition of the laws of robotics. I also was annoyed at the humans’ constant manipulation of the laws to get the robots to do what they wanted them to do. Robots never need to be reminded of the laws, they are programmed to follow them. Robots must do what they are told unless it interferes with the first law, so why the manipulation? I think the author needed to state the laws maybe one time and then the humans could have created the situations where the robots would have to follow the laws without the constant reminding.

    I did enjoy the plot line about the cyborg and the mental effects of becoming a combination of man and robot. I am hoping that the writing in the rest of the series goes back to the quality of the first two books.

  2. From what I remember, some of the books in this series are better than others. Since they are all done by different authors, the next one might be better. I think that Prodigy was one of my favorites of the six. Unfortunately, this same author (of Cyborg) is the author of the last book as well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please prove you are a human * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Post

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. MillerA Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

Book Cover

A while back a co-worker of mine gave me A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. It sat on a shelf for a few years until I recently got around to reading it. I didn’t really know much about the book when it was given to me, but since then I’ve seen it on a few “Best of SF” book lists. It also won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. There are three parts to the book, each taking place a few hundred years apart.

The setting of the first part takes begins in the 26th century. At some unspecified time in the past, the world all but destroyed in a global nuclear war. Almost all the secrets of modern technology were lost in what would later be described as a purge. The mob of humans left alive banded together to destroy all knowledge that could lead to another nuclear war. There were book burnings and hangings of scientists. The story follows group of monks that have built an abbey in the desert to house the Memorabilia as they refer to books, technical manuals, and other bits of information that are uncovered over time. Their patron is a man by the name of Leibowitz, who was hung during the purge just after the first nuclear war. (more…)

Flatland by Edwin A. AbbottFlatland by Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland Book Cover

I’ve been meaning to read Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott for some time now. I’ve seen it lying around the house here and there for many years. My wife actually acquired this book as part of her required reading for a “Sensation and Perception” course in college. I ran across it again when packing up my Asimov collection to bring up to my sister in Minneapolis. It was a short read, which was refreshing after some of the longer books I’ve been tackling recently. (more…)

Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 1: Odyssey by Michael P. Kube-McDowellIsaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 1: Odyssey by Michael P. Kube-McDowell

Robot City 1: Odyssey book cover

A man wakes up in an escape pod with no memory, and only his space suit with Derec written on it to tell him what his name is. He has no memory whatsoever of anything before he woke up. The main plot of the series revolves around Derec’s search for his identity and a way to recover his memory. We are introduced to robots that don’t necessarily behave how we would have thought. They do obey the Three Laws but there are new twists involved. We also get to see aliens, something that Asimov had not really explored in his own writing. Overall, there is quite a bit of action in this first book and it should keep you interested enough to finish the rest of the series.