The Science Fiction Review Books,Robot and Foundation,Robot City Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 6: Perihelion by William F. Wu

Isaac Asimov’s Robot City Book 6: Perihelion by William F. Wu

Robot City 6: Perhelion book cover

As I stated in the general Robot City review, Isaac Asimov’s introduction to this book contains some major spoilers for the novel. Especially if you are reading the entire robot series in chronological order, I suggest not reading Asimov’s introduction unless you have finished both this novel and Robots and Empire. There are many spoilers for the rest of the Robot Novel series by Asimov also. This review will most likely contain spoilers for any previous books in the Robot City series, read at your own risk.

Doctors on Earth were able to cure Ariel of her sickness, but her memory was lost. Derec has shown signs of a sickness also, but doctors have assured him it is not what Ariel had. They finally escape and eventually Derec, Ariel, Mandelbrot, and Wolruf decide to return to Robot City to attempt to find a cure for Derec.

This book concentrates mainly on answering most of the questions that were developed in the rest of the series. Robot City appears to have covered the entire surface of the planet at this point. Derec must find out what Dr. Avery has done to him with the help of his friends. Some things are left unanswered, which frustrated me a bit. This seems a bit fitting because the climax opens the door for the next series, Robots and Aliens.

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When I heard about production of Star Wars Episode VII and the ensuing controversy about the Expanded Universe vs canon, I started thinking about reading Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy again. I first read the books almost 25 years ago! I decided that I didn’t really care if the new movies conflicted with the books. I remembered being blown away, so figured they were worth reading again. These books were a very important to me at the time because it was my first real taste of Star Wars outside of the theatrical films. There were other books released before this, but the Thrawn Trilogy marked the resurgence of my interest in Star Wars.

I’ll admit that I’ve been a bad reviewer and powered through the series without stopping to write my reviews. I normally read on my lunch breaks at work and have not had hardly any time outside of work and family life to devote to reviews as I did just a few years ago.

After reading just a few chapters of Heir to the Empire, I realized that there was quite a bit that I didn’t remember, including a rather large plot line that ran through the last two books (Dark Force Rising and The Last Command). Toward the end of The Last Command, I came across a huge plot twist that I had absolutely no memory of until just before it was revealed. I’m simply amazed at how much of this series I couldn’t remember. In a way, it was a blessing because I almost experienced the book for the first time again. This was kind of weird for me as I always thought I had an excellent memory when it came to books. I gave my wife a hard time about not remembering some fairly important stuff in the Wheel of Time series, despite her reading it at least 3 times through from beginning to end as new books came out. At the time I had only read the series once through. (more…)

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Have Robot, Will Travel book cover

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Nobody is sure when exactly Isaac Asimov was born due to poor record keeping. January 2nd, 1920 was the day Isaac Asimov decided to celebrate his birthday. Along with creating the Three Laws of Robotics, Asimov also unintentionally coined the term robotics. It was first used in print when his short story “Liar!” was published in 1941. He was constantly writing in just about every area of literature. I have primarily read his Science Fiction, but he has done textbooks, humor, mystery, non-fiction, and more.

My first exposure to Asimov’s writing was when my father gave me an old worn out copy of I, Robot. I tucked the book away for a few years and eventually got around to reading it. I was so enthralled with the robots that I eventually read every robot book by him and other authors. This naturally led me to read the Foundation series which I also enjoyed, but I’ve always preferred the robot series. The Robot and Foundation books make up the biggest reading project I have ever completed. Aside from those, I’ve read a bit of his autobiography and plan on sampling some of his other writing in the near future.

By the time I discovered Asimov, he had already died. I wonder how much more he could have written had he not contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart surgery. He died of myocardial and renal complications on April 6, 1992, but the true cause of his death wasn’t publicized due to the stigma of HIV/AIDS at the time. His work has greatly influenced my love of Science Fiction, and for that I am thankful.

For more information on the life of Isaac Asimov, please visit the official Wikipedia post