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Robot Visions cover art

Robot Visions

By: Isaac Asimov
Narrated by: Graham Winton
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Summary

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions - 36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales - gathered together in one volume.

Meet all of Asimov's most famous creations: Robbie, the very first robot that his imagination brought to life; Susan Calvin, the original robot physchologist; Stephen Byerley, the humanoid robot; and the famous human-robot detective team of Lije Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw, who appeared in such best-selling novels as The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire. Let the master himself guide you through the key moments in the fictional history of robot-human relations - from the most primitive computers and mobile machines to the first robot to become a man.

©1990 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. (P)2015 Recorded Books

What listeners say about Robot Visions

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Fantastic

Fascinating man a real inspiration. Listening to his stories and to think some were written nearly 80years ago and so relevant today.

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5 people found this helpful

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Great selection, but too limited

Great selection, didn't have all the stories referenced in the essays at the end.

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3 people found this helpful

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Long on imagination: short on writing style

Asimov is a legend, no doubt about it. Maybe the biggest name in US sci-fi until Herbert's "Dune" novel scooped all the pools, and without dropping out of favour over the decades is still spawning movies and audiobook versions of that increasingly feeble book set. Seen as a cash cow by younger Herberts who carry on producing - or having produced? - spin-offs.
But before Dune, Asimov had nearly all the respect from a public hungry for easyread stuff set in a near future where science had advanced greatly from the period of publication.
This public was after stories. And Asimov-stories it certainly got. But where Asimov showed weak was in his writing style. It's peppered with - for instance - guys called Donovan who seem to know next to nothing about handling robots, who behave and talk like aggressive Irishmen in Irish bars - after sinking several jars of Guinness. He repeatedly insists on reiterating his hyperfamed 3 laws of robotics, despite there being not one fan who couldn't recite them letterperfect if wakened from a deep sleep and ordered to do just that.
The stories do tend to share motives of miscreants, and an inability to understand that robots are literal and if told to "go lose yourself" will most likely go do exactly that, and remain unfindable forever. The robots are usually pretty well perfect, the humans around them - and programming them - are usually flawed specimens - suggesting that the staffing depts placing these square pegs in such illmatched round holes might themselves not have been especially excellent choices.
The tales in this collection are roughly what's to be expected from Asimov. Single-handedly, he generated a worldwide fascination with artificial life forms that extends right into the present day. And without that ground work I think it unlikely that Roddenberry would have come up with Spock in TOS, or Data in TNG.
Dialogue is not Asimov's strength. His characters exchange speech that belongs in comics rather than serious books, but if you can filter such possible objections away, try to do so - because this setter of trends has a great deal to offer. As well as anthologies of robot stories, Asimov wrote a number of Sci-fi novels such as those of the Foundation saga, all worthwhile reads.
However, it's only fair to say too that these are now rather outdated works, as are all his writings nowadays in both content and style. Which sometimes can jar - and sit more poorly with todays readers than with those of works more removed in time such as Dickens', for example. (Not to suggest that Asimov approaches Dickens' giddy heights of excellence - he certainly never does!)

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Great selection and reading

Really enjoyed the essays and short stories. The narrater did a sterling job and is Asimov's voice to me now!

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repetitive but interesting

I felt that I'd read most of the short stories before in other collections. The essays were an interesting time capsule though, prescient in many ways.

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  • Overall
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Man becomes God, Robots become Man

Apologies for the sexist title, but it sounds more pithy than 'human'.
A journey looking at the psychology of the Robot, constrained by the 3 laws of robotics. This IS a book that I will enjoy again. But in a revised order.
The performance is excellent and I'd like to believe just how the author would have wanted the robot to sound.

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  • Overall
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Fabulous

Wordy in depth exploration of all things Robot by the genius himself who took us into that realm so breathtakingly.

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perfect

beautifully imagined and written, with such prescience.
Sally and Bicentennial Man stand out, but every short story is perfect.

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Great stories and Interesting Essays

I'd previously read some of Asimov's work, but most of these stories were new to me; I greatly enjoyed them, particularly 'The Bi-Centennial Man' which is now one of my favourite stories by any author. 'Evidence' was another favourite of mine, although I had read this before.

I also found the essays really interesting. They were written over 4 decades, from the 50s to the 80s, and it is interesting to see how Asimov's ideas progressed through time, and with advancing real world robots. It's also interesting to look back now and see what parts of his predictions have already come true, what parts still have potential to come true, and what parts he got wrong.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Decent

Robot Dreams was better. Still, this was good as well. There is some small overlap between the two.

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