Robots and Empire

In 1990 an American missionary who had lived in Curitiba for years was going back to the States and he gave a few boxes of books to a friend of mine. As the books were all in English, she passed them along to me. These boxes contained a real treasure trove. Among the many works were the three volumes of C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, which I had wanted to read for years. Once I had devoured these, I turned to the others. A whole row of books bore the name Asimov on the spine. I was just twenty-three years old and had only vaguely heard of the Good Doctor, but some of the titles piqued my curiosity and I began to read them. There were three of the five Foundation books. I enjoyed them, especially Foundation and Earth. At the end of this story, the heroes meet Daneel Olivaw, a 20,000-year-old robot. I had no idea that Daneel had featured in many of Asimov’s other stories. However, I was soon to find out that he was one of the author’s most popular characters. A couple of months later, I was at the Ghignone bookshop on Rua das Flores in the centre of Curitiba. They had a small bookcase of imported books (quite a luxury in those days) and I noticed that there was a title by Asimov: Robots and Empire. The blurb on the back informed potential readers that “Daneel has the finest mind in history. Giskard can adjust human emotions. Can two conscience-stricken robots save the Galaxy?” I was intrigued and immediately snapped up this Panther paperback. My reading of Asimov in late 1990 was somewhat patchy. By this time, besides those three Foundation novels and some of his non-fiction works such as Counting the Eons and Life and Energy, I had read a number of his short stories, including The Bicentennial Man, Feminine Intuition and Liar! So I was familiar with the Three Laws of Robotics. Now Robots and Empire would serve as my induction into the Robot novels. A year or so later I came across The Robots of Dawn at a bookshop in Mueller Shopping Centre in Curitiba. In 1992, on a trip to Scotland, I bought The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun at John Menzies on Argyle Street, thus completing the collection. The Robot novels are very special to me. There is some light-hearted debate among Asimov enthusiasts about which of his series was the best. Many readers prefer the Foundation series, and a subset of these readers prefers the first three that were penned in the 1950s over the two novels that continued the series in the 1980s (so to these people my preference for Foundation and Earth would seem like heresy). I love both series, but easily prefer the Robot books.

Robots and Empire is unusual for an Asimov novel because it is told mostly in flashback rather than in sequence. The story begins on the planet Aurora two hundred years after the events of the previous book, The Robots of Dawn. Gladia is sad to hear that her home planet of Solaria has been deserted. Levular Mandamus, an underling of the still bitter Kelden Amadiro, visits Gladia eager to find out if he is really the descendant of Elijah Baley. Giskard senses that Mandamus and Amadiro are up to something and he and Daneel are determined to find out what it is. Gladia also receives a visit from Baley’s many-times great grandson, who sweeps the middle-aged Gladia into space for a series of adventures. Mandamus and Amadiro hatch their plot. Dr. Fastolfe’s daughter Vasilia works out that Giskard is telepathic. We are also told details of the deaths of Elijah Baley and Dr. Fastolfe and other events that have taken place in the past two hundred years. The story climaxes with a visit to Earth, with Amadiro and Mandamus finally coming head to head against Daneel and Giskard. As an added bonus, Asimov manages to correct a scientific error he made in his first novel, Pebble in the Sky, and also tie the Robot series in with the Galactic Empire stories and the Foundation saga.

This is one of my favourite books of all time. Asimov was at the zenith of his writing skills in the mid 1980s (yes, I know, fans of classic fifties sci-fi will disagree, but that’s my opinion all the same). Everything about this book is praiseworthy. The characterization, the plot, the way the human race with its rivalry between the Spacers and Settlers has developed over two centuries and all the little details about the fate of the protagonists of the previous stories all lend a special touch to this book. The temporal and spatial scope of the plot also deserves to be mentioned. The main events of the other three Robot stories take place on one planet over the space of a few days. However, here we are taken on a journey to a number of both Spacer and Settler planets and also Earth itself at many points in time. The plot is richly detailed with observations on the political developments over the past twenty decades and the poignant demises of Baley and Fastolfe.

Along with The End of Eternity, this was Isaac Asimov’s greatest story. I like the way that it builds up but does not have every chapter end with a cliffhanger. You can take your time with the story, savouring it and absorbing the details, knowing that something special awaits at the end. It is a book that can be read over and over again, a real treat.