A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot – and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!
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Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy
A THOUSAND-YEAR EPIC, A GALACTIC STRUGGLE, A MONUMENTAL WORK IN THE ANNALS OF SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION begins a new chapter in the story of man's future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation-dedicated to art, science, and technology-as the beginning of a new empire. FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism. SECOND FOUNDATION follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire's defeat and describes its greatest threat-a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men's wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.
Isaac Asimov - I, Robot
The Three Laws of Robotics
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the classic laws governing their behavior. In _I, Robot_ Asimov chronicles the development of the robot from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future - a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.
Here are stories of robots gone mad, mind-reading robots, robots with a sense of humor, robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world, all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asimov's trademark.
Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation
It is the year 12,020 g.e. and the last Galactic Emperor of the Autun dynasty, Cleon I, sits uneasily on the throne. These are troubled times and Oeon is desperate to flnd a way to calm them. When young Outworld mathematician Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor to present a paper on psychohistory, his astounding theory of prediction, the Emperor believes that his future security may rest on Seldon's prophetic powers. But Hari Seldon becomes the most wanted man in the Empire as he struggles desperately to keep his remarkable theory from falling into the wrong hands. At the same time he must forge the key to the future - a power to be known as the Foundation!
Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire
One man understood the shifting patterns of the inhabitated cosmos. This was Hari Seldon, the last great scientist of the First Empire. The mathematics of psychohistory enabled Seldon to predict the collapse of the Empire and the onset of an era of chaos and war. To restore civilization in the shortest possible time, Seldon set up two Foundations.
The First was established on Terminus in the full daylight of publicity. But the Second, 'at the other end of the galaxy,' took shape behind a veil of total silence. Because the Second Foundation guards the laws of psychohistory, which are valid only so long as they remain secret.
When the First Foundation was conquered by a force Seldon had not foreseen - the overwhelming power of a single individual, a mutant called the Mule - the Second Foundation was forced to reveal its existance, and infinitely worse, a portion of its power. but so far its location, its most closely guarded secret of all, has been kept hidden. So far. The Mule and the remnants of the First Foundation will do anything to discover it.
This is the story of the Second Foundation.
Isaac Asimov - The Complete Robot
The Complete Robot is the definitive anthology of Asimov's stunning visions of a robotic future...
In these stories, Isaac Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age: when Earth is ruled by mastermachines and when robots are more human than mankind.
As well as TN-3 (Tony), AL-76 and other robots, the stories feature the staff of US Robots and Mechanical Men Inc., and in particular the chief robot-psychologist, the steely Dr Susan Calvin who is in many ways more robot-like than her subjects.
The Complete Robot is the ultimate collection of timeless, amazing and amusing robot stories from the greatest science fiction writer of all time, offering golden insights into robot thought processes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were programmed into real computers thirty years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - with surprising results.
Readers of today still have many surprises in store...
Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation
One man understood the shifting patterns of the inhabitated cosmos. This was Hari Seldon, the last great scientist of the First Empire. The mathematics of psychohistory enabled Seldon to predict the collapse of the Empire and the onset of an era of chaos and war. To restore civilization in the shortest possible time, Seldon set up two Foundations.
The First was established on Terminus in the full daylight of publicity. But the Second, 'at the other end of the galaxy,' took shape behind a veil of total silence. Because the Second Foundation guards the laws of psychohistory, which are valid only so long as they remain secret.
When the First Foundation was conquered by a force Seldon had not foreseen - the overwhelming power of a single individual, a mutant called the Mule - the Second Foundation was forced to reveal its existance, and infinitely worse, a portion of its power. but so far its location, its most closely guarded secret of all, has been kept hidden. So far. The Mule and the remnants of the First Foundation will do anything to discover it.
This is the story of the Second Foundation.
Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge
At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations had come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation had proved victorious; and now they return to Hari Seldon's long-established plan to build a new Empire on the ruins of the old. But rumours persist that the Second Foundation is not destroyed after all - and that its still-defiant survivors are preparing their revenge. now two exiled citizens of th Foundation - a renegade Councilman and a doddering historian - set out in search of the mythical planet Earth... and proof that the Second Foundation still exists.
Meanwhile someone - or something - outside of both Foundations seems to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose. Soon representatives of both the First and Second Foundations will find themselves racing toward a mysterious world called Gaia and a final, shocking destiny at the very end of the universe!
Isaac Asimov - The Stars, Like Dust
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin.
He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father, the highly respected Rancher of Widemos, has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage.
The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann. Now it is not just a case of life or death for Biron, but a question of freedom for the galaxy….
Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth
All records of Earth have been removed systematically from the libraries of Foundation worlds. Now Councilman Golan Trevize and Professor Janov Pelorat traverse the galaxy in search of humanity's ancestral planet. On words beyond the Foundation's influence, superstition and taboo shround the subject of their quest. To name Earth is to utter an obscenity!
Fortunately, the space travellers find allies - and Pelorat finds a lover named Bliss - among the telepaths of the planet Gaia. As they near their destination, Bliss picks up thought waves of intelligent beings. What she cannot tell is whether or not those beings are human.
Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain.
On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermitlike existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.
The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while his robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots—unthinkable under the Laws of Robotics—or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!
Isaac Asimov - Foundation
One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. The story of our future begins with the history of Foundation and its greatest psychohistorian: Hari Seldon.
Arthur C. Clarke - The City and the Stars
Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, A Unique to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.
Roger MacBride Allen - Isaac Asimov's Caliban
Among Asimov's contributions to science fiction are the Three Laws of Robotics, ethics built into every robot to ensure it never hurts humans. In 1990, Asimov developed the idea of a robot subject to revised Laws - Caliban. This book follows the possible adventures of such a robot.
Lissa Price - Starters
Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.
He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . .
Lauren Beukes - Zoo City (angol)
WHERE NO ONE ELSE DARE VENTURE…
Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty online 419 scam habit – and a talent for finding lost things. But when her latest client, a little old lady, turns up dead and the cops confiscate her lastpaycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons
An astonishing second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland.
China Miéville - Embassytown
Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts. And that is impossible.
Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire
Gladia Delmarre's homeworld, the Spacer planet Solaria, has been abandoned - by its human population. Countless robots remain there. And when traders from Settler worlds attempt to salvage them, the robots of Solaria turn to killing, in defiance of the Three Laws of Robotics. Long ago, Gladia's robots Daneel and Giskard played a vital role in opening the worlds beyond the Solar system to Settlers from Earth. Now the conscience-stricken robots are faced with an even greater challenge. Either the sacred Three Laws of Robotics are in ruins - or a new, superior Law must be established to bring peace to the galaxy. With Madam Gladia and D.G. Baley, the captain of the Settler traders and a descendant of the robots' friend Elijah Baley, Daneel and Giskard travel to the robot stronghold of Solaria, where they uncover a sinister Spacer plot to destroy Earth itself.
Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation
Here, from a grand master of science fiction, is the long awaited final novel of the greatest science fiction series ever told. Completed just before his death, Forward the Foundation is the crowning achievement of a great writer's life, a stirring testament to the creative genius of Isaac Asimov. As Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory and ensure a place for humanity among the stars, the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse. Caught in the maelstrom are Seldon and all he holds dear, pawns in the struggle for dominance. Whoever can control Seldon will control psychohistory - and with it the future of the Galaxy. Among those seeking to turn psychohistory into the greatest weapon known to man are a populist political demagogue, the weak-willed Emperor Cleon I, and a ruthless militaristic general. In his last act of service to humanking, Hari Seldon must somehow save his life's work from their grasp as he searches for its true heirs - a search that begins with his own granddaugther and the dream of a new Foundation.
Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Novels
One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. The story of our future begins with the history of Foundation and its greatest psychohistorian: Hari Seldon.
Isaac Asimov - Robot Dreams
Robot Dreams collects 21 of Isaac Asimov's short stories spanning the body of his fiction from the 1940s to the 1980s----exploring not only the future of technology, but the future of humanity's maturity and growth.