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Michael Still
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These posts mostly relate to books I am reading or series I am collecting to read in order (I tend to collect the series and then read it in one block). You can see a see a list of the books I am currently seeking, as well as a list of all the books I've bothered to catalog if you're interested.
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Mon, 11 Aug 2008
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Thu, 26 Jun 2008
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ISBN: 0441005144
Ace (1998), Paperback, 320 pages
LibraryThing
| Inferno is the second Asimov universe book written by Roger MacBride Allen. Much like Asimov's Robots and Empire and Caliban, its what I will call an "issue book". In Robots and Empire the issue at hand was that having a long life results in risk adversity and therefore the stagnation of society as a whole. In Caliban the issue was the over protection of humans by robots, and the ultimately corrupting nature of living in a society built on slavery (even of machines), as well as stagnation caused by the risk adversity of the robots themselves. In this second Allen book, the issue is the exploitation of the "new law" robots who ultimately become the new slaves in return for a chance at freedom later. This exploitation is a criminal offence, so of course they end up with a society in which pretty much everyone has dirty hands of some form.
Overall this was a good read, and probably a better book than Inferno. I certainly found it easier to read and more enjoyable. I read the majority of the book on a single set of flights between the US and Australia because it was such a good read.
Its interesting that the Amazon reviews for this book are mostly negative, and I can see the point they're trying to make. There are certainly opportunities for Prospero's psychology and the overall political situation created by the massive disruption of the society to be explored more. Additionally, the murder mystery is resolved very rapidly at the end of the book after crawling progress during the majority of the book. Then again, that's just like Caves of Steel and Naked Sun, which both are resolved rapidly at the end of the book and gloss over issues which aren't core to the story. I guess you can chose to tell a story many different ways, and just because Allen didn't chose to tell it the way that the Amazon reviewers thought he should doesn't make his choice incorrect.
Tags for this post: book( ) Roger_MacBride_Allen( ) |
posted at: 23:05 | path: /book/Roger_MacBride_Allen | permanent link to this entry
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Wed, 18 Jun 2008
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ISBN: 0441004822
Ace (1997), Paperback, 320 pages
LibraryThing
| This is a "robot mystery" in the style of Asimov, but actually written by Roger MacBride Allen. Wikipedia assures me that Asimov approved the outline for this book, as well as the other two by Roger:
"Shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels (Caliban, Inferno, Utopia) by Roger MacBride Allen, set between Robots and Empire and the Empire series, telling the story of the terraforming of the Spacer world Inferno, and about the robot revolution started by creating a "No Law" Robot, and then New Law Robots."
Roger is an interesting author, and appears to have written quite a few books, with a strong tendency for basing them in other author's universes. Its interesting to meet an author who is so seemingly willing to base his work on that of others.
This book didn't strike me as well written as Asimov's, but that's a pretty high bar to meet. It should be noted that Amazon reviews disagree with me on this point. Its rendition is certainly competent though, and the story is a good one.
Tags for this post: book( ) Roger_MacBride_Allen( ) |
posted at: 20:59 | path: /book/Roger_MacBride_Allen | permanent link to this entry
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) Roger_MacBride_Allen(
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