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2 Robot novels 3 Merging with other series 4 Other authors 5 Asimov's robots on screen 6 List of books 7 Major characters |
Short stories
Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration. The most unique feature of Asimov's robots are the Three Laws of Robotics, which all robots in his fiction must obey, and which ensure that robots don't turn against their creators. One of those stories, "The Bicentennial Man", was later expanded by Asimov and Robert Silverberg into a novel The Positronic Man.
The stories were not initially conceived as a set, but rather all feature his positronic robots -- indeed there are some inconsistencies among them, especially between the short stories and the novels. They all, however, share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality. Some of the short stories found in The Complete Robot and other anthologies are clearly not set in the same universe as most of them (the Foundation Universe), even though they feature positronic robots obeying the Three Laws. These stories are "Let's Get Together" and "Victory Unintentional".
Robot novels
The final four robot novels comprise the Elijah Baley (sometimes Lije Baley) series and are mysteries starring the Terran human Elijah Baley and his humaniform robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw. They are set approximately 2000 years after the short stories, and focus on the conflicts between Spacers - descendants of human settlers from other planets, and the people from overcrowded Earth. One of the short stories from The Complete Robot - "Mirror Image" anthology is also set in this time period (between The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun), and features both Baley and Olivaw. Another short story (found in The Early Asimov anthology), "Mother Earth", is set about a thousand years before the robot novels, when the Spacer worlds chose to become separated from Earth.
Merging with other series
Asimov later integrated the Robot Series into his all-engulfing Foundation series, making R. Daneel Olivaw appear again twelve thousand years later in the age of the Galactic Empire in sequels and prequels to the original Foundation trilogy, and in the final book of the Robots series - Robots and Empire, we learn how the worlds that later formed the Empire were settled, and how Earth became radioactive (which was first mentioned in Pebble in the Sky).
Other authors
Shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels (Caliban, Inferno, Utopia) by Roger MacBride Allen, set between Robots and the 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.
There is also another set of novels by various authors (Isaac Asimov's Robots series/Robot City series/Robots and Aliens series/Robots in Time series) loosely connected to the Robots Series, but they contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered canon.
Asimov's robots on screen
The first film version of Asimov's robot stories were five episodes of British television series Out of the Unknown, based on robot short stories and novels. They were: "The Caves of Steel" (1964), "Satisfaction Guaranteed" (1966), "The Prophet" (1967), based on short story "Reason", "Liar" (1969), and "The Naked Sun" (1969).
In 1999, short story "The Bicentennial Man" was made into a movie starring Robin Williams.
In the late 1970s, Harlan Ellison produced a screenplay based on Asimov's book I, Robot. The film was never made, but the script appeared in book form under the title I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay (1994). A motion picture adaptation of I, Robot starring Will Smith is currently under development by Twentieth Century Fox and is expected to be released in 2004.
The Complete Robot includes most of Asimov's robot stories, but not all. Stories not included in that book are:
List of books
Short stories
Short story collections
Other stories
The Robot novels
The Caliban trilogy
Major characters
Robot short stories
Robot novels
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