The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov (1994, 435 pages) – How do I know there’s no life after death? Because Isaac Asimov would claw his way out of the ground and strangle me if he knew about this negative review. I’m usually a big fan, and I’ve never understood people who consider Asimov to be dry and pedantic. I love and reread the original Foundation Trilogy every couple of years, and his short stories are always clever and wicked funny on occasion.
However, having struggled through The Robots of Dawn, I understand the complaints some people have. This book, third in his robot series, has his detective hero traveling to another planet (and rejoining his former, robot partner) to solve a roboticide. The first third of the book reads like Captain Kirk outwitting the all-knowing computer with convoluted logic. The detective argues with the planet’s head robotics professor (and primary suspect) for a hundred pages. Talking heads doesn’t even begin to describe the inaction.
Not only is the dialogue repetitive and unproductive, but everyone speaks as if they were college professors giving long, boring explanations on the history and operation of robots. By halfway through, I wanted someone to shoot the whiny detective and the egomaniacal professor. Considering the original victim was talked to death (put in a brainlock due to conflicting instructions), I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the resolution should involve unending talking.
But not this much. I felt my own brain pathways were fusing from looping through the same boring conversation over and over.
My hopes grew as we were introduced to the professor’s hostile daughter, her barber friend, and the head of the Robotics Institute (also hostile) as possible suspects, but it felt as if I were reading a debate team’s transcripts as each character verbally sparred with the detective to no good purpose.
Near the end of the book, when somebody sabotages the Earthling’s flier and he’s forced to confront his agoraphobia to survive outdoors, I thought things had picked up. But it was too little too late. When he debates with the planetary chairman in an attempt to keep from being exiled and prove who the killer is, I couldn’t believe they were going to resolve the conflict with yet more circuitous dialogue.
When the shocking ending came in the last few pages of the book, I realized this was a great short story fluffed up into a really boring novel. I recommend most of his works, but this robot book is a real snoozer.
