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Summary
Summary
Long after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Earthman Elijah Baley, Keldon Amadiro embarked on a plan to destroy planet Earth. But even after his death, Baley's vision continued to guide his robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who had the wisdom of a great man behind him and an indestructable will to win....
Author Notes
Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia, on January 2, 1920. His family emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they owned and operated a candy store. Asimov became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of eight. As a youngster he discovered his talent for writing, producing his first original fiction at the age of eleven. He went on to become one of the world's most prolific writers, publishing nearly 500 books in his lifetime.
Asimov was not only a writer; he also was a biochemist and an educator. He studied chemistry at Columbia University, earning a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. In 1951, Asimov accepted a position as an instructor of biochemistry at Boston University's School of Medicine even though he had no practical experience in the field. His exceptional intelligence enabled him to master new systems rapidly, and he soon became a successful and distinguished professor at Columbia and even co-authored a biochemistry textbook within a few years.
Asimov won numerous awards and honors for his books and stories, and he is considered to be a leading writer of the Golden Age of science fiction. While he did not invent science fiction, he helped to legitimize it by adding the narrative structure that had been missing from the traditional science fiction books of the period. He also introduced several innovative concepts, including the thematic concern for technological progress and its impact on humanity.
Asimov is probably best known for his Foundation series, which includes Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. In 1966, this trilogy won the Hugo award for best all-time science fiction series. In 1983, Asimov wrote an additional Foundation novel, Foundation's Edge, which won the Hugo for best novel of that year. Asimov also wrote a series of robot books that included I, Robot, and eventually he tied the two series together. He won three additional Hugos, including one awarded posthumously for the best non-fiction book of 1995, I. Asimov. "Nightfall" was chosen the best science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
In 1979, Asimov wrote his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green. He continued writing until just a few years before his death from heart and kidney failure on April 6, 1992.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
An addition to Asimov's series of robot-detective novels, and a more convincing effort than The Robot of Dawn (1983). Nearly two centuries after the death of Earth detective Elijah Baley, Settlers--short-lived, disease-ridden, dynamic pioneers from Earth--have begun to colonize the galaxy. By contrast, the long-established, long-lived, aristocratic, robot-dependant Spacers have started to decline. So, Spacer planet Aurora's head-cheese Kelden Amadiro, still smarting from his long-ago defeat by Baley, teams up with unpleasant, ambitious robotics whiz Levular Mandamus to plot Earth's destruction and thus halt Settler expansion. Meanwhile, Baley's old flame Gladia joins D.G., a Baley descendant from the Settler planet Baleyworld, to investigate some lethal goings-on on the recently-abandoned Spacer world, Solaria. Also, ostensibly accompanying Gladia but actually running the show, are robots Giskard (he secretly has the power to read and adjust emotions) and Daneel, the humaniform detective and Baley's former partner. As the plot lines intertwine, the human drama that ensues is decidedly tame and talky, from standard fulminating villains to tepid romancing. However, the real heroes here are Giskard and Daneel, as they grapple with the case and with the restrictions imposed on them by the built-in Three Laws of Robotics--and grope towards a solution that transcends everything. A satisfying plot, then, marred by perfunctory backdrops and fairly mundane human doings--but scintillating and stimulating whenever the robots occupy center stage. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
