Isaac Asimov's Caliban

Allen, Roger MacBride. Isaac Asimov's Caliban (vt. Caliban?). New York: Ace, 1993. "An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc." ("'Isaac Asimov's Caliban' is a trademark of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc."; and "Ace Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group.")

An addition to I. Asimov's Spacer/Settler series, in the tradition of the robot/detective stories "Caves of Steel" and "Naked Sun." Balances fairly Spacer vs. Settler approaches to technology—with Spacers dependent upon AI robots—and examines the possibility that Spacer society is becoming decadent from a master/slave relationship with robots. Interesting for the relationship between the local Sheriff and his robot assistant, the question of the uses and limits of robots for police work, the continuing of Asimov's examination of the Three Laws of Robotics, and the introduction into Asimov space of New Law and No Law gravitonic-brain robots. The New Laws are (1) "A robot may not injure a human being" eliminating old First Law prohibition against allowing a human to be hurt through inaction; (2) A robot must cooperate with"—not "obey"—human beings except where such cooperation 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 Law," eliminating reference here to the Second Law, hence "Robotic self-preservation is made as important as utility." Plus the New Fourth Law, "A robot may do anything it likes except where such action would violate the First, Second, or Third Law" (214-15). The No Law robots must work out morality for himself and herself (these robots have no sex, but they are gendered). See below, this section, RMA's Inferno. (Note: The robot called Donald is supposed to be in a series named for Shakespearean characters. "Donald" does not appear in The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare. I suspect it's a joke—that in the far future a character of Walt Disney's creation [Donald Duck] would be remembered as by Shakespeare.) (RDE, 30/05/97)