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sarkenobi's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
daniellemarie's review
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
badlibrarians's review
5.0
Well DUH it’s not Isaac, but it doesn’t have to be. RMA did a great job all on his own. Well, a top-notch blend of Shakespeare, Shelley, and Asimov. I had nothing but sympathy for Caliban and Kresh. The sheriff is more self aware than he knows, and his partnership with Donald is touching. Even Tonya and Gubber got me in the feels because I wonder all the time what my wife (well, in 2 months she will be) sees in me, but I still stand in awe of her love. I still pronounce his name Goober, though, because he totally is. I don’t entirely trust Jomaine, though. If he’s in the rest of the trilogy, we’ll see, but he’s a weasely little SOB.
waden34's review
3.0
This was a much better book than most of the other garbage published in Asimov's name.
The story started off like a good mystery with a robot apparently having hurt a human. After the initial rush though, the story takes on a different personality and not much happens in the way of plot development until about 2/3 in. At that point, things get interesting again and it leads to an unexpected but not altogether fascinating ending.
One major downfall to this book for me was once again character names. The robots are all named after Shakespeare characters: Caliban, Ariel, Donald, Horatio. These are normal and acceptable names. The humans, however, are a different story. We get Alvar, Fredda, Chanto, Simcor, Gubber, & Jomaine. Having completely unnatural names takes me out of the experience of reading the story every time I see the name. I just don't see how such creative people can completely drop the ball here.
The story started off like a good mystery with a robot apparently having hurt a human. After the initial rush though, the story takes on a different personality and not much happens in the way of plot development until about 2/3 in. At that point, things get interesting again and it leads to an unexpected but not altogether fascinating ending.
One major downfall to this book for me was once again character names. The robots are all named after Shakespeare characters: Caliban, Ariel, Donald, Horatio. These are normal and acceptable names. The humans, however, are a different story. We get Alvar, Fredda, Chanto, Simcor, Gubber, & Jomaine. Having completely unnatural names takes me out of the experience of reading the story every time I see the name. I just don't see how such creative people can completely drop the ball here.
drewvan's review against another edition
4.0
4+ stars. Allen’s continuation and progression of Asimov’s fascinating robot series was a delight to read. I’m quite sure the grandmaster is happy to see his creations continue to grow. Thankfully, I already have Inferno, the next in the series, waiting in the wings!
utdemir's review
3.0
I enjoyed reading about Donald, it was great to finally see him applying the first law in subtler ways (eg. asking a question to make Sheriff drive slowly).
However I did not find the world-building very convincing. I'd expect the Spacer society to be much different than ours. Also, even though we can glimpse slightly more complex result of the 3 laws, I think the full extent of their implications are still left untold.
However I did not find the world-building very convincing. I'd expect the Spacer society to be much different than ours. Also, even though we can glimpse slightly more complex result of the 3 laws, I think the full extent of their implications are still left untold.
adelaidemetzger_robotprophet's review
5.0
AW YEAH! Best not-really-Asimov-writing book I've read yet! Better than the Robot City series. Roger Mcbride Allen's writing is a brilliant exception for the late, great Isaac Asimov--he should have written all of the non-Asimov Asimov books after. Being a college student interested in a degree in film, I noticed-and thoroughly enjoyed-the fact that Roger Mcbride Allen's set up and style was much like a screen play to a movie. So if you get kind of bored with it--Just stick with it! Caliban is a character worth waiting for.
smcleish's review
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in May 2002.
In recent years, this kind of "collaboration", billed on the cover of Caliban as "unique", has become quite common. Basically, someone who is a relative newcomer as a writer (and almost anyone would have fallen into this category when compared to Asimov in the early nineties; Allen was a reasonably well established author) takes a classic piece of science fiction and writes a new novel or series based on it and under the supervision of the original author. The results are frequently surprisingly good; writers other than Asimov who have allowed their work to be used in this fashion include Anne McCaffrey. The benefit of course is that these novels have a ready-made appeal to fans of the original, and many authors of successful novels have a problem fulfilling the demands of their fans and publishers for more of the same. (They frequently want to move on to something related to current interests - and develop as writers.) Also, the younger writer may well have ideas which put a science fiction classic in a new light.
This is indeed what Allen has done with Asimov's robot stories, even though you might be forgiven for thinking that all the possible variations on stories based on the famous three laws of robotics have already been written. In fact, the scenario for this novel and its successors (it is the first of a trilogy) seems to tacitly agree with this, being concerned as it is with the development of a new set of laws to replace those which have been the basis of robot design for centuries. As in Robots of Dawn, the plot of Caliban is a mystery where a murder attempt has proved possible in a situation where the presence of robots should have made it impossible. The victim in this case survives the attack, but has no memory of it as she recovers. Her position as a developer of New Law robots, as one involved with a controversial terraforming project and the freeing of an experimental robot with no law constraints at all (enabling him to harm people and disobey orders) complicate matters. Allen's investigator, sheriff Alvar Kresh of the city of Hades on the Spacer planet of Inferno (marginally terraformed, as its name suggests), is made sufficiently an outsider by his job and his intelligence (the average citizen of Hades coming across as pretty obtuse) that he is in a similar position to Asimov's central character Elijah Baley. Baley works better as a character, because in his person he is a focus for the tension between Spacer and Earth human, and Allen has to import this to Inferno. (He does this by making the terraforming project run by Settlers, descendants of Earth people who began colonising space again after the Spacer embargo on this was lifted after Robots of Dawn.)
The major flaw in Caliban for me is the way that the research into replacing the Three Laws is described. It is said that the laws are impressed into the design of positronic brains at a fundamental level, with the result that new laws require the development of new hardware, the gravitronic brain. This is stressed throughout, but seems extremely unlikely to me, being based on identifying hardware and software in a way which has never been a big part of the design of the electronic computer. (It may come from ideas in some of Asimov's early stories, where computer Multivac is described in mechanical terms.) Even if the laws were partly encoded in hardware, it surely wouldn't be difficult to redesign the positronic brain either to move this encoding to software (as the most difficult part of getting a computer to follow the laws would be to provide sufficiently usable definitions of concepts such as "human", "harm" and so on) or to redesign the hardware to cope (working to redefine things in a familiar environment being far easier than at the same time having to work in a completely new background). Even the way that conflicts between the laws cause the robots to freeze up makes the whole setup seem more like software than hardware.
Since this part of the background is quite fundamental to the plot, it does have an effect on my willingness to accept Caliban (those who do not work as computer programmers may be happier with it). Ignoring the problem leaves a neat little detective story with an well realised if naturally not particularly original background. Best suited to its target audience of the fans of Asimov's robot stories (of which there are many), Caliban would nevertheless have something to offer a more casual reader.
In recent years, this kind of "collaboration", billed on the cover of Caliban as "unique", has become quite common. Basically, someone who is a relative newcomer as a writer (and almost anyone would have fallen into this category when compared to Asimov in the early nineties; Allen was a reasonably well established author) takes a classic piece of science fiction and writes a new novel or series based on it and under the supervision of the original author. The results are frequently surprisingly good; writers other than Asimov who have allowed their work to be used in this fashion include Anne McCaffrey. The benefit of course is that these novels have a ready-made appeal to fans of the original, and many authors of successful novels have a problem fulfilling the demands of their fans and publishers for more of the same. (They frequently want to move on to something related to current interests - and develop as writers.) Also, the younger writer may well have ideas which put a science fiction classic in a new light.
This is indeed what Allen has done with Asimov's robot stories, even though you might be forgiven for thinking that all the possible variations on stories based on the famous three laws of robotics have already been written. In fact, the scenario for this novel and its successors (it is the first of a trilogy) seems to tacitly agree with this, being concerned as it is with the development of a new set of laws to replace those which have been the basis of robot design for centuries. As in Robots of Dawn, the plot of Caliban is a mystery where a murder attempt has proved possible in a situation where the presence of robots should have made it impossible. The victim in this case survives the attack, but has no memory of it as she recovers. Her position as a developer of New Law robots, as one involved with a controversial terraforming project and the freeing of an experimental robot with no law constraints at all (enabling him to harm people and disobey orders) complicate matters. Allen's investigator, sheriff Alvar Kresh of the city of Hades on the Spacer planet of Inferno (marginally terraformed, as its name suggests), is made sufficiently an outsider by his job and his intelligence (the average citizen of Hades coming across as pretty obtuse) that he is in a similar position to Asimov's central character Elijah Baley. Baley works better as a character, because in his person he is a focus for the tension between Spacer and Earth human, and Allen has to import this to Inferno. (He does this by making the terraforming project run by Settlers, descendants of Earth people who began colonising space again after the Spacer embargo on this was lifted after Robots of Dawn.)
The major flaw in Caliban for me is the way that the research into replacing the Three Laws is described. It is said that the laws are impressed into the design of positronic brains at a fundamental level, with the result that new laws require the development of new hardware, the gravitronic brain. This is stressed throughout, but seems extremely unlikely to me, being based on identifying hardware and software in a way which has never been a big part of the design of the electronic computer. (It may come from ideas in some of Asimov's early stories, where computer Multivac is described in mechanical terms.) Even if the laws were partly encoded in hardware, it surely wouldn't be difficult to redesign the positronic brain either to move this encoding to software (as the most difficult part of getting a computer to follow the laws would be to provide sufficiently usable definitions of concepts such as "human", "harm" and so on) or to redesign the hardware to cope (working to redefine things in a familiar environment being far easier than at the same time having to work in a completely new background). Even the way that conflicts between the laws cause the robots to freeze up makes the whole setup seem more like software than hardware.
Since this part of the background is quite fundamental to the plot, it does have an effect on my willingness to accept Caliban (those who do not work as computer programmers may be happier with it). Ignoring the problem leaves a neat little detective story with an well realised if naturally not particularly original background. Best suited to its target audience of the fans of Asimov's robot stories (of which there are many), Caliban would nevertheless have something to offer a more casual reader.
traveller1's review
3.0
I finally got around to reading this series, and, well, I can understand why several times I started to read, put the book away, and never came back. The three novels tell the story of how the planet Inferno is saved from its original, faulty terra-forming. Along the way new robots, with a modified set of 'Asimov' laws are created.
The story is competently written, but that is all. No spark of creativity, the characters are listless, going through the motions. The robots perhaps show more character than the humans? Or is that saying too much?
Ok, to read once, just to see what it is all about, but not on my 'must re-read list'.
The story is competently written, but that is all. No spark of creativity, the characters are listless, going through the motions. The robots perhaps show more character than the humans? Or is that saying too much?
Ok, to read once, just to see what it is all about, but not on my 'must re-read list'.
ajlewis2's review
4.0
I found this to be very much in the Asimov style which I liked more when I was younger, but still appreciate. I enjoyed the undercurrent of the effect upon humans to have robots doing their bidding and looking out for the human's welfare. The story gives some perspective on the topic of AI that is different from what we normally see concerning the potential problems. I didn't think I'd want to follow up with the rest of the series on Caliban, but as I neared the end I found myself curious to see what happens in his future.
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