Isaac Asimov laid down the now-famous Three Laws of Robotics in 1941: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through in action, allow a human being to come to harm; A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. The results were truly revolutionary. SF writers everywhere have accepted the laws and there is no doubt that when robots are actually built they will be subject to Asimov's famous rules. Meanwhile, the eight magnificent short stories collected in The Rest of the Robots completes the robotic saga begun in the first volume, I, Robot. They are a 'must' for SF readers everywhere. Also by Isaac Asimov Foundation Foundation and Empire Second Foundation Earth Is Room Enough The Stars Like Dust The Martian Way The Currents of Space The End of Eternity The Naked Sun The Caves of Steel Asimov's Mysteries The Gods Themselves Nightfall One Nightfall Two I, Robot The Early Asimov: Volume I The Early Asimov: Volume II The Early Asimov: Volume HI Nebula Award Stones 8 (ed) The Stars in their Courses (non-fiction) Tales of the Black Widowers (detection stories) Isaac Asimov The Rest of the Robots Panther Granada Publishing Limited Published in 1968 by Panther Books Ltd Frogmore, St Albans, Herts, AL2 2NF Reprinted 1969 (twice), 1972, 1973, 1974,1975, 1976 First published in Great Britain by Dobson Books Ltd 1967 Copyright © Isaac Asimov 1964 Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd Bungay, Suffolk Set in Linotype Plantin This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is published at a net price and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956. To Tim, Tom and Dick My stalwart supporters at Doubleday Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, Copyright 1941 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.; first appeared February 1942, Amazing Stories. Victory Unintentional, Copyright 1942 by Fictioneers, Inc.; first appeared August 1942, Super Science Stories. First Law, © 1956 by King-Size Publications, Inc.; first appeared October 1956, Fantastic Universe Science Fiction. Let's Get Together, Copyright 1956 by Royal Publications, Inc.; first appeared February 1957, Infinity Science Fiction. Satisfaction Guaranteed, Copyright 1950 by Fictioneers, Inc.; first appeared January 1951, Super Science Stories. Risk, Copyright 1955 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.; first appeared May 1955, Astounding Science Fiction. Lenny, Copyright 1957 by Royal Publications, Inc.; first appeared January 1958, Infinity Science Fiction. Galley Slave, Copyright New York 1957 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation; first appeared December 1957, Galaxy. Contents I The Coming of the Robots Robot AL-76 Goes Astray 19 Victory Unintentional 38 II The Laws of Robotics First Law 71 Let's Get Together 76 III Susan Calvin Satisfaction Guaranteed 102 Risk 122 Lenny 158 Galley Slave 178 5 INTRODUCTION would you like to hear a writer's nightmare? Well, then, imagine a writer of considerable reputation, who knows himself to be a Great Man. Bestow upon him a wife, a little woman who is a bit of a writer herself but, of course, nothing like her great, her magnificent husband, either in her own eyes, in the world's eyes, or (most important of all) in his eyes. And imagine that, as a result of some conversation, the little woman suggests she write a novel on the subject. And the Great Man, smiling benignly, says, 'Of course, dear You go right ahead.' And she does, and it is published, and it makes a perfectly gigantic sensation. And it follows, then, that although the Great Man is universally admitted to be Great, it is the little woman's novel which is best known forever afterward —so well known, in fact, that the tide becomes a byword in the English language. How grisly a situation for a normally egocentric professional writer that would be. Yet I'm not making this up. It is a true story. It happened. The Great Man is Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the magnificent lyric poets of the English language. At the age of twenty-two, he eloped with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, an event which, however romantic, was slightly irregular, as Shelley was a married man at the time. The publicity was such that they were better off outside England, and in the summer of 1816 they stayed on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland with the equally 10 great poet and equally notorious gentleman, George Gordon, Lord Byron. At the time, the scientific world was in a ferment. In 1791 the Italian physicist, Luigi Galvani, had discovered that frogs' muscles could be made to twitch if touched simultaneously by two different metals and it seemed to him that living tissue was filled with 'animal electricity.' This theory was disputed by another Italian physicist, Alessandro Volta, who showed that electric currents could be produced by the juxtaposition of different metals without the presence of Jiving or once-living tissue. Volta had invented the first battery and the English chemist, Humphrey Davy, went on in 1807 and 1808 to build an un-precedentedly powerful one and to carry out, with its help, all sorts of chemical reactions that had been impossible to chemists of the non-electrical age. Electricity was therefore a word of power and, although Galvani's 'animal electricity' had been quickly smashed by the researches of Volta, it remained a magic phrase among the lay public. Interest in the relationship of electricity to life was intense. One evening a small group including Byron, Shelley, and Mary Godwin discussed the possibility of actually creating life by means of electricity, and it occurred to Mary that she might write a fantasy on the subject. Byron and Shelley approved; in fact they thought they, too, might write fantastic novels for the private amusement of the little company. Only Mary actually carried this through. At the end of the year the first Mrs. Shelley committed suicide, so that Shelley and Mary could marry and return to England. In England, in 1817, Mary Shelley's novel was completed and in 1818 it was published. It was about a young scientist, a 11 student of anatomy, who assembled a being in his laboratory and succeeded in infusing it with life by way of electricity. The being (given no name) was a monstrous eight-foot creature with a horrible face that frightened all beholders into fits. The monster can find no place in human society and, in his misery, turns upon the scientist and all those dear to him. One by one the scientist's relatives (including his bride) are destroyed and in the end the scientist dies as well. The monster wanders off into the wilderness, presumably to die of remorse. The novel made a huge sensation and has never stopped making a huge sensation. There is simply no question as to which Shelley made the greater mark on people generally. To the students of literature, the Shelley may be Percy Bysshe, of course, but stop people on the street and ask them if they've ever heard of Adonais, or Ode to the West Wind, or The Cenci. Maybe they have, but very likely they have not. Then ask them if they have ever heard of Frankenstein. For Frankenstein was the name of Airs. Shelley's novel and of the young scientist who created the monster. Ever since, 'a Frankenstein' has been used for anyone or anything that creates something that destroys the creator. The exclamation 'I have created a Frankenstein's monster' has become such a cliche that it can be used only humorously nowadays. Frankenstein achieved its success, at least in part, because it was a restatement of one of the enduring fears of mankind—that of dangerous knowledge. Frankenstein was another Faust, seeking knowledge not meant for man, and he had created his Mephistophelean nemesis. In the early nineteenth century the exact nature of 12 Frankenstein's sacrilegious invasion of forbidden knowledge was clear. Man's advancing science might, conceivably, imbue dead matter with life; but nothing man could do could create a soul, for that was God's exclusive domain. Frankenstein therefore could, at best, create a soulless intelligence, and such an ambition was evil and deserving of ultimate punishment. The theological 'thou shalt not' barrier against man's advancing knowledge and intensifying science weakened as the nineteenth century progressed. The industrial revolution broadened and deepened and the Faustian motif gave way, temporarily, to a buoyant belief in progress and an inevitably approaching utopia-through-science. This dream, alas, was shattered by World War I. That horrible holocaust made it quite plain that science could, after all, be an enemy of humanity. It was through science that new explosives were manufactured and that airplanes and airships were constructed to carry those explosives to areas behind the lines that earlier might have been secure. It was science that made possible, in particular, that ultimate horror of the trenches, poison gas.* Consequently the Evil Scientist or, at best, the Foolishly Sacrilegious Scientist became a stock character in post-World War I science fiction. In the days immediately following the war an extremely dramatic and influential examp...
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