The Robot series is a series of thirty-seven science fiction short stories and six novels by American writer Isaac Asimov, published from 1940 to 1995. The series is set in a world where sentient positronic robots serve a number of purposes in society. To ensure their loyalty, the Three Laws of Robotics are programmed into these robots, with the intent of preventing them from ever becoming a danger to humanity. Later, Asimov would merge the Robot series with his Foundation series.
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, which were to be followed by robots in several of his stories. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although similar restrictions had been implied in earlier stories.
A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It functions as a central processing unit (CPU) for robots, and, in some unspecified way, provides them with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans. When Asimov wrote his first robot stories in 1939 and 1940, the positron was a newly discovered particle, and so the buzz word "positronic" added a scientific connotation to the concept. Asimov's 1942 short story "Runaround" elaborates his fictional Three Laws of Robotics, which are ingrained in the positronic brains of nearly all of his robots.
The Bicentennial Man is a novelette in the Robot series by American writer Isaac Asimov. According to the foreword in Robot Visions, Asimov was approached to write a story, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, for a science fiction collection to be published in honor of the United States Bicentennial. However, the arrangement fell through, leaving Asimov's the only story actually completed for the project. Asimov sold the story to Judy-Lynn del Rey, who made some small changes to the text. Asimov restored the original text when the story was collected in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976).
The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories is a science fiction anthology written and edited by Isaac Asimov. Following the usual form for Asimov collections, it consists of eleven short stories and a poem surrounded by commentary describing how each came to be written.
The Positronic Man is a 1992 novel by American writers Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, based on Asimov's 1976 novelette "The Bicentennial Man".
The Complete Robot (1982) is a collection of 31 of the 37 science fiction short stories about robots by American writer Isaac Asimov, written between 1939 and 1977. Most of the stories had been previously collected in the books I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots, while four had previously been uncollected and the rest had been scattered across five other anthologies. They share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality, and put together tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics. The stories are grouped into categories.
"Runaround" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, featuring his recurring characters Powell and Donovan. It was written in October 1941 and first published in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It appears in the collections I, Robot (1950), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Visions (1990). "Runaround" features the first explicit appearance of the Three Laws of Robotics, which had previously only been implied in Asimov's robot stories.
"Evidence" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot (1950), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Visions (1990).
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character appearing in Isaac Asimov's Robot series of science fiction short stories. According to I, Robot, Susan Calvin was born in the year 1982 and died at the age of 82, either in 2064 or 2065.
Laws of robotics are any set of laws, rules, or principles, which are intended as a fundamental framework to underpin the behavior of robots designed to have a degree of autonomy. Robots of this degree of complexity do not yet exist, but they have been widely anticipated in science fiction, films and are a topic of active research and development in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence.
The Complete Stories is a discontinued series intended to form a definitive collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories and novels. Originally published in 1990 and 1992 by Doubleday, it was discontinued after the second book of the planned series. Altogether 88 of Asimov's 383 published short stories are collected in these two volumes.
References to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have appeared in a wide variety of circumstances. In some cases, other authors have explored the Laws in a serious fashion. Other references, like those made in the satirical newspaper The Onion, are clearly parodic.
"The Tercentenary Incident" is a science fiction/mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the August 1976 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and reprinted in the collections The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976) and The Complete Robot (1982).
Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers.
Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Odyssey is a science fiction novel written in 1987 by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. It is part of the series Isaac Asimov's Robot City, inspired by Isaac Asimov's Robot series. The 1995 computer game Robot City is based on the plot of Odyssey.
Psalm 8 is the eighth psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning and ending in English in the King James Version (KJV): "O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!". In Latin, it is known as "Domine Dominus noster". Its authorship is traditionally assigned to King David. Like Psalms 81 and 84, this psalm opens with a direction to the chief musician to perform upon the gittith, which either refers to a musical instrument, a style of performance, or alludes to persons and places in biblical history.
The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov is a collection of forty eight short science fiction and mystery stories and two science essays by American writer Isaac Asimov, published by Dark Harvest in May 1989.
AI takeover—the idea that some kind of artificial intelligence may supplant humankind as the dominant intelligent species on the planet—is a common theme in science fiction. Famous cultural touchstones include Terminator and The Matrix.
Depending on the counting convention used, and including all titles, charts, and edited collections, there may be currently over 500 books in Isaac Asimov's bibliography—as well as his individual short stories, individual essays, and criticism. For his 100th, 200th, and 300th books, Asimov published Opus 100 (1969), Opus 200 (1979), and Opus 300 (1984), celebrating his writing.
