I, Robot
To you, a robot is just a robot. But you haven't worked with them. You don't know them. They're a cleaner, better breed than we are.
When Earth is ruled by master-machines... when robots are more human than humankind.
Isaac Asimov's unforgettable, spine-chilling vision of the future - available at last in its first paperback edition.
- -Cover blurb from the paperback edition of I, Robot, and largely inaccurate to boot. The first paragraph is a quotation of one of the book's characters, Dr Susan Calvin, but the rest reads rather like the copy of an editor who hadn't actually read the book. At the time of publication, robots were depicted in science fiction as either servile machines or evil creations that revolted in the manner of Frankenstein. Asimov himself said that in writing the Robot stories he sought to replace both views with something more rational.
I, Robot on screen
In the 1960s, two short stories from this collection were made into episodes of the television series Out of the Unknown: "The Prophet" (1967), based on "Reason"; and "Liar" (1969).
The 1960s science fiction anthology series The Outer Limits had an episode called "I, Robot" (the 1990s revival of the series includes a remake of the episode, with the same title); it is based on the Eando Binder story, and has no connection to Asimov's book.
In the late 1970s, Warner Brothers acquired the option to make a film based on the book, but no screenplay was ever accepted. The most notable attempt was one by Harlan Ellison, who collaborated with Asimov himself to create a version which captured the spirit of the original. Asimov is quoted as saying that this screenplay would lead to "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made." Although the film was never made, the script eventually appeared in book form under the title I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, in 1994 (reprinted 2004, ISBN 0743486595).
More recently, a movie of the same name (see I, Robot (movie)) loosely based on Asimov's book, and starring Will Smith, is under development by Twentieth Century Fox; It is to be released July 16th, 2004.
A 1977 album by the Alan Parsons Project was also inspired by Asimov's I Robot, after which it is named.
I, Robot: The Game
I, Robot was an arcade game made by Atari and released in 1983. It was the first commercial video game with 3-D polygonal graphics and featured flat shading. It also had very innovative gameplay, featuring a "game" mode and an "ungame" mode where one draws with the objects in the game by leaving trails. The game has no relation to the book of the same name.
External link
Source | Copyright
