Robots and Empire (SF) - Isaac Asimov ****

In the last of his six robot books (though at least one character from here would appear in the late additions to the Foundation series), Isaac Asimov gives us a far more substantial threat than the roboticide central to his other late robot title The Robots of Dawn.There's a double menace with both the need to uncover a plot against Earth and the mysterious disappearance of the inhabitants of Solaria (though the latter will be left to a later book to sort out).

Because of this, Robots and Empire reads better than Robots of Dawn, though it suffers from the same problem of spending far too long over conversations with logical arguments dragged out for page after page, and ludicrously verbose explanations. Here, a character will say they know what has happened (or whatever) and then take five pages before they reveal what they think. It feels like famous author syndrome in action - Asimov’s editor should have been far firmer.

Although the book follows on from the three books featuring Elijah Baley and Daneel Olivaw as an unlikely detective duo, Baley is long dead, so the human continuity comes in via Gladia, who Baley first met on Solaria, and a distant descendent of Baley from one of the frontier worlds settled from Earth (subtly called Baleyworld).

There is no doubt that the two robot novels from the 50s work much better than those from the 80s, but because more happens here, and there is more of a high concept threat, this book still pulls together the robot series relatively well - the later novels would be more focused on the developments from the Foundation series with less significance given to the robot thread (and, sadly, no crime fiction crossover).

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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