RA2 - Renegade, Isaac Asimov's Robot City-Robots and Aliens Book 2 - Cordell Scotten

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Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2 - Renegade
Books in the Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Robots and Aliens™ series
BOOK 1: CHANGELING by Stephen Leigh
BOOK 2: RENEGADE by Cordell Scotten
BOOK 3: INTRUDER by Robert Thurston
BOOK 4: ALLIANCE by Jerry Oltion
BOOK 5: MAVERICK by Bruce Bethke
BOOK 6: HUMANITY by Jerry Oltion
ISAAC ASIMOV’S
ROBOT CITY
ROBOTS
AND ALIENS
Renegade by Cordell Scotten
Copyright © 1989
NOTABLE ROBOTS
BY ISAAC ASIMOV
My robot stories and novels seem to have become classics in their own right, and, with the advent
of the “Robot City” series of novels, to have become the wider literary universe of other writers
as well. Under those circumstances, it might be useful to go over my robot stories and describe
some of those which I think are particularly significant and to explain why I think they are.
1. “Robbie”— This is the first robot story I wrote. I turned it out between May 10 and May 22 of
1939, when I was 19 years old and was just about to graduate college. I had a little trouble
placing it, for John Campbell rejected it and so did Amazing Stories. However, Fred Pohl
accepted it on March 25, 1940 and it appeared in the September 1940 issue of Super Science
Stories, which he edited. Fred Pohl, being Fred Pohl, changed the title to “Strange Playfellow”
but I changed it back when I included it in my book I, Robot and it has appeared as “Robbie” in
every subsequent incarnation.
Aside from being my first robot story, “Robbie” is significant because in it George Weston says
to his wife in defense of a robot that is fulfilling the role of nursemaid, “He just can't help being
faithful and loving and kind. He's a machine—made so.” This is the first indication, in my first
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Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2 - Renegade
story, of what eventually became the “First Law of Robotics” and of the basic fact that robots
were made with built-in safety rules.
2. “Reason”—”Robbie” would have meant nothing in itself, if I had written no more robot
stories, particularly since it appeared in one of the minor magazines. However, I wrote a second
robot story, “Reason,” and that one, John Campbell liked. After a bit of revision, it appeared in
the April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and there it attracted notice. Readers became
aware that there was such a thing as the “positronic robots,” and so did Campbell. That made
everything afterward possible.
3. “Liar!”—In the very next issue of Astounding, that of May 1941, my third robot story, “Liar!”
appeared. The importance of this story was that it introduced Susan Calvin, who became the
central character in my early robot stories. This story was originally rather clumsily done, largely
because it dealt with the relationship between the sexes at a time when I had not yet had my first
date with a young lady. Fortunately, I'm a quick learner and it is one story in which I made
significant changes before allowing it to appear in I, Robot.
4. “Runaround”—The next important robot story appeared in the March 1942 issue of
Astounding. It was the first story in which I listed the Three Laws of Robotics explicitly instead
of making them implicit. In it, I have one character, Gregory Powell, say to another, Michael
Donovan, “Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics—the three rules
that are built most deeply into a robot's positronic brain.” He then recites them.
Later on, I called them the Laws of Robotics, and their importance to me is three-fold.
a—They guided me in forming my plots and made it possible to write many short stories, and
several novels in addition, based on robots. In these, I constantly studied the consequences of the
Three Laws;
b—It was by all odds my most famous literary invention, quoted in season and out by others. If
all I have written is someday to be forgotten, the Three Laws of Robotics will surely be the last to
go;
c— The passage in “Runaround” quoted above happens to be the very first time the word
“robotics” was used in print in the English language. I am therefore credited with the invention of
the word (and also “robotic,”
“positronic” and “psychohistory”) by the Oxford English Dictionary, which takes the trouble—
and the space—to quote the Three Laws. (All these things were created by my 22nd birthday and
I seem to have created nothing since, which gives rise to grievous thoughts within me.)
5. “Evidence”—This was the one and only story I wrote while I spent 8 months and 26 days in
the army. At one point I persuaded a kindly librarian to let me remain in the locked library over
lunch so that I could work on the story. It is the first story in which I made use of a humanoid
robot. Stephen Byerley, the humanoid robot in question (though in the story I don't make it
absolutely clear whether he is a robot or not) represents my first approach toward R. Daneel
Olivaw, the humaniform robot who appears in a number of my novels. “Evidence” appeared in
the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
6. “Little Lost Robot”—My robots tend to be benign entities. In fact, as the stories progressed
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Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2 - Renegade
they gradually gained in moral and ethical qualities until they far surpassed human beings and, in
the case of Daneel, approached the god-like. Nevertheless, I had no intention of limiting myself
to robots as saviors. I followed wherever the wild winds of my imagination led me and I was
quite capable of seeing the uncomfortable sides of the robot phenomena.
It was only a few weeks ago (as I write this) that I received a letter from a reader that scolded me
because, in a robot story of mine that had just been published, I showed the dangerous side of
robots. He accused me of a failure of nerve.
That he was wrong is shown by “Little Lost Robot,” in which a robot is the villain, even though it
appeared nearly half a century ago. The seamy side of robots is not the result of a failure in nerve
that comes of my advancing age and decrepitude. It has been a constant concern of mine all
through my career.
7. “The Evitable Conflict”—This was a sequel to “Evidence” and appeared in the June 1950 issue
of Astounding. It was the first story I wrote that dealt primarily with computers (1 called them
“Machines” in the story) rather than with robots per se. The difference is not a great one. You
might define a robot as a “computerized machine” or as a “mobile computer.” You might
consider a computer as an “immobile robot.” In any case, I clearly did not distinguish between
the two, and although the Machines, which don't make an actual physical appearance in the story,
are clearly computers, I included the story, without hesitation, in my robot collection, I, Robot,
and neither the publisher nor the readers objected. To be sure, Stephen Byerley is in the story but
the question of his roboticity plays no role.
8. “Franchise”—This was the first story in which I dealt with computers as computers, and had
no thought in mind of their being robots. It appeared in the August 1955 issue of If: Worlds of
Science Fiction, and by that time I had grown familiar with the existence of computers. My
computer is “Multivac,” designed as an obviously larger and more complex version of the
actually existing “Univac.” In this story, and in some others of the period that dealt with
Multivac, I described it as an enormously large machine, missing the chance of predicting the
miniaturization and etherealization of computers.
9. “The Last Question”—My imagination didn't betray me for long, however. In “The Last
Question,” which appeared first in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly, I
discussed the miniaturization and etherealization of computers and followed it through a trillion
years of evolution (of both computer and man) to a logical conclusion that you will have to read
the story to find. It is, beyond question, my favorite among all the stories I have written in my
career.
10. “The Feeling of Power”—The miniaturization of computers played a small role as a side issue
in this story. It appeared in the February 1958 issue of If, and is also one of my favorites. In this
story I dealt with pocket computers, which were not to make their appearance in the marketplace
until ten to fifteen years after the story appeared. Moreover, it was one of the stories in which I
foresaw accurately a social implication of technological advance rather than the technological
advance itself.
The story deals with the possible loss of ability to do simple arithmetic through the perpetual use
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Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2 - Renegade
of computers.I wrote it as a satire that combined humor with passages of bitter irony, but I wrote
more truly than I knew. These days I have a pocket computer and I begrudge the time and effort it
would take me to subtract 182 from 854. I use the darned computer. “The Feeling of Power” is
one of the most frequently anthologized of my stories.
In a way, this story shows the negative side of computers, and in this period I also wrote stories
that showed the possible vengeful reactions of computers or robots that are mistreated. For
computers, there is “Someday,” which appeared in the August 1956 issue of Infinity Science
Fiction, and for robots (in automobile form) see “Sally,” which appeared in the May-June 1953
issue of Fantastic.
11. “Feminine Intuition”—My robots are almost always masculine, though not necessarily in an
actual sense of gender. After all, I give them masculine names and refer to them as “he.” At the
suggestion of a female editor, Judy-Lynn del Rey, I wrote “Feminine Intuition,” which appeared
in the October 1969 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It showed, for one
thing, that I could do a feminine robot, too. She was still metal, but she had a narrower waistline
than my usual robots and had a feminine voice, too. Later on, in my book Robots and Empire,
there was a chapter in which a humanoid female robot made her appearance. She played a
villainous role, which might surprise those who know of my frequently displayed admiration of
the female half of humanity.
12. “The Bicentennial Man”—This story, which first appeared in 1976 in a paperback anthology
of original science fiction, stellar #2, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey, was my most thoughtful
exposition of the development of robots. It followed them in an entirely different direction from
that in “The Last Question.” What it dealt with was the desire of a robot to become a man and the
way in which he carried out that desire, step by step. Again, I carried the plot all the way to its
logical conclusion. I had no intention of writing this story when I started it. It wrote itself, and
turned and twisted in the typewriter. It ended as the third favorite of mine among all my stories.
Ahead of it come only “The Last Question,” mentioned above, and “The Ugly Little Boy,” which
is not a robot story.
13. The Caves of Steel—Meanwhile, at the suggestion of Horace L. Gold, editor of Galaxy, I had
written a robot novel. I had resisted doing so at first for I felt that my robot ideas only fit the short
story length. Gold, however, suggested I write a murder mystery dealing with a robot detective. I
followed it partway. My detective was a thoroughly human Elijah Baley (perhaps the most
attractive character I ever invented, in my opinion) but he had a robot sidekick, R. Daneel
Olivaw. The book, I felt, was the perfect fusion of mystery and science fiction. It appeared as a
three-part serial in the October, November, and December 1953 issues of Galaxy and Doubleday
published it as a novel in 1954.
What surprised me about the book was the reaction of the readers. While they approved of Lije
Baley, their obvious interest was entirely with Daneel, whom I had viewed as a mere subsidiary
character. The approval was particularly intense in the case of the women who wrote to me.
(Thirteen years after I had invented Daneel, the television series Star Trek came out, with Mr.
Spock resembling Daneel quite closely in character—something which did not bother me—and I
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Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2 - Renegade
noticed that women viewers were particularly interested in him, too. I won't pretend to analyze
this.)
14. The Naked Sun—the popularity of Lije and Daneel led me to write a sequel, “The Naked
Sun,” which appeared as a three-part serial in the October, November, and December 1956 issues
of Astounding and was published as a novel by Doubleday in 1957. Naturally, the repetition of
the success made a third novel seem the logical thing to do. I even started writing it in 1958, but
things got in the way and, what with one thing and another, it didn't get written till 1983.
15. The Robots of Dawn—This, the third novel of the Lije Baley/R. Daneel series, was published
by Doubleday in 1983. In it, I introduced a second robot, R. Giskard Reventlov, and this time I
was not surprised when he turned out to be as popular as Daneel.
16. Robots and Empire—When it was necessary to allow Lije Baley to die (of old age), I felt I
would have no problem in doing a fourth book in the series provided I allowed Daneel to live.
The fourth book, Robots and Empire, was published by Doubleday in 1985. Lije's death brought
some reaction, but nothing at all compared to the storm of regretful letters I received when the
exigencies of the plot made it necessary for R. Giskard to die.
So it turns out that my robot stories have been almost as successful as my Foundation books, and
if you want to know the truth (in a whisper, of course, and please keep this confidential), I like
my robot stories better.
Here, in Renegade, Cordell Scot ten has written an excellent example of why I like the robot
stories. A simple question arising from the Laws—”What is good for humans?”—is developed
into a complex and intriguing story.
CHAPTER 1 THE CEREMYONS
Gently soaring—basking under the sun—the two blackbodies circled far above the shimmering
atmospheric irregularity that was nearing completion on the planet's surface. As high as a small
mountain, the iridescent transparency, viewed from outside, covered a smooth hemispherical
excavation in the planet's surface two kilometers in diameter, except for an open pie cut, a not-yet-
covered sector ten degrees wide. Looking into the open sector, structures—built on ground not
excavated, paradoxically —covered the entire inner area. The most striking of these structures
was a tall, stepped pyramid centered under the dome.
The blackbodies floated a wingspread apart, five times the armspread of an Avery robot. Those
beings—the Avery robots—were even then streaming out of the incomplete sector, evacuating
the dome. The blackbodies had learned the name “Avery robot,” but the name lacked meaning
beyond its intonation.
“The construction was slowed by your absence yesterday, Sarco,” one blackbody said to the
other, “and I thank you for that. You needed the day off. Unfortunately, the effort was only
slowed. It would have benefited by a complete interruption.”
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摘要：

IsaacAsimov'sRobotCity,RobotsAndAliensBook2-RenegadeBooksintheIsaacAsimov’sRobotCity:RobotsandAliens™seriesBOOK1:CHANGELINGbyStephenLeighBOOK2:RENEGADEbyCordellScottenBOOK3:INTRUDERbyRobertThurstonBOOK4:ALLIANCEbyJerryOltionBOOK5:MAVERICKbyBruceBethkeBOOK6:HUMANITYbyJerryOltionISAACASIMOV’SROBOTCITY...

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