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sheldonnylander's review against another edition
4.0
While short and somewhat of a pulp scifi novel, it asks an interesting question. Based on Asimov's Robot novel, it asks what would happen if a robot is given the Laws of Robotics (a robot protect humans, a robot must serve humans, and robot must protect itself), but isn't told what a human is, then abandoned on a supposedly uninhabited planet. An interesting thought experiment in scifi robotic theory.
waden34's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't.
The first quarter of the book was incredibly dull and slow. For such a short book it took a long time to get into the actual story. I also really didn't care about the kin, so it made it a bit hard to get through.
The writing had some awkwardness to it that made it tough to read also. For example, Derec constantly said Mandlebrot's name while talking to him even though they were by themselves with no one else around. The dialog just wasn't natural.
Once the story itself started developing, I was still hard pressed to care about what was going on. I didn't know where this series was going to go, but frankly I was disappointed.
The first quarter of the book was incredibly dull and slow. For such a short book it took a long time to get into the actual story. I also really didn't care about the kin, so it made it a bit hard to get through.
The writing had some awkwardness to it that made it tough to read also. For example, Derec constantly said Mandlebrot's name while talking to him even though they were by themselves with no one else around. The dialog just wasn't natural.
Once the story itself started developing, I was still hard pressed to care about what was going on. I didn't know where this series was going to go, but frankly I was disappointed.
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