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Page 54
are equally clearly most effective because of the more-or-less accidental coming together of the Asimov method with a suitable subject. Susan Calvin's human reaction to Herbie's lies is the means by which the problem is solved and the question of Herbie disposed of. Stephen Byerley's ambiguous presence is the problem of robot superiority that must meet the test of human fear.
The other stories are less successful as fiction because Asimov does not find a humanly involving method for expressing them. "Liar!" and "Evidence" would be unsuccessful as "robot stories" if it were not for the ingenuity of the solutions to the problems they present; the human problems solve the robot predicament. It is always so in the robot stories: Weston not only must get Robbie and Gloria back together again but must do so in a way that demonstrates Robbie's superiority as a nursemaid; Powell must get Speedy back but in a way exploiting the Three Laws. If readers do not involve themselves in solving the problems, they will miss the basic pleasure offered by the stories in I, Robot.
As in The Foundation Trilogy, Asimov discovered, or learned from Campbell, the method that best suited his rational temperament and that best developed the kind of ideas he wished to explore: the mystery. As a rational person in an irrational world, Asimov had a compulsion that fit perfectly with what Campbell thought science fiction ought to do: that is, to show rationality prevailing over fear, prejudice, sentimentality, short-sightedness, and all the other irrational forces in the world, including accident. Thus the mystery, the puzzle, the success of the logical, unemotional Susan Calvin over all the other less logical, more emotional characters in the stories. "Robbie" was less successful (and less acceptable to Campbell, perhaps) partly because it was not a puzzle, not a mystery. "Reason" was Campbell's kind of story, and Asimov's too, because it presented the puzzle of Cutie's obsession and how to solve it, and the ending was a neat twist that had not been foreseen. The puzzle and the ingenious solution were what sold Asimov's robot stories to Campbell and to his readers. But those were not the stories' only virtues. The concern with the Three Laws also had relevance to human behavior, sometimes stated, more often not. This does not mean simply the overt references to such matters as the Frankenstein complex: the fear of robots and the banning of their use on Earth has more fictional value than philosophic validity. Although clearly motivated by Asimov's dislike for the archetype of the prejudiced, emotion-driven, unthinking person, and enabling him to deal with contrasts in attitudes and behavior, the terrestrial antipathy toward the robots seems less convincing than desirable for reasons of plot. Robot computers are not

 
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