Isaac Asimov's I Robot: To Preserve by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Published by Penguin/ Roc on February 2, 2016

Isaac Asimov made me care about robots. In Isaac Asimov’s I Robot: To Preserve, Mickey Zucher Reichert didn’t make me care about anything. Particularly not robots. The only robot to play a central role spends most of his time standing (or being rolled around) in the background, contributing nothing to the plot.

The plot, by the way, involves an accusation that Nate (the robot N8-C) murdered someone. That suspicion derives from the fact that he’s found holding a bloody pry bar and standing next to the bloody body of a dead researcher. Nate confesses (sort of) which persuades an overzealous police detective to arrest Lawrence Robertson, Nate’s creator/programmer, for murder. That this happens without questioning Nate more completely is a bit eye-rolling, as is the notion that Robertson could be arrested in the absence of even slight evidence that he programmed Nate to kill the researcher. Those are lapses of logic that Asimov would never have made.

Of course, every Asimov fan knows that it is impossible for a robot to deliberately harm humans, but the plot depends on an arrest that sends the current incarnation of Susan Calvin on an obvious mission -- to find the real killer. Enlisting the help of a hunky ex-Marine who saves her in a shootout, Susan (granddaughter of the original) goes about the business of solving the murder.

Susan’s speeches fill in background for readers who may have missed Reichert’s previous two robot novels in this series. That background is essential to understanding the plot, but given the filling-in, this book can probably be read as a stand-alone.

Susan actually has two hunks in her life, the other being homicide detective Jake Carson. One or both may or may not be on Susan’s side. Most of the plot surrounds Susan’s interaction with one or both of the hunks, and occasionally (although infrequently) Nate.

The hunks provide the excuse to add a love triangle subplot that is even clunkier than one that Asimov might have penned. Certainly, Asimov would not have written the scenes that read like outtakes from a trashy romance novel, complete with Susan swooning over a bare-chested man’s “tousled hair.” Has a trashy romance novel ever been written that didn’t use the phrase “tousled hair”?

There is a lot more touchy-feelyness and a lot less intellect in this book than a reader would find in any of Asimov’s robot stories. More to the point, there is a lot less emphasis on robots, which sort of misses the point of a robot novel. For that reason, the story, while mildly interesting, doesn’t come close to being as absorbing as an Asimov robot story. There are certainly many science fiction novels far worse than this one, but as a continuation of a seminal sf series, the novel is a disappointment.

NOT RECOMMENDED