Disposable Lit Reviews

Ace, 1987
211 pp.
ISBN 0-44173122-8

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Today, franchised novels predominate on the bookstore’s genre shelves, but back in the misty days of the mid-’80s when we rode to the local bookseller on our giant ground sloths, the only established franchise novels aimed at a wide readership (that’s my way of bracketing out the various men’s adventure series) were Star Trek novels and the Star Wars books, most of which were written by Alan Dean Foster and which concerned the prior adventures of Han Solo and Chewbacca because Lucasfilm didn’t want future continuity screwed up.

Into the first wave of franchised novels came Isaac Asimov. It was a natural evolution; the Good Doctor had already lent his name to two magazines (that’s right, not only do I remember the short-lived Isaac Asimov’s SF Adventure Magazine, I own the first issue!), and had signed on as a co-editor to many paperback anthologies whose main editorial duties had been handled by Martin Greenberg. I have no idea what the financial remuneration was for these light duties, but I somehow down that a man who had written and published hundreds of books was doing it for the quick buck. He always said that he wanted to use whatever fame he had to give a hand up to younger writers, and I have to believe him.

Since his death in 1992, other writers have continued his Foundation series with volumes in chronological order, but the “robot” stories, collected mostly in I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots, provide the best playground in his loose “future history” for other authors to play. Asimov formulated the Three Laws of Robotics early in his career (and if you don’t know what they are, you deserve to have to google them), and the robot stories explore how those laws interact with each other and with extreme or novel situations. They are in essence puzzle stories, showing Asimov’s other great fictional devotion (he was a member of both the Wolfe Pack and the Baker Street Irregulars, and wrote a series of mystery stories featuring “The Black Widowers”). Thus, a writer working from the robot stories not only has a coherent setting or milieu and some clearly defined technology to work with, but a template for the story itself.

Kube-McDowell, already the author of several well-received original novels, became the first novelist to play in the Good Doctor’s sandbox, and the story starts off with its biggest puzzle: the narrator wakes up in a lifepod on an asteroid being mined by robots, with no memory of his identity or whereabouts. He christens himself “Derec” after a label on his jumpsuit, then sets about trying to find out who he is and where he is. But the robots, though they are not hostile, will tell him nothing of their purpose, and know nothing about his personal history.

And then the aliens come.

That’s the one major departure from Asimov’s version of future history (though, as Asimov makes clear in the introduction, the entire series was created with his close consultation): the universe in his stories is occupied by humans and their robots. But Kube-McDowell adds at least four alien races work (sort of) in concert, seeking the secret of building robots for themselves. And while they’re at it, they’d like to get their hands on the mysterious whatever-it-is that the robots were searching the asteroid for, which has by happenstance come into Derec’s hands. If only he can figure out what it’s for…

Aside from the introduction of aliens, everything else is in line with the Good Doctor’s creative vision. From Derec’s amnesia, to his attempts to manipulate the robots by playing one law against another, to his attempts to influence the aliens in the same way as he tries to figure out the world he’s in, it’s all very much a puzzle story. Naturally, deep characterization goes by the wayside, but that’s especially to be forgiven when the main character begins with complete amnesia; Derec’s main traits are intelligence and competence, with a more-than-rudimentary knowledge of robotics obviously retained from his past life. He has a bad habit of being knocked unconscious and waking up in a different environment, though (at least three times).

Because this is the first volume of a five-novel set, it seems sometimes to be over-attenuated, unwilling to give out meat but sparingly. It’s not a novel which I would say belongs with the “canon” of the Good Doctor’s better work. But as derivative fiction goes, it’s certainly a better exercise than some I could mention.