So. I, Robot.

The discussion basically boiled down to this:

– Those of us who had read it before agreed that the second (or third, or nth) time through went a bit differently. For me, that was probably because the last time I read it, I was in high school and had the requisite teenage blindness to subtler themes in literature.

– We liked how Asimov used Susan Calvin to tie the previously separately-published stories together. Also how revolutionary (and futuristic?) it was to have a female protagonist.

– The book often forced us to think about how we think about things. We don’t have robot-logic, and robots don’t have us-logic, so the puzzle-solving stories were intriguing.

– The later-added Zeroth Law of Robotics seems like it should have been less of an afterthought, but I guess the original plan for robots didn’t include them being autonomous.

– There’s actual science in Asimov’s science-fiction, for maybe the first time ever in the genre. (Never mind that some concepts were modified, without much explanation, from one book to the next. Real science had either caught up and proved something wrong, or just moved on.)

– It shows its age a bit: Where was my Robbie when I was growing up in the ‘90s? And great as it would be, I don’t think we’re really on track to achieve interstellar travel by 2029. Fifteen years might be a little overly-optimistic.

TL;DR, it’s a good read (and a good re-read), and a book I will continue to recommend.

Here’s the thing: I really like science fiction. And I like that other people also like science fiction.

So, here’s a book club: Infinity and Beyond (because I am a sucker for having clever names for things). We physically meet at 6 p.m. on the last Thursday of every month at the Almond Library,and I attempt to post the revelations from said meeting here shortly thereafter for further discussion. The plan is to focus mostly on science fiction (June’s book is I, Robot and July’s is Ender’s Game), but I’m sure bits and pieces of the other flavors of speculative fiction will drift onto the reading list now and then. (Sorry that most of that is also in the “About” page.)

But I’m very new to this. And Infinity and Beyond only just had its first meeting last week, so you’ll have to excuse this post’s incredible lack of content – there isn’t all that much to report. We came up with a short book list, ate some cookies, got to know each other a bit, and agreed that we’d like to see more optimism in our science fiction. (Social commentary is all well and good, but post-apocalyptic dystopia gets tiresome.)

So here’s to new things, good books, and brighter futures.