Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots and Computers [Hardcover]

Isaac Asimov (Author), Patricia S. Warrick (Author), Martin Harry Greenberg (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1984

Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots and Computers [Hardcover] Isaac Asimov (Author), Patricia S. Warrick (Author), Martin Harry Greenberg (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 627 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (February 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0030614988
• ISBN-13: 978-0030614989
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,949,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books!!, June 16, 2008

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Marisa (Jupiter, FL United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots and Computers (Hardcover)

I found this book in my school library in my freshman year of high school.I checked it out and got partway through,then had to return it.I was hooked,though,and finally found a used copy here on Amazon,which seems to be the only place you can get it now,since it's out of print.That said,it's worth tracking it down and paying S&H and a private seller to get your hands on this book.If you're serious about sci-fi,or have even a moderate interest in AI,this is a requisite.It's a compilation of sci-fi short stories about Artificial Intelligence that ranges in date from the earliest robot story to debate the ethics of the field--"Moxon's Master",written in 1894 by Ambrose Bierce--to classics of and groundbreakers in the genre--with a heavy dose of Asimov,"The Founder of Robotics"--to more modern stories written in the 1970s and 1980s.That's one catch:the book is an old one,so the most recent stories are from right before it was published.However,the book is organized into thematic sections,which is helpful for a disscussion-based reading of the stories.It contains some of the stories you kind of have to read to be considered to know AI sci-fi--several of Asimov's more important ones,two by Philip K Dick,one by Arthur C Clarke and another by Poul Andersen,but a bunch of others as well.The one problem I have with the book is that Asimov is an editor of it,and while he's undoubtedly contributed a plethora of work to the sci-fi genre and a good deal of it is important,I feel he's tooting his own horn too much by giving himself four spaces in this anthology.Otherwise,the pieces in here,while maybe not all well-written overall(a lot of it is pulp sci-fi),contribute important ideas to thinking about AI.