Customer Reviews

The Positronic Man

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The story of a mechanical creature who wishes to become human is an old one, appearing in many forms over the centuries. In this superb story, a robot, named Andrew by the children who adore it, begins to exhibit human characteristics, due to the unpredictability of its' positronic memory circuits. Slowly, through a series of step-wise modifications, Andrew is altered so that his functions become more human. Throughout the tale, Andrew exhibits many of the characteristics of being human, although his human society is currently exhibiting a backlash against robots doing anything to appear as anything other than robots.
This is also a tale about human politics, emotions and insecurities. Some of the prejudices exhibited against robots are strikingly similar to those humans have against other humans not of the appropriate type. Asimov and Heinlein are masters at describing the consequences of technology and in this book, they are at their best. I have always considered Asimov's robot stories to be the best of all his science fiction works. They deal with limits placed on technology, through the hard-wired laws of robotics to the social restrictions placed on robots so that they do not appear too human. And yet, he also presses the envelope, in that he has humans becoming intimate with robots, even to the point of suggested sexual contact.
I consider this to be one of the two best science fiction books that Isaac Asimov wrote, with the other being Nightfall. It is an old tale, but told with emotional entanglements, such as having Andrew being treated not as a monster but as a member of a human family as he pursues his quest to be declared legally human.

Not a bad novel, but I found the original Asimov much more compelling. This book seems longer solely for the sake of being longer. The original story is available in several compilations, such as The Complete Robot.

After seeing the movie "Bicentennial Man", I ran straight to the library to pick up "The Positronic Man." (I was surprised to find the book 'out of print', especially with the recent release of the movie.) This is the first Sci-Fi book I have ever read, and first review I have offered. I have not been in high school in some time, but this book should be required reading! I'm sure it would bring some hefty discussions on the issues of humanity, morality and mortality. A very thought-provoking, fascinating book and a joy to read.

I enjoyed this book immensly. I couldn't put it down. Here is a robot longing to be human (Star Trek fans....remind you of anyone?) and striving in many ways to find out what that is. In the end, an intriguing idea of what makes us human. Easy reading and thoughtful.

Set in the future where helpful robots are a reality, model NDR113, or Andrew as his family names him, is contemplating a risky surgery when the book begins but we don't know what it is. It then flips back to the past a bit and we meet him just as he's settling in with his family. He seems to be part housekeeper and part babysitter and a trusted member of the family. Someone tell me where I can sign up for an Andrew.

Anyway, being a robot and all, Andrew must obey all commands and is constantly torn between Dad's orders and those of the little girls who he calls Miss and Little Miss. The girls have ways of overriding Dad's commands and Andrew's programming often doesn't know what to do and the girls get their way. I was surprised just how enjoyable I found this because I'm not a straight up scifi lover.

Even though scifi is not my genre of choice, this book really surprised me. I didn't find myself dozing off and it wasn't overly technical as I'd mistakenly assumed. It focused on Andrew the robot's struggles with being owned. He seems to have some sort of a glitch that allows him to think less like a machine and more like a human. He has no rights and no free will but fortunately he has "Little Miss" and a whole lot of money and she forces her dad to fight to make Andrew a free robot. Andrew now faces more problems from a society fearful and prejudiced against robots and as he outlives his family he feels things no robot should.

My attention began to wane a bit during the last part of the book which spent a lot of time on the scifi aspects and legal battles of Andrew but overall it was a very engaging and thought provoking book that even made me tear up near the end.

The book was shipped fast, it was in perfect condition, it was exactly what i wanted and it was exactly what i got, if i had to purchase it again i would.

Andrew the robot, an electro-mechanical Pinnochio, wants more than anything else to be a real man--but humanity isn't ready to admit a machine into its ranks. Built on an unstated but powerfully naturalistic and mechanistic ontology, this novel acts as a popular-level manifesto for recognizing the dignity of non-human artifical intelligence. Think of it as a preemptive strike in a battle yet to be fought, an opening salvo in the battle for machine rights.

Although this book is well-written, Asimov's original novella accomplishes everything the book does in much less space. Expanding the story into a full-length novel added nothing to the pathos of Andrew's plight, or to the question of what it means to be human. If the novella has been read, the novel can be bypassed with no loss.

THE POSITRONIC MAN expands and fleshes out the original short story THE BICENTENNIAL MAN,and in doing so,makes for fine reading.Highly recommended.

This book exemplifies what is best about science fiction. Most people evoke images of spaceships battling it out in space or aliens who want nothing more than to invade our planet Earth. But if one truely wants to read an example of what science fiction is all about, then read this book!

How does humanity react when its own creation decide that it wants its own independence? What does it mean to be human? A question that is always on our minds... Please read this book. It is a great story of one questioner who dared to ask "Why Not Me?" instead of accepting the status quo.

One of my favorite books. Funny, touching, and very insightful