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Home > Categories > Books > Sci-Fi > I, Robot: To Obey review
It is 2036 and robotic technolgy has evolved into the realm of self aware sentient mechanical entities. Even as humanity contends with the consequences of its most brilliant creation, there are those who have their own plans for the robots: enslavement or annihilation.
Susan Calvin is about to enter her second year as a psych resident at the Manhatten Hasbro teaching hospital when she hears her father has been murdered. His death sets her on a trail of discovery which will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about her father and herself.
When she was young, Susan lost her mother in a terrible car wreck that also badly injured her father. She now believes the accident was orchestrated by government officials who wanted her parents dead. Susan has always known there was a faction of the U.S. government that wanted to hijack her father's work for military use. Now it seems that faction is back. As she struggles to overcome her pain and confusion, as well as deal with her studies, Susan finds herself hunted by violent antitech vigilantes who would revert mankind to the Dark Ages - and at the same time she's being watched very closely by extremists who want high-tech genocide. Somehow she must find a way to stop them both.
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Review by: tucker (Karl)
Dated: 15th of February, 2014
Following on from 'To Protect' this story brings a huge surprise for Susan, casing doubt on the life she thought she knew while also revealing the origins of the NC class of robots... and their true purpose. It also throws her another radical curve-ball when she finds out why her father was murdered... who he really was... and who she is too!
Under the ever-malignant attentions of the Society For Humanity, whose plans she thwarted in the first book, Susan must try and recover from the devastating loss of the only man, other than her father, who she has ever loved, treat and cure patients who have been given up on by the medical community because of misdiagnosis, and stay alive while being the subject of a determined manhunt by two factions, both wanting a secret that Susan is certain doesn't exist.
We aren't introduced to any major new characters in this title, but the added back-story and depth given to the characters we are already familiar with adds a lot more 'reality' to them, making it so much easier to connect to them, emotionally investing the reader in their plight. This is made a lot easier because once again the science and technology is treated as 'commonplace' and thus not worthy of detailed analysis or explanation - though some small devices do get quite a bit of attention in the story. This lack of 'uber-geekery' keeps the story entertaining, flowing and accessible even to those who may other get put off by the title alone.
Overall, this is a great follow-on from the first book, and a worthy heir to Asimov's legacy, despite the breaking of sacred canon from the original worldline Asimov created. The hardest thing about this book is trying to write a review that doesn't give away any key plot elements... because it's just so jam-packed with them! I will say though... Susan's bedside manner has stayed the same - deplorable! 
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