(1998) Roger MacBride Allen, Orion, £4.99, £4.99, £5.99, pbk, ISBN 1857981695, 185798403X, 0752809865
This trilogy (of which each book can be read separately) is a re-examination of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. A roboticist in the future, not satisfied with the way robots are “feather-bedding” humans, removing challenges, tries a modification to the three laws and then, daringly, also constructs a robot brain with no laws whatever.
The resultant chaos - murder, kidnapping, blackmail, a comet used to terraform a planet - is marvellously written, and fascinating intellectual arguments and action scenes alternate. Highly recommended.
Allen, who started writing in the 1980’s, is in my opinion the best author to arrive in the genre since Niven. His work seems to embrace any concept, from regular Space Opera to the pair of superscience books Ring of Charon and Shattered Sphere. I’m delighted to have found him.
Vince Clarke
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