Jeff Wells leaves the space academy with his mixed-up robot Norby, and the two of them head back to Earth to help Jeff's brother unravel a mystery involving zapped robots and stolen computer parts
Janet Asimov was an American science fiction writer, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. She originally wrote as J.O. Jeppson. She was an accomplished novelist and short-story writer who sometimes worked in collaboration with her husband, the late Isaac Asimov. Among the Asimovs' joint ventures as writers is the series of juvenile novels involving an endearing robot, Norby, and his young owner, Jeff Wells.
In this installment, Norby and Jeff head to Earth because Jeff's brother Fargo has stumbled across a strange mystery. Robots around the city of New York are being incapacitated, repurposed, or "zapped" by a person or persons unknown. Additionally, someone is stealing computer parts. Once the group starts investigating, their detective work leads them to uncover various things about Norby's past. In the process, Norby loses several of his special powers, and the team must try to get them back.
Of all of the Norby books I've read so far, this one may be the most uninspired. The revelations just don't seem that interesting and the stakes aren't high. And it all takes place on Earth, meaning that the more imaginative flights of world building and alien creatures that invigorated some of the earlier books are absent here. It's like reading Great Expectations as filtered through Norby. And that's not a compliment.
Again, this one probably will only appeal to die-hard Norby fans or Asimov completists.
One of the book’s strengths was all the action and emotion. For example, when Norby gets shot, the way the book describes Jeff’s feelings is very sad. A weakness was the book seemed very childish. For example, the way that Norby acted seemed too fake like when he was talking to Jeff, even though he should be a super smart robot, he acted kinda dumb at some parts. I would recommend the book to children in 2nd -4th grade because the book doesn’t sound real enough to be able to picture that well.
In this adventure Norby must solve a mystery as to why there is someone attacking robots randomly on earth. In the process he meets the descendants of the man who created him from alien parts.
This adventure was fun, but to me it wasn't as exciting as some of the previous books. I still enjoyed it, but that's the reason I rated it slightly lower.