What do you think?
Rate this book
Certain that its destruction is imminent, MC Governor, the largest and most intelligent experimental robot ever built, uses the Third Law of Robotics to break itself down into six smaller robots and scatter them throughout Earth's past.
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
140 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 19, 2019
This third book in the series takes R. Hunter and his team into the Germany of Roman times. We have a new historian but Steve and Jane are repeat team members again. Gene the historian did not seem to do much more than struggle to keep up with everyone while they were running through the forest. But that is of course unfair. He advised them on certain details of events and how to behave, and he was more more helpful in his role than Rita was in book #2.
In reviews of the first two books, I omitted mentioning that not only is R. Hunter and his team looking for the component parts of MC Governor, but Wayne Nystrom is skulking around on his own as well. Nystrom is the designer of the Governor robots and wants to examine at least one of the component pieces before anyone else can see them. So not only does Hunter have to think about all the ways his teams presence in the past could affect the future, and try to figure out how to find the fugitive robots and return them to their own time before the nuclear explosions, but he has to deal with a slightly mad scientist who is only in the chase for himself.
Wait. Nuclear explosions? Yes. I have to admit I am a bit confused about the whys and wherefores of this bit. It seems the component robots have all been affected by the miniaturization process by which they were scattered to various time periods in the past. And once they return to full size, their molecular stability is affected until finally they get to the point of exploding. And apparently when these robots explode they don't just fall down and go boom, they go nuclear.
Time travel paradoxes are perplexing me over this bit of information, but I'll wait until my review of book six before I address the issue and make some comments on the series as a whole.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed this one and I want to learn more about the historical period it depicted. More to read, wouldn't you know?!
In reviews of the first two books, I omitted mentioning that not only is R. Hunter and his team looking for the component parts of MC Governor, but Wayne Nystrom is skulking around on his own as well. Nystrom is the designer of the Governor robots and wants to examine at least one of the component pieces before anyone else can see them. So not only does Hunter have to think about all the ways his teams presence in the past could affect the future, and try to figure out how to find the fugitive robots and return them to their own time before the nuclear explosions, but he has to deal with a slightly mad scientist who is only in the chase for himself.
Wait. Nuclear explosions? Yes. I have to admit I am a bit confused about the whys and wherefores of this bit. It seems the component robots have all been affected by the miniaturization process by which they were scattered to various time periods in the past. And once they return to full size, their molecular stability is affected until finally they get to the point of exploding. And apparently when these robots explode they don't just fall down and go boom, they go nuclear.
Time travel paradoxes are perplexing me over this bit of information, but I'll wait until my review of book six before I address the issue and make some comments on the series as a whole.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed this one and I want to learn more about the historical period it depicted. More to read, wouldn't you know?!
May 29, 2024
Empezando por el tercero porque yo lo valgo, pero antiguedad clásica, robots y viajes en el tiempo, quién pidiera más.
October 9, 2024
Il manque quelque chose. La lecture est très peu fluide. C'est clairement en dessous du style d'asimov. Je reprendrais cette série plus tard, après avoir terminer la trame principale.
Read
November 1, 2020About the series:
In the robot universe created by Isaac Asimov, a humanoid robot named Hunter leads a human team to search the past for six rogue robots before they change the course of history -- or explode with nuclear force in the present!
The first such series in Asimov's universe to appear after his death, written by William F. Wu in the tradition of Asimov's original robot short stories to be acceptable for any age group.
About the book: Hunter and his regular team members, roboticist Jane Maynard and general assistant Steve Chang, are joined by historian Gene Titus in Roman Germany where a rebellion will decide whether Germany regains its independence or remains part of the Roman Empire indefinitely. If MC 3 successfully obeys the First Law of Robotics and saves Roman Legions from a German ambush, the long-term fate of Europe will be changed forever.
Dr. Nystrom, using his understanding of robot logic and the imperatives of the Three Laws, has persuaded a humanoid robot named Ishihara from his own time to help him get MC 3 first.
Hunter's team searches through the wild forests of Germany among barbaric German tribes for both MC 3 and their nemesis, Dr. Nystrom, before the Battle of Teutoburger Wald, tracking MC 3 through the woods, hunting a wild boar, and befriending a doomed Roman Tribune whose life they dare not save.
October 1, 2014
A young adult novel, based on Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics. Wu does a nice job of writing a book that is appealing to kids; if I was nine, I would probably have loved it. This one places robots in the Roman Empire, an interesting reference to Asimov's "Foundation" universe, which was inspired in part by Gibbon's famous "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
May 16, 2012
Just like the first two, not much worth reading. This is definitely a time that I wish my anal completionist gene wasn't active...
Want to read
January 10, 201410/1/93. No library.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews