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Reading Groups
Reading Guides
List Price: $17.95
Pages: 408
Format: Trade Paperback
Genre: Fiction: Technothriller
ISBN: 978-1-894689069
Author: Howard S. Smith
Illustrator: Kathy Harestad
Publisher: Robot Binaries & Press
Publication Date: Sept 2008
Click here to watch book trailer on YouTube
www.robotpress.net
North Korea defiantly launches a nuclear-tipped missile over Japan, exploding it in a mushroom-cloud firestorm offshore.
A nuclear Iran, through its allies in Lebanon, is mercilessly lobbing missiles into Israel.
A powerful China launches a killer satellite and destroys half of America’s spy satellites.
Will one man’s love for a woman save the world, or destroy it?
Setting: Japan, Mariana Islands, Southern Lebanon war zone, Upper Galilee kibbutz
Protagonist: Suzuki Haruto, rigidly by-the-rules Tokyo Police Inspector
Opening: A dead ‘Westerner’ in a Tokyo hotel. Nuclear North Korea is extorting concessions from Japan. Israel can’t stop the never-ending rain of terror rockets.
Originality: In Isaac Asimov’s stories, the robot-based plots develop interesting twists because the robots must follow their rigid rules known as the three laws of robotics. Some sixty years later, this book updates Asimov’s work with a realistic technology for the robots, as well as a realistic driving force – military need – for their emergence. This is one reason the title is used, but the other one is that the main character of this book, Haruto, is in fact almost a robot (jinzouningen) who must follow his own internal rigid rules. And by following these rules an interesting twist in the plot arises, and ultimately leads to the emergence of vast numbers of robots in our world, thereby bringing Asimov’s vision to fruition.
• Why does Israel want the Mikiyasu military robots? Why do you think Japan developed these robots in the first place?
• Why does Japan want the high-yield nuclear bombs? Why can’t they develop these devices themselves?
• (Optional technical question) Explain how a Hopfield circuit works. How does this differ from normal computer memory?
• (Optional technical question) In the chapter where the Korean is holding a gun to Haruto’s head, Haruto’s hand crosses the Korean’s eyes at over 100 km/hour. How can this be possible?
• Do you think disguising the nuclear test ship as a cruise ship is a good strategy? Why does Israel need to hide the testing of nuclear devices?
• Why is Haruto upset that Japan will be acquiring nuclear weapons, ostensibly for self-defense purposes?
• (Optional technical question) What are the advantages of using hydraulics to move the robots? The disadvantages?
• (Optional technical question) Why would water leaking into the uranium-235 sphere cause it to explode?
• What is happening to Haruto at the capsule hotel?
• Why does Daveed create the Alpha Prime robots?
• Why does John Sullivan put his satellite into the special Molniya orbit?
• What’s the difference between a kibbutz and an ordinary village?
• Why does Haruto feel it necessary to travel to Israel and video proof of the robots in military action?
• Why does Haruto collapse in the kibbutz dining hall? Is this similar to what happened to him at the capsule hotel?
• (Optional technical question) What is the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder?
• Explain how rules and rituals figure in Haruto’s life.
• Why does Haruto not allow himself to be arrested, but instead decides to break the rules and go on his journey to Israel? How does he justify this? Does Haruto’s OCD seem to worsen from breaking all these rules? What rituals/rules does he follow to try to calm down his anxiety?
• Mara doesn’t want Haruto to file his report, but Haruto feels he needs to. What are the consequences of following these rules?
• After the rocket attack on the kibbutz and Haruto is madly charging at the border fence, Salzman yells, “Your karate can’t stop them all. You’re just a man.” How does Haruto’s karate, ie, following of the rules of the bushido, actually allow him to stop all the terrorist and their rocket attacks?
• What happens to Haruto at the end of the book? Does he believe in his rules and rituals anymore?
• At the end of the book Haruto is crying at the cemetery. “What a waste… they died for no reason, no consequence.” Is this true?
• If Haruto would have not followed his rules how would the outcome have been different – Mara? the future robots? the future of mankind?
• The last chapter finishes on Mount Moriah. What is the significance of this location? What type of prophesy has occurred? Why has it occurred? Have mankind’s actions created it?
• Why do you think the name “Isaac” was chosen for the child in the last chapter?
• Why do you think the book is called I, robot?
• The book starts with a haiku from Ryota:
“This is the way of the world:
three days pass, you gaze up –
the blossom has fallen.”
What does this haiku mean? How does it relate to the book?
• The book finishes with a haiku from Ryota:
“The potted plant seller went away,
But left behind fluttering –
this butterfly.”
What does this haiku mean? How does it relate to the book?
“A few years later…
Pacific Ocean 35˚N, 160˚E
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (Navy) Destroyer Ashigara
June 10 2AM Tokyo Time (June 9 17:00 Zulu)
“Missile is launching south of Pyongyang!”
“Stand ready!” Captain Watanabe scanned the water with his binoculars. Little light came from the dark, cloudy skies. He could no longer make out the North Korean frigate at the horizon.
The control bridge fell silent. Four subordinate officers, plastered in their seats, staring at phosphor-green monitors in front of them… Waiting.
Watanabe gripped his binoculars tighter. What was happening to this world? Korea – North Korea! – had nuclear missiles, and Japan stood there like a hapless victim, punched left and right, smiling after each blow. How much money this time? A billion yen…no, no that’s not enough. Here, let me give you a trillion.
“Sir, Yokosuka announces the missile is over-flying Japan now… Over Tokyo now! Altitude eighty thousand meters and climbing. Vector is on course.”
The only sounds on the bridge were the soft hum of the electronics and the breathing of the officers and Captain. The labored silence stretched on, with the officers staring at their screens, and Captain Watanabe gripping his binoculars and wiping his brow.
“On radar now,” Master Petty Officer Hirashi shouted. “Computer is waiting for data to calculate vector.”
The background of Hirashi’s screen switched from green to light blue and started flashing. “Sir, vector estimate is twelve thousand meters short!”
Watanabe dropped his binoculars. The left lens shattered on the metal floor and broke the silence of the room for good.
Hirashi’s radar screen abruptly changed again to a flashing orange background. “Sir, increase to fourteen thousand meters short and two thousand meters wide of expected impact.”
“Position and time!”
“Impact at six thousand meters southeast of our position in ninety-four seconds, Sir!”
“Damn them!” Watanabe yelled at the floor. The North Koreans knew that the Ashigara was there observing.
Watanabe started thinking. After the missile’s nuclear warhead exploded a large wave would come at them from the southeast. To avoid capsizing he ought to steer the ship into the wave. But that was to make way toward the explosion and the radiation. Steering one hundred eighty degrees away from the wave would take the ship farther from the blast and fallout, and prevent the wave from hitting it broadside, but a stern is not a bow. If the wave were large enough, when it hit the rear of the ship, the stern would rise, push the bow underwater and capsize his boat.
Damn those Koreans. Damn those nuclear weapons.
He’d take his chances with the sea and get as far as possible from the nuke. The decision had only taken seconds. “Helmsman, make your direction northwest at full propeller!”
“Yes, Sir.”
The roar of the four Ishikawajima turbines coming up to full speed with one-hundred-thousand horsepower filled the ship.
“Transfer ballast from bow tanks into stern tanks and initiate full anti-broaching. Blast shields down. Air intake pumps off. All hatches sealed. Electromagnetic pulse protection on. Infirmary to stand ready.”
“Yes, Sir!” The officers typed frantically into their keyboards. In a few seconds sirens and computer-generated voices sounded throughout the ship, followed by the clanging of blast shields and hatches.
“Northwest at full propeller now, Sir.”
“Stern buoyancy?”
“Decreasing, Sir.” Hirashi looked at the monitors again. “But not enough time to transfer full ballast… Impact in forty seconds, Sir.”
“Position!”
“Estimate impact southeast fifty-eight hundred meters from current coordinates, Sir.”
Watanabe opened his wallet and looked at the photos of his wife and twin girls. There was nothing else he could do.
“Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…Impa-” A bright light pushed through the cracks at the edges of the blast shields.
“Brace for impact!” Watanabe shouted.
A loud blast shattered the quiet. Then the massive wave slammed into the ship and over all its decks. The Ashigara’s bow went down under the water, and the ship listed to port.
Watanabe grabbed onto a pole to keep from toppling over. Damn it, stop, stop! The ship kept listing.
Watanabe’s heart was beating faster. With each beat, the port side of the ship approached the waterline. Ballast and loose cargo slid portside, driving the ship further to its side. Time slowed and the ship hung there – its tilted deck only meters from the sea, and creeping closer.
Watanabe pulled against the pole, somehow imagining he could right the ship, his hands so tight they were white. Stop. Please don’t end this way. He wedged his feet against the now vertical floor. With every muscle in his body, he pulled against that pole, straining and groaning.
The ship edged closer and closer to the waterline.
And then, as if his will and his pulling had had an effect, the ship slowly started to right itself.
“Damage report now!” Watanabe shouted.
Hirashi climbed back in his seat. “Propulsion good. Electrical generation good. Ship seals good. Negative radiation. One injury report – Engine Room – toolbox fell and pinned Mechanic Second Class Yomosuto.”
“Relay the nuclear blast telemetry data to Yokosuka.”
“Already done, Sir.”
“What does our computer say about the blast data?”
“Yield estimated at nine point two kilotons, Sir.”
Captain Watanabe wiped the sweat from his eyes. His left hand was still shaking. They’d been lucky. He looked at the laminated map of Japan affixed to the port wall and frowned. Maybe next time they would not be so fortunate.
Dr. Howard S. Smith is an MIT-trained engineer with an interest in artificial intelligence – the supermarket self-checkout machines are all based on his work – and natural intelligence – evolution of the brain.
The author welcomes your comments. Please write to him at: authorhowardssmith@robotpress.net
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