In a brilliant, chilling series of nine related short stories, the author chronicles robot development from its crude mid-twentieth century beginnings to a state of such perfection that a hundred years later robots are running man's world for his own good. Dr. Asimov has endowed his mechanical creations with disarmingly human personalities -- from Robbie, the beloved, mute nursemaid of an eight-year-old girl, to Stephen Byerley who was elected first...