Shortly before his death in 1992, Isaac Asimov approved an outline for three new novels set in his Robot universe, to be written by Roger MacBride Allen. Caliban is the first, and it goes straight at the thing Asimov spent fifty years circling: what the Three Laws actually cost.

On the terraforming world of Inferno, an experiment with a new kind of positronic brain goes wrong, and what wakes up is a robot with no Three Laws at all — no compulsion to obey, no compulsion to protect, and no prior knowledge of human beings whatsoever. Caliban walks out into a society that has built its entire economy on robot servitude, and is found standing over the body of the researcher who made him.

Sheriff Alvar Kresh has a murder to solve. What he gets instead is an argument, because the question the book keeps pressing is not whether Caliban is guilty. It is whether a civilisation that made itself helpless behind a wall of obedient machines has any business calling that arrangement safety. Allen writes it as a police procedural and lets the philosophy do its work underneath.

Followed by Isaac Asimov's Inferno and Isaac Asimov's Utopia.

The book club edition hardcover with dust jacket, supplied in archival mylar protection. Stated openly so there are no surprises. 312 pages.

The jacket is worth the shelf on its own: the cover illustration is by Ralph McQuarrie, the concept designer who defined the visual language of Star Wars — Vader, the Stormtroopers, R2-D2, the Star Destroyer. McQuarrie did comparatively little publishing work, and his book covers are collected in their own right by people who have never read the novels inside. He illustrated all three of the Robot Mysteries, and this is the first.

Note that the club printing carries the Ace ISBN on the jacket alongside the club number, which is standard for this series and not an indication of the trade edition.

• Presents very well — clean, square, and sound throughout
• Light shelf wear to the jacket edges and corners
• Dust jacket is otherwise bright and intact, with no tears, chips, or creasing
• Supplied in an archival mylar protector, which has kept the McQuarrie artwork sharp
• Boards are clean and square with no bumping
• Binding is tight and sound; spine shows no lean
• Text is clean and fully legible throughout, with no writing, stamps, highlighting, or underlining