I have to admit that I find that the quality of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series trails off sharply after the stories involving The Mule. The two novels following Second Foundation seem to have found Asimov running out of steam, leaving the stories plodding along and lacking the flair of a tight and imaginative tale. Perhaps that's why I've found reading The Complete Robot to be such a delight.

I have always felt that Science Fiction's strongest form is the short story and Asimov's pioneering tales about robots proves him to be a master of the short narrative. Collecting nearly all of Asimov's robot stories, this anthology is packed with the tales that have shaped our modern conception of robotics.

I'm only half way through the anthology, but atleat one of the examinations of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics is absolutely priceless. Reason concerns a QT-1 (AKA “Cutie”), a robot whose emergent belief system leads it to conclude that its creators could not possibly be humans. Despite the arguments of its roboticists, Asimov's engineering odd-couple Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, Cutie ends up rejecting human manufacturers as a matter of logical necessity:

I say this in no spirit of contempt, but look at you! The material you are
made of is soft and flabby, lacking endurance and strength…periodically you pass into a coma, and the least variation in temperature, air pressure,
humidity or radiation intensity impairs your efficiency. You
are makeshift….these are facts which, with the self-evident
proposition that no being can create another being superior to
itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.

Robot metaphysics is thus born and Cutie's ensuing dedication to mechanical prophethood is as amusing as it is disturbing. The story is simply fantastic and sterling example of why Isaac Asimov is a masterful storyteller.