Series (Serious) Summer Reading Week

While some people view summer as an opportunity to grab a lighthearted book and an umbrella drink, others see the longer days as the perfect time to tackle a series and do some serious (get the pun?!) reading. This week we look at nine popular series and discuss the science contained, or implied, within their pages. The week starts with a review below of Only Human the concluding book in the Themis Files trilogy, which provides a counterexample of the robot programming structure called a schema. Other series cover genres such as police procedurals, robot uprisings, and- of course- action and adventure, and along the way provide teachable moments on morphology, software engineering, telepresence and ethics. In mid-week, our slide show will step you through the series and recommendations. Regardless of genre, the perennially favorite series are by Isaac Asimov, either his Caves of Steel trilogy or enduring stories (The Complete Robot is a good anthology), or books inspired by him (The Robot City series). In the Doctor’s honor, we also have an interview with Joanne Pransky, who Asimov declared was the real Dr. Susan Calvin!