I, Robot Characters

Robopsychologist Susan Calvin is a robot. Well, no, we don't mean that literally—she's a human; but she sure seems like what we think a robot should be. Even Asimov said so in an introduction to...

Powell and Donovan fill the same position in these robot stories as Bert and Ernie do in Sesame Street: they teach us things, but they're also meant to make us laugh. And Powell and Donovan are als...

The unnamed interviewer is clearly not that important in the grand scheme of the universe—he has no name, after all. But he is somewhat important to this story. After all, he's someone who has al...

Bogert is kind of a villain who could easily have been kind of a hero. He's a mathematician who works for US Robots—and like all mathematicians, his hands are pudgy (Liar.27) and pale (Liar.83)....

Dr. Alfred Lanning is like a mad scientist, except he's only mildly annoyed. He's the Director of Research at US Robots and Mechanical Men when Susan Calvin joins (Introduction.8); and he's actuall...

If Dr. Alfred Lanning is the brains behind US Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc., then Lawrence Robertson is the… uh… well, it's not clear what he is. He's certainly the founder of the company (Int...

Here's the only thing you need to know about Robbie: he loves Gloria. Oh, and he's a robot. So those are the two things you need to know about Robbie, and those two things are definitely related. A...

Gloria is totally uninteresting for an 8-year-old kid, which is why she's here. We don't mean that we don't like her—we actually totally remember being like her: young and disappointed by our par...

If there were villains in this story, Gloria's parents would be those villains. That is, they're the ones who get rid of Robbie. But, of course, they're not trying to be villainous—they just happ...

Speedy spends most of this story drunk. Well, not drunk, but in something of a haze that's totally not his fault. So we don't get to know much about Speedy in this story except that a) he's expensi...

Cutie is the first robot priest. He's also maybe the first robot engineer. And also he's a robot philosopher. Actually, all those are different ways of saying the same thing as far as Cutie is conc...

We like the mining robot Dave because he feels bad about being a screw-up, and we identify with that. That is, in some ways, Cutie and Dave are in similar positions: they're both robots in charge o...

Herbie is like that friend you have who doesn't tell you that your fly is down because he doesn't want to embarrass you. Of course, then you walk around all day with your fly down and you're even m...

Depending on how you look at him, Nestor-10 is either a practical joker or a serial killer in the making. And the fact that people can't quite decide on what he is leads to the conflict among the h...

When you think of Kallner, think of the atomic bomb. See, Kallner isn't a scientist—he's a military man. (Well, he might be a scientist also, but we don't see that side of him.) But he's in charg...

Like Shmoop, Brain is a super-computer with the personality of a child. And that is how Brain solves a problem that no other computer could solve.Unlike most of our other important robots, Brain is...

Stephen Byerley is either a robot or a very good human. And we can't know which. He's running for mayor of some city. (Even that's not clear. Byerley lives in a place called Evanstron (192), which...

John might be the original Stephen, a lawyer who is interested in robotics. This is Francis Quinn's theory: that after his car accident, John builds a robotic replacement for himself. And what we s...

The only thing that we know or need to know about Quinn is that he fights dirty. He's not a politician, but he's a very important political operative and adviser (9). If you want a modern-day equiv...

The Machines never show up on the page, but they're the center of attention in this story. And it's too bad that they're the center of attention because they seem really boring. That is, after eigh...