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    To Protect
    To Protect
    To Protect
    Audiobook13 hours

    To Protect

    Written by Mickey Zucker Reichert

    Narrated by Alma Cuervo

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The best-selling author of the popular Renshai series, Mickey Zucker Reichert pens I, Robot: To Protect-the first in a trilogy inspired by the Isaac Asimov classic I, Robot. It's the year 2035, and robot psychologist Dr. Susan Calvin is beginning her residency at a teaching hospital where patients are being injected with diagnostic nanobots. Before long, Susan realizes that the injections portend dire consequences- and that the nanobots are being used to facilitate a deadly scheme.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 24, 2012
    ISBN9781464029783
    To Protect
    Author

    Mickey Zucker Reichert

    Mickey Zucker Reichert is a pediatrician, parent to multitudes (at least it seems like that many), bird wrangler, goat roper, dog trainer, cat herder, horse rider and fish feeder, who has learned (the hard way) not to let macaws remove contact lenses. Also she is the author of twenty-two novels (including the RENSHAI, NIGHTFALL, BARAKHAI and BIFROST series), one illustrated novella, and fifty-plus short stories. Mickey's claim to fame is that she has performed brain surgery and her parents really are rocket scientists.

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    Reviews for To Protect

    4.5/5

    13 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Not what I expected but an absorbing read and poignant ending. Great character development. Looking forward to the sequel.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A great story continuing the exploration of the three laws of robotics. I think I may have found a new favorite author.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Based on Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, this story tells about the early days of robotics. Dr. Susan Calvin is the main character. She is a resident in Psychiatry at Manhattan Hasbro Hospital. Here first assignment is with inpatient children. One of the first people she meets is Dr. Remington Hawthorn who is a resident in neurosurgery. Their first encounter isn't a foretelling of their future though. Remy is arrogant and Susan cuts him down to size. Susan also encounters protesters when she is entering the hospital. It seems that any medical advance has its detractors who are eager to protest and who might be eager to kill to reach their goals. Most curious of all, Susan meets Nate, also known as N8-C, a robot so human looking and acting that he could pass for a human. Susan finds him intriguing for many reasons. One of the reasons is that he was produced by the company her father John works for - in a job he doesn't talk about and calls boring. She learns about the three laws of robotics which are designed to keep society safe from robots running amok. We learn a lot about Susan's work as she treats her first four patients. We also quickly learn that Susan is a genius as she finds fixes for three of her first patients. Two of the fixes were primarily medical but with psychiatric implications. It is the fourth case that is the most difficult. Sharicka Anson is four years old and has juvenile conduct disorder. She has killed her family pet and attempted to kill her sister and other children. She is also cute, charming, witty, extremely intelligent and a champion manipulator of those around her. Susan, partially because of her father and partially because of her early successes, is invited to take part in a study which will insert nanobots into the brains of people with severe psychiatric issues in the hopes of finding areas for treatment. The project is very secret because of the protesters who are certain that doctors are creating cyborgs that will take over the world or something at least as damaging as that. When one of the subjects hijacks a bus (which Susan and Remy are on) and detonates a bomb which kills him and damages nearby property, Susan begins to wonder if the experiment has something to do with it. It seems that the subjects are using the three laws of robotics to minimize the damage. The scientists don't want to let the police know because the fear it will set robotics back a hundred years which leaves Susan and Remy trying to find the rest of the subjects. Unfortunately, Sharicka had been chosen as one of the subjects which leaves a sociopath with a bomb on the loose. This was an intriguing science fiction story the builds on events in the News and suggests a possible future. It is the first of a trilogy and does leave a number of unanswered questions for the next books to answer. I found it compellingly readable and fascinating.
    • 3/5
      This is a good story, but not what I expected. The protagonist is a first year resident psychiatrist at a New York Hospital in the near future. She has some interesting patients and, as she is an exceptional doctor, makes some remarkable breakthroughs in their treatment. She discovers the hospital also has a resident robot, which is indistinguishable from a normal, biological man. This, one might think, would be the focal point of the story. It is not. The bulk of the book focuses on her patients’ treatment. There is almost a subplot about nanorobots and an anti-science terrorist organization. The most interesting character, Nate, the robot, plays only a minor role.
    • 5/5
      This is the first novel in a spin off trilogy about the young life of Susan Calvin, the pioneer of robotics in Isaac Asimov's fictional universe. It's a really good read and for the most part has the simple, clear and compelling storytelling style of the great man himself. For most of its duration, it's not actually a novel about robots, but a medical thriller about patients with extreme psychiatric conditions - the medical terminology does sometimes come across a bit thick and heavy, though it is all relevant to the plot. Some interesting characters in here as well. The ending was very dramatic and I will read the rest of the trilogy for sure.
    • 5/5
      I, Robot: to preserve is a great addition to the I, Robot books! I have read all of Isaac Asimov's Robot books and this one is a great add on. It gave you the same love of the robots, distrust of the government and inability to determine who is the bad guy up until the end. Good plot, well developed characters, lots of twists and surprises, and stays with the I, Robot theme. Loved it. Reviewed this book for NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      Very good read. Had a hard time putting it down. But the ending left a bit to be desired, as some of the decisions seemed strange or hard to justify. Still enjoyable overall.
    • 4/5
      It's tough writing a prequel to a book written by a master. Many decades have passed since Asimov wrote his original, however. What flew then ... an almost emotionally robotic Susan Calvin who was in many ways -less- emotional than her robot subjects ... in the age when women in science were considered odd ... will get a writer lambasted for sexism now. The geek girls of today are warm, funny, quirky, and still ... geeky. Reichert tried to walk a happy medium so female S/F fans wouldn't throw the book down in disgust and write angry letters about how inappropriate it is to stereotype Susan Calvin in 2011 as cold.I enjoyed this book in its own rights. It felt more like a medical mystery thriller with a robot plot element than 'hard' sci-fi. I'm a hard sci-fi fan and huge fan of Asimov (despite his work having stereotypes that make this modern woman cringe), but I'm also a fan of other genres, so I was okay with that. Reichert's portrayal of the children's diagnoses in the PIPU unit were well rounded and credible (and I have enough background to know it). There was a bit of strained credibility about how easily Susan came up with star diagnoses to cure some patients, but I really wanted to learn those things and did NOT want to read through another 200 pages of so of extraneous text just to get to those conclusions.Which is where I get to my complaints about this book.1. MORE ROBOTS!!!2. Nate was far too developed for the timeline in Asimov's universe, but I adored him enough to overlook that defect.3. The bad guys should have been better developed. Too much of a 'vague bad guy' feeling. Perhaps more confrontations between protestors and staff?4. [ Susan's romantic interest fell totally flat. I understand she's single and alone in Asimov's later timeline, but if you're going to love somebody so much that you spend the rest of your life alone, at least make it credible! This was doubly disappointing because Reichert's PIPU ward psych patients were so well-rounded. It's like ... sheesh! At least in the Terminator series, you could understand why Reese would travel back in time to save Sarah Connor even though he didn't know HE was to be John Connor's father, or why Sarah Connor was never able to get over Reese even though they only had one night together. C'mon! A little well-written sex (or at least innuendo of sex) in a 'hard' science-fiction novel won't kill the hard-core geek-fans.I'm rating this 4-stars because the psych-ward patients were so well done and will probably read the next book in the series, but hope to see the things I complained about improve.
    • 4/5
      I should start by saying that I've never read I, Robot or any other science fiction book by Isaac Asimov. That said, I faced no confusion with reading a spin-off series which can apparently stand alone even if readers have no experience with Asimov's books.To Protect sets up an interesting character in an interesting plot. The first half of the novel is concerned primarily with the beginning of Dr. Calvin's psychiatry residency, and the psychological details included in the plot are fascinating. I was a bit befuddled as to what so much psychiatry was going to contribute to the sci-fi aspects of the book, but I eventually figured out how it was introducing Calvin's personality and work, essential components of the development of her involvement with and understanding of the nanorobots. Reichert forms her story well, complete with emotional upheavals, dramatic events, romance, and some unexpected twists. I found Reichert's writing, at times, to be a bit melodramatic, but overall I enjoyed To Protect and am looking forward to seeing what will develop in the next books of the trilogy. I think I'll pick up a copy of I, Robot, too, while I'm at it.