Some of the short stories found in The Complete Robot (1982) and other anthologies appear not to be set in the same universe as the Foundation universe. They all share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots, and morality. The stories were not initially conceived as a set, but rather all feature his positronic robots-indeed, there are some inconsistencies among them, especially between the short stories and the novels. The unique feature of Asimov's robots is the Three Laws of Robotics, hardwired in a robot's positronic brain, with which all robots in his fiction must comply, and which ensure that the robot does not turn against its creators. Most of Asimov's robot short stories, which he began to write in 1939, are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration. Robots and Empire (1985) - fourth Robot series/R.The Robots of Dawn (1983) - third Robot series/R.' Mirror Image' (1972) - short story about R.The Naked Sun (1957) - second Robot series/R.The Caves of Steel (1954) - first Robot series/R.' Mother Earth' (1949) - short story, in which no individual robots appear, but positronic robots are part of the background.' The Bicentennial Man' (1976) or The Positronic Man (1992) - short story later developed into a complete novel.

In 1964, The Rest of the Robots was published - all of the short stories in that collection are found in The Complete Robot, and the novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun were published separately (see below).I, Robot (1950) and later collections: The Complete Robot (1982), Robot Dreams (1986), Robot Visions (1990), and Gold (1995).

List of works in the Robot series, in chronological order by narrative Although it was originally written as a stand-alone story, the following year Asimov published a series of additional robot stories, which fit together into a narrative that was then put together as the book I, Robot. The series started in 1940, with the story ' Robbie' in the September 1940 Super Science Stories (appearing under the title 'Strange Playfellow', which was not Asimov's title).

The first installment of Asimov's The Caves of Steel took the cover of the October 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, illustrated by Ed Emshwiller

Asimov foundation cycle