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December 2012 Mobile Read Book Club Run-Off Vote

Help us choose a book as the December 2012 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club by voting in this run-off poll. It will be open for 3 days, and all MobileRead members are invited to participate. The vote this month will be visible.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on December 20th. Select from the following two choices:

• I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Amazon (US) / B&N / BooksOnBoard / Kobo / Sony

Spoiler:

The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future—a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.

Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world—all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asmiov's trademark.

• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: PRC / Gutenberg EPUB / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Dymocks Australia / Kobo / Sony Reader Store

Spoiler:

Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel's powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most celebrated book. In its unyielding and shocking pessimism, its bleak demonstration of tragic waste, it is a masterpiece of psychological and emotional realism.

(1911 Pulitzer).