23 Best Robot Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books The Best Sci Fi Books List , Robots Dan Robots are ridiculously cool, but why, exactly? Are humans just narcissists that want to see copies of themselves? Do we want to obliterate the line between human and machine out of raw curiosity? Or are stories about robots really stories about super-powerful humans, and we’re afraid of what someone much stronger or much smarter could do to us? The answer is probably “yes” to all of these and more reasons, besides. The word “robot” comes from the Czech word “robota,” meaning obligatory work. It introduced in the play R.U.R. (in the list below) by Karel Čapek in 1920, which makes me realize I have never seen a science fiction play before. I’m counting artificial intelligences in this list, like 2001‘s HAL, because they evoke the creepy/cool feeling of more ambulatory robots. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke – 1968 2001 was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick’s film version and published after the release of the film.

Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author. The robot here is the HAL, the computer aboard the spaceship Discovery One. Since he can control hardware, i.e., the spaceship, you could argue that HAL is a robot, with the whole ship being his body. HAL and the alien monolith in 2001 are two of the best creations of science fiction, alongside Asimov’s psychohistory and Herbert’s planet Dune. 2 Cinder by Marissa Meyer – 2012 The wildly popular debut novel from author Meyer, Cinder is a darkly subversive retelling of Cinderella, with Cinder being a cyborg. This isn’t a book I would usually look twice at, since the cover suggests ‘Twilight with Robots,’ but the reviews are so universally positive that it’s worth a read. …this futuristic twist on Cinderella retains just enough of the original that readers will enjoy spotting the subtle similarities. But debut author Meyer’s brilliance is in sending the story into an entirely new, utterly thrilling dimension.

–Publishers Weekly (starred review) Cyborg by Martin Caidin – 1972 Cyborg is about astronaut-turned-test pilot, Steve Austin, who experiences a catastrophic crash during a flight, leaving him with all but one limb destroyed, blind in one eye, and with other major injuries. You’re probably more familiar with this story from its incarnation on TV: The Six Million Dollar Man. The first half of the novel details Austin’s operation and both his reaction to his original injuries—he attempts to commit suicide—and his initially resentful reaction to being rebuilt with bionics. The second involves the kind of spy adventure usually associated with Steve Austin. 4 Daemon by Daniel Suarez – 2006 Daemon and Freedom™ comprise a two-part novel about a distributed, persistent computer application, known as The Daemon, that begins to change the real world after the original programmer’s death. It corrupts, kills, and runs independent of human control. It’s up to Detective Peter Sebeck to wrest the world from the malevolent virtual enemy before its ultimate purpose is realized: to dismantle society and bring about a new world order. …a perfect gift for a favorite computer geek or anyone who appreciates thrills, chills and cyber suspense.

-Publishers Weekly (starred review) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick – 1968 The film adaptation of this story is, of course, Blade Runner (watch the director’s cut, not the theatrical release). The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with “retiring,” i.e., blowing away, six escaped Nexus-6 brain model androids, the latest and most advanced model, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard’s mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human. Unlike humans, the androids possess no sense of empathy. In essence, Deckard probes the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from androids. 6 Excession by Iain M. Banks – 1996 The book is largely about the response of Minds (AIs with enormous intellectual and physical capabilities and distinctive personalities) to the Excession (a mysterious alien artifact) and the way in which a brutal society, tries to use the Excession to increase its power.

Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen has been selected by the Culture to undertake a delicate and dangerous mission. The Department of Special Circumstances—the Culture’s espionage and dirty tricks section—has sent him off to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery: the sudden disappearance of a star fifty times older than the universe itself. But in seeking the secret of the lost sun, Byr risks losing himself. 7 He, She and It by Marge Piercy – 1991 Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction in the UK, He, She and It follows the romance between a human woman and the cyborg created to protect her community from corporate raiders in a post-apocalyptic America. Author Piercy examines gender roles, human identity, political economy, environmentalism, love, and Jewish mysticism, a combination not often found in SF. The women in this book are strong, well-realized characters, while the men seem frivolous and cold. But given how decades of SF has treated women, i.e., damsels in distress you have to explain things to, perhaps some table-turning is in order.

8 I, Robot by Isac Asimov – 1950 Isaac Asimov wanted to call this set of nine short stories Mind and Iron because “I, Robot” was the title of short story written by someone else (Eando Binder, the pseudonym of Earl and Otto Binder). He initially objected when the publisher made the title the same as Binder’s story. I, Robot explores the relationship between robots and people, and contains some of Asimov’s best writing, including the creation of the Three Laws of Robotics. In 2004, the Saturday Evening Post claimed that the Three Laws “revolutionized the science fiction genre and made robots far more interesting than they ever had been before.” 9 Ilium by Dan Simmons – 2003 Ilium is the first part of the Ilium/Olympos cycle, which concerns the re-creation of the events in the Iliad on an alternate Earth and Mars. On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth as four sentient machines depart from Jovian space to investigate, perhaps terminate, the potentially catastrophic emissions emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of the Red Planet.

(Note that the title does not refer to the ilium, the uppermost and largest bone of the pelvis, and appears in most vertebrates including mammals and birds, but not bony fish.) 10 Mockingbird by Walter Tevis – 1980 While Tevis was teaching English literature at Ohio University, he became aware that the level of literacy among his students was falling at an alarming rate. That observation gave him the idea for this novel, set in a grim and decaying New York City of the 25th Century: the population is declining, no one can read, and robots rule over the drugged, illiterate humans. It’s a world without art, reading and children, a world where people would rather burn themselves alive than endure. Even Spofforth, the most perfect machine ever created, cannot bear it and seeks only that which he cannot have – to cease to be. 11 Neuromancer by William Gibson – 1984 Gibson rewrote the first 2/3 of this book (his first novel) twelve times and was worried people would think he stole the feel from Blade Runner , which had come out two years earlier.

He was convinced he would be “permanently shamed” after it was published. Fortunately for Gibson, Neuromancer won science fiction’s triple crown (the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards) and became the seminal work in the cyberpunk subgenre. 12 R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek – 1920 Quick show of hands: how many science fiction plays have you seen? This one introduced the word “robot” to the English language and science fiction in general. R.U.R. quickly became famous and by 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people, called roboti (robots), out of synthetic organic matter. They are not exactly robots by the current definition of the term; these creatures are closer to the modern idea of cyborgs, androids or even clones, as they may be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans at first, but that changes, and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race.

13 Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor – 1989 Apparently, the British road to SF or horror adventures begin in a pub crawl. I’m looking forward to a Harry Potter novel that begins this way. Awakening from a drunken spree in a London pub to find himself on one of Saturn’s moons, a man joins the Space Corps and boards the Red Dwarf, determined to return to Earth. This is the only novel on the list based on a television series (the opposite of Cyborg, which became the Six Million Dollar Man). You can check out Red Dwarf TV series on Netflix. 14 Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson – 2011 Personally, I couldn’t get into this book, but a lot of people (including Stephen King) could, so don’t let me sway you. Author Wilson’s previous book was How to Survive a Robot Uprising , so it makes sense he’d write one about an actual uprising. He also has a fantastic robot pedigree: he got a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon.

If you’re in the mood for apocalypse and how to survive it, I strongly recommend The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead and World War Z , both by Mel Brooks’s son, Max Brooks. Neither are SF, but wow, they’re good. 15 Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross – 2008 It’s possible they could’ve created a worse cover for this book, but it’s hard to imagine what it would be. It looks like something a thirteen-year-old would tape on his closet door. I mean, look at it. What the hell? Stross has said that Saturn’s Children is “a space opera and late-period [Robert A.] Heinlein tribute.” Freya, a robotic courtesan at loose ends after the mysterious extinction of the human race (her “One True Love”), becomes a courier for the Jeeves Corporation and learns of a shadowy conspiracy to overturn, or perhaps even control, android society. Soon she is on the run with her identity and her very existence threatened. 16 Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M.

Valente – 2011 Silently and Very Fast is more poetry than hard sci-fi, as it involves an AI presence in the protagonist’s dreams. The writing, especially in the beginning, is dreamlike, and it takes a while before a reader gets out of the “the hell is going on?” phase. Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great grandmother-a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote. But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever. 17 Soul of a Robot by Barrington J. Bayley – 1974 The book tells of Jasperodus, the only robot with a soul, as he attempts to prove that he is the equal of the humans around him. Author Bayley generally writes good characters and well-paced action, and many consider him either an unrecognized genius who should be recognized on a level next to Asimov and Heinlein, or a master of B-grade pulp (fun reading, but not life-changing).

18 by John Sladek – 1980 Roderick is an intelligent robot, the first to be invented, and this is his autobiography. The opening chapters describe the creation of Roderick and show his mind (at first consisting of a bodiless computer program) developing through several stages of awareness. Finally, Roderick is given a rudimentary body and, through a series of misadventures, finds himself alone in the world. Due to his sketchy understanding of human customs, and intrigues surrounding the project that created him, he unwittingly becomes the center of various criminal schemes and other unfortunate events. 21 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – 1979 This is one of the funniest books written in the English language. It begins with the destruction of Earth, and things go downhill from there. Do not read this book around other people, because you will annoy them by laughing so much. 22 The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi – 2009 Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand.

Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. The Windup Girl is a fantastic book and won both the Hugo and Nebula in 2010. 23 SF REVIEWS.NET: I, Robot / Isaac Asimov ☆☆☆☆ View Large Cover Not technically a novel, I, Robot in fact collects the earliest of Asimov's robot short stories and novellettes from the pages of (mostly) Astounding, spanning the entire decade of the 40's.

With a framing device involving an interviewer who's researching the life of Dr. Susan Calvin and her involvement with the history of the robots, the stories have been assembled in chronological order to form a novel in effect. Though inescapably dated in many ways — "Robbie" is set in a 1998 that we know has not come to pass — these stories hold an important place in the history of science fiction, not least for their establishment of the highly influential Three Laws of Robotics, but also for the groundbreaking way in which Asimov combined technological speculation with heartwarming, humanistic storytelling. Machines with a heart of gold may very well be a cliché today. Here's where it all began. In Asimov's hands, steel and "positronic brains" have a warmth and humanity that few authors today can successfully attach to their flesh and blood creations. The stories stand by the strength of Asimov's conviction. The Three Laws of Robotics are perhaps SF's most well-known creations, and in his earliest tales of the robots, Asimov focused primarily on those laws and the bizarre problems which might arise when the robots themselves interpret them differently than one might expect.

Briefly, the laws prevent robots from harming people in any way; require robots to obey people unless they are ordered to harm someone; and oblige robots to protect their own existence unless they risk harming people by doing so. Greg Powell and Mike Donovan are a couple of grease-monkeys employed by US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., (I wonder if Bill Gates would have a stake in such a firm?) to field test the latest robots to come off the assembly line, and they run into strange problems indeed. One robot refuses to believe it was built by "inferior" humans, and develops a religious mania, worshipping the station itself and claiming to be the station's "prophet." Another robot on the surface of Mercury finds itself facing a conflict between laws, and ends up malfunctioning so that it seems literally drunk. Other strange crises emerge: in "Liar!", Susan Calvin encounters a robot that by some fluke is able to read minds. Unfortunately, in its interpretation of the don't-harm-humans law, it proceeds to feed people any line of bullshit they want to hear (regarding their careers, love lives, etc.), on the basis that the truth would hurt too much.

(Bits of this story were later lampooned by Poul Anderson in the short story "The Critique of Impure Reason.") Throughout, Asimov's quick wit walks hand-in-hand with hard science to deliver stories that are truly speculative fiction with a wry twist. Naturally, as I said before, much is dated, particularly in dialogue that reads a little stiffly to modern tastes. The last story, "The Evitable Conflict," while fascinating, is mostly an exercise in talk and exposition. Also I don't think anyone's used a slide rule in 30 years (amazing how prescient so many Golden Age SF authors were, yet no one could predict the pocket calculator). But there's a warmth and a humanism that washes over everything. Asimov was always deeply involved in the advancement of human knowledge — vide his hundreds of nonfiction books on virtually every scientific discipline imaginable — and that conviction carried over into his fiction as far back as 1940. The man will always be one of my personal heroes, and I'm sure I'll be re-reading this book and so many of his others, all the way to my deathbed.

(In 1982, this collection was subsumed in its entirety by a much longer and more complete collection of robot stories rather laconically titled The Complete Robot. And yet I, Robot has remained in print in its original form to this day. The current edition is from Spectra.) Addendum: In case you were wondering, ignore the bullshit Will Smith movie. Isaac Asimov | Literawiki | Fandom powered by Wikia [ show ] Biography Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Yudovick Ozimov in Petrovichi, Russia, in 1920. His family emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. Asimov graduated from Columbia University in 1939 and earned a masters degree in chemistry there in 1941. In 1942, he married Gertrude Blugerman with whom he would have two children. He spent three years during World War II working as a junior chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station. After the war, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving for just under nine months before receiving an honorable discharge.

He then returned to Columbia and earned his Ph. D. in 1948. From 1949 to 1958, he taught biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine. Asimov began submitting short stories to science fiction magazines in his late teens. Although Astounding Science Fiction rejected his early stories, John W. Campbell, the editor, encouraged him to keep trying. Asimov sold "Marooned off Vesta" to Amazing Stories in 1938, and went on to publish numerous science fiction stories in Amazing, Astounding, and other magazines throughout the 1940s and into the late 1950s. One of the short stories published in Astounding, " Nightfall " (1941), has been described as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time". Asimov's first novel Pebble in the Sky was published by Doubleday in 1950. More novels and anthologies soon followed.

Many of his best-known science-fiction works were published in the 1950s, including I, Robot (1950), a collection of short stories featuring "positronic" robots and the Three Laws of Robotics, and the Foundation trilogy (1951-1953) which introduced the fictional science of "psychohistory." Other works from this period include the famous (and Asimov's favorite) short story " The Last Question " (1956) and the Lucky Starr series of young-adult novels which he wrote under the pseudonym of Paul French. After he gave up teaching in 1958 to write full time, Asimov shifted his focus to non-fiction. He published numerous books on various scientific topics spanning many fields. He also wrote a popular-science column regularly for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, for which he won a special Hugo Award in 1963. In addition, he wrote books on history, the Bible, and literature throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Although he did not produce much fiction during this period, he still wrote some mysteries and science fiction, including two award-winning stories; The Gods Themselves (Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel, 1973) and "The Bicentennial Man" (Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novelette, 1977). He also helped found Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in 1977. Asimov continued writing non-ficion in the 1980s, but he also returned to science fiction. Beginning with Foundation's Edge (1982), he published a new set of Foundation novels which connected together the previously disjointed universes and histories of his Robot, Empire, and Foundation series. He also edited many science-fiction anthologies and co-authored with Janet Jeppson, his second wife, a children's series starring Norby the robot. He was presented with the special Grandmaster Award at the 1987 SFWA Nebula Awards banquet for his lifetime achievement in science fiction. Asimov kept writing all the way till his death in 1992 from heart and kidney failure.

Personality Although Jewish born, he was not a practitioner. He was a rationalist and had an skeptic world view that is reflected in his science articles. From 1985 until his death in 1992, he was president of the American Humanist Association. He was against the law to revive Creationism in schools in Reagan era. He was claustrophile, he liked small spaces. He was also afraid of flying and did not think it was contradictory with his characters flying spaceships. That was his characters not him and it was fiction, according to some of his answers to this question. Selected works Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970) Authors inspired by Isaac Asimov Besides movies, his Foundation and Robot stories have inspired other derivative works of science fiction literature, many by well-known and established authors such as Roger MacBride Allen, Greg Bear , Gregory Benford and David Brin . These appear to have been done with the blessing, and often at the request of, Asimov's widow Janet Asimov. Book themes Psychohistory It is a fictional science created in the Foundation series. It was invented by Hari Seldon, a scientist.

It is a science of future behavior of large masses of people. People can be treated like the molecules of a gas: they are millions but the gas itself (humanity) can be treated as a unit. This science worked over several million people (the human population of the galaxy in the times of the Foundation) and predicted the behavior of humanity as a whole. Seldon predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire who was governing the galaxy at that time. He predicted there would be 25000 years of darkness, but he could shrink it to 1000 if some minor changes could be performed. For that, he created a "Foundation" of encyclopedists in a far planet. The Encyclopedia was a trick to fool the Emperor. The real plans of the Foundation were to advance scientifically and to get and create weapons so they would become invincible. This Foundation would later attack the Empire, emerging as the conquerors and would try to revive the lost empire. He created also a "Second Foundation" which would have mental powers. The first Foundation would know nothing about the second, for his plans to be accomplished successfully. He then located the Second Foundation on "the opposite side of the galaxy" with respect to the former.

Nevertheless, Seldon could never predict the destiny of individuals with his science. So he could not predict the rise of a new human being, a mutant called "The Mule" who had mental powers and could manipulate the emotions of others. That is the universe of the Foundation series, or Trantor universe as it is called, honouring the name of the planet where the Foundation is. Asimov himself confessed that this Galactic Empire was inspired by the historical Roman Empire. So, the thousand of years of darkness was the era called The Dark Ages. There are some characters directly inspirated by the Roman Empire, like the General Bel Riose who is thought to be inspired by Flavius Belisarius, the last great general of the Roman Empire during the 6th century AD. Robots Another common theme on his writings was robots. They were humanoid robots like R. Daneel Olivaw who acted like a person, except for feelings. They were pictured like soft, nice and servants of humanity. They could not harm people, like they do in other science fiction writings or movies. There was another character, besides R. Daneel Olivaw: R. Giskard, which had mental powers.

Susan Calvin was a robotist who appears on many robot stories. And Elijah Bailey was a detective who solved mysteries with the help of R. Daneel. In scientific writings he also imagined that they could replace humanity. Computers There was a very advanced computer: Multivac, which means Multiple Vacuum Analog Computer. It was huge and has tremendous processing power. It was used in several experiments and short stories. He predicted many inventions, like the personal computer. He went beyond that and on the story What If he describes a TV-like screen with data, much like today's laptop computers. He wrote about miniaturization on The Last Question on the time of vacuum valve computers. The Three Laws of Robotics In most of his stories about robots, the robots are suppoused to follow these laws. Usually the plots are based on dilemmas arisen by the clash of two of the laws or the different possible interpretations of them. Many of these stories are collected in I, Robot . Like most of his short stories he published them during the 40s and 50s (the Golden Age mentioned above) in pulp magazines. The laws: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. I, Robot I, Robot What do you do with a drunken robot? You may not believe it, but robots have problems too. Just like humans. In these mind-spinning tales, Isaac Asimov brings us an astonishing and delightful vision of tomorrow filled with marvels and miracles—of computers in human form so incredibly real you cannot tell the man from the machine without a scorecard. This is, I believe, the third book by Asimov I ever purchased, and my memory of reading it for the first time is unusually vivid. It’s one of the books which built Asimov’s reputation, back when it was published as a series of stories mostly in the Golden Age Astounding under John Campbell. For that matter, these are among the stories that made the Golden Age golden. I, Robot is also is one of the most influential books in the history of science fiction, and certainly the single most influential that Asimov himself wrote.

The stories contained here introduced the Three Laws of Robotics (and the word “robotics” itself), and even now these form the starting point for discussions of machine ethics. In real-world terms, of course, the Three Laws are rather doubtful. The essence of Asimov’s robot stories is very often finding the problems and ambiguities in the Laws, which does not make for real-world confidence. Moreover, given that some people will likely want to have robots that can blatantly violate the Three Laws (such as security robots or military robots), we’re going to have to deal with robots deliberately killing humans long before we get to anything as sophisticated as a Robbie, let alone an R. Daneel Olivaw. Be that as it may, the fact remains that it’s impossible to look at engineering robot behavior without at least some awareness of the Three Laws; and it is I, Robot which most unforgettably introduces them to the reader. The Three Laws are not, however, in and of themselves enough to make a worthwhile book. In the case of I, Robot, what makes the book fundamentally interesting is not its intellectual framework, but the people—and robots—who inhabit it.

Asimov is not known for his strong characterizations, but this doesn’t mean that all his characters are bland and uninteresting. Rather, they tend to be either variations rung on standard themes, or primarily plot devices, or both. Take the first story here, for example, “ Robbie .” We basically have four characters: little Gloria, her parents, and Robbie himself. The three humans are not wildly original characters and, indeed, they come perilously close to being little more than slaves to the plot. Gloria is a terminally cute little girl because we need to emphasize just how safe Robbie is, her mother is something of a shrew because we need an antagonist, and her father is more than a little henpecked because it’s 1940 and we’ve got to have a man to be nominally in charge but we can’t have him be too strong or there’ll be no story. At least he manages to get some good lines in. These three are not the focus of the story, though. Robbie is. Now, Robbie is not the first sympathetic robot in the history of science fiction.

Among the contenders for that honor is Adam Link from the classic Eando Binder story, “I, Robot.” (Yes, the title was ripped off for Asimov’s book. It was the publisher’s idea, and when Asimov objected, he was shot down in a rather pithy and memorable fashion.) An even better candidate is Helen O’Loy from the story of the same name by Lester del Rey, which antedates “ Robbie ” by a year. Robbie, however, is more than merely sympathetic—he is endearing. He is utterly devoted to Gloria (because he’s made so, as her father explains), accompanies her everywhere, plays with her, listens to her tell “Cinderella” and, of course, eventually saves her life. Robbie feels more human than the humans who surround him, in fact—which is interesting, given that it foreshadows much of Asimov’s writing on robots and the blurring of the line between a robot and a human being.

(We will see this blurring later in I, Robot most explicitly with “ Evidence ,” but it’s also the theme of the three Elijah Baley novels, “ The Bicentennial Man ,” and “ …That Thou Art Mindful of Him ”). The three stories that follow “ Robbie ” are the main Donovan and Powell stories, and again the robots outshine the humans. Despite the fact that Donovan and Powell have very distinct personalities, I’ve always had trouble telling them apart myself, largely because they are very distinct second and third fiddles to their metallic compatriots. The Donovan and Powell stories are all puzzle stories in the tradition of “ Marooned Off Vesta ,” and the main focus is on the problem that needs to be solved and not the hapless duo trying to do the solving—and since the problems involve robots, the robots tend to be interesting and even unforgettable.

Thus we have the drunken Speedy, who recites Gilbert and Sullivan as he dashes around the surface of Mercury (“ Runaround ”), and the intellectual Cutie, creating an elaborate religion out of first principles and the rigorous use of “ Reason .” The reader is intended to sympathize with Donovan and Powell’s frustration with robots such as Speedy, Cutie, and Dave (the more forgettable robot in “ Catch That Rabbit ”), but we remember the robots more readily than the men. The last half of the book solidly belongs to one of Asimov’s most famous literary creations, Susan Calvin. She was, however, created almost by accident. Her first story, the relatively weak “ Liar! ,” centers on the idea of a robot trying to protect the feelings of human beings—even the hidden feelings—from any kind of hurt. Calvin is here basically to show the contrast between our hidden feelings and our public face—she’s an old maid with a heart longing for romance. Her portrayal in “ Liar! ” is comparatively weak, since she’s really more a plot device than a character.

It’s only with the next story, “ Little Lost Robot ,” that she comes into her own: she’s the High Priestess of the Three Laws and openly contemptuous of any other authority. (She’s also notable for her sheer callousness here—although she is said to prefer robots to humans, rather than face the prospect of an unstable and possibly dangerous robot being let loose, she unhesitatingly demands the destruction of dozens of perfectly serviceable robots. Interestingly, nobody objects because it would be unethical to destroy rational beings—rather, it’s bad business to destroy so much property. Despite the personalities even the earliest robots in the book are given, nobody yet thinks of them as “people.”) Calvin is allowed some warmth when we encounter our final truly memorable character of the book, Stephen Byerley. Byerley—who may be a good robot or a good man, we’re never entirely sure—is as close as Calvin ever gets to a peer and lover. ( Ellison’s screenplay goes so far as to make them putative lovers.) There’s no real passion here, of course—this is Asimov writing in the 1940’s. There is, however, genuine and touching affection. The book ends on a curious note.

The final story, “ The Evitable Conflict ,” is talky even for Asimov and yet is something of a mood piece. The final conversation between Byerley and Calvin is held against the background of a dying fire and is appropriately quiet and understated. There is a sense of resignation here—humanity, as it were, resigning its fate to the robots, who have started out as gadgets, become something comparable to people, and achieved apotheosis. This grandeur is something that Asimov would only achieve again in “ The Last Question ” for the simple reason that so long as the robots are kept as characters with faces and voices, they are hard to see as gods. (I’m thinking specifically of R. Daneel here.) It’s interesting that Asimov the atheist essentially has mankind create its own gods. This is a slightly different concept from what we find in “ The Last Question .” There we have what could be called Asimov’s corollary to Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced being is indistinguishable from God.

Rather, what we see in I, Robot is the idea that in order to have a truly harmonious society consonant with the maximum benefit to its members (and that includes fostering our illusion of free will), we in essence have to make God for ourselves. Each of the stories in I, Robot holds its own nicely, especially given Asimov’s relative callowness and inexperience when writing them. Underlying them are some thought-provoking questions about the nature of humanity, the extent of our control over our fates, personhood, and what constitutes ethical behavior. Running through them are some memorable and (particularly in the case of the robots) truly endearing characters. One final strength of the book lies in its nature. I, Robot is one of the great “fix-up” books of the early years of science fiction book publishing. (The other truly great one is Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, although Clifford D. Simak’s City and A.E. van Vogt’s Voyage of the Space Beagle are not far behind. Oh, and I think there’s some nonsense about a Foundation or two in there somewhere.) Fix-up books are still with us.

Alan Steele’s Coyote books and Charles Stross’s Accelerando are relatively recent cases in point. They are a particular phenomenon of the early 1950’s, however, as publishers were able to build their catalog of science fiction books more quickly than authors could write by pulling together the most important science fiction series of the previous decade and putting them out in hardback form. In many cases, bridging material was added to pull the whole together. It wasn’t long before Asimov simply threw together anthologies of his fiction when he had enough material, so his later anthologies usually lack much by the way of thematic coherence. Moreover, after the success of The Hugo Winners , he tended to talk about himself and the background of the stories in introductions and afterwords, which meant that he intruded into the books rather directly. I don’t know that this is necessarily a bad thing—certainly in the case of Buy Jupiter and Other Stories , the autobiographical bits are the best part, and even in Nightfall and Other Stories , with its relatively strong stories, there’s considerable value in the autobiographical sections. The most extreme case is The Early Asimov , which is basically an autobiography with stories instead of an anthology with autobiographical material.

This trend, however, does have the real disadvantage of battering down the fourth wall. As a result, The Rest of the Robots isn’t as good as I, Robot, not because the material is weaker (it’s not) but because we are repeatedly thrust in and out of Asimov’s fictional universe. More specifically, the bridging material added for I, Robot strengthens the book by giving it greater cohesion (for example, by making the three Donovan and Powell stories part of Susan Calvin’s memories), and by providing its ultimate thematic unity—we are explicitly told that what we have seen is the evolution of the ethical machine from the most primitive to the most transcendent, and this helps that transcendence that stay with us. I, Robot is very much a John Campbell kind of book—science, technology, and rationality are the ultimate victors. It’s no wonder that it has inspired generations of engineers as they strive to create robots of their own as human as Robbie and Cutie—and generations of science fiction writers, as they continue to explore the ideas and concepts that Asimov raises here. (And it’s the twenty-first century, people.

To heck with a flying car—I want my positronic robot!) Contents Isaac Asimov Evolution of the book Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov was hugely successful science fiction American Author and also a professor of Biochemistry. Isaac was originally born in Petrovichi, Smolensk Oblast, Russia to a jewish family of millers. His family emmigrated to the USA when Isaac was three years old. Isaac grew up in the Brooklyn, New York and taught himslf to read at the age of five years old. While growing up in New York, his parents owned a series of Sweet shops where evryone in the family was expected to work to help out. It was in these stores that Isaac first came across the world of Science Fiction, in the form of Sci Fi pulp magazines that were sold in the shops. By the Time Isaac was eleven years old he had begun to write his own stories. By the age of nineteen years old, Isaac had begun to sell thse stories to the Science Fiction Magazines. It was through this that Isaac met the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, John W Campbell, who became a good friend.

Isaac graduated from the Columbia University in 1939 and spent the next 3 years working as a civilian at Philidelphia`s Navy Yard Naval Air Experimental Station as part of the World War 2 war effort. After World War 2 ended, he was drafted into the US Army, rose to the rank of corporal, and narrowly avoided participating in the Bikini Atoll Atomic Bomb tests in 1946, all in under 9 months of service, after which he recieved an Honourable discharge. He returned to the Columbia University and gained a Ph D in biochemistry in 1948. Since that time Isaac joined the Boston University Faculty where he remained conected to even after he pursued a full time writing career in 1958. He was honoured with a full professor of Biochemistry by the university in 1979. Isaac is widely regarded as a master of the Science Fiction genre and is considered on of the "big three" Science Fiction writers along with Artur C Clarke and Robert A Heinlein. His most famous work is the Foundation series of books along with the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series, all of which tie into the same universe to create a future history.

Isaac was a great writer of short stories and his short story "nightfall" was voted the best short sience fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1968. Nightfall was later expanded into a full novel with the aid of Robert Silverberg. He was a reluctant Vice president of Mensa International for quite some time and was also the president of the American Humanist Association. Isaac was also a great writer and speaker of science and technology and was very well respected in this field. Isaac Asimov passed away on the 6th April 1992, however it was ten years later before his widow Janet and his daughter Robin made public knowledge that his death had been as a result of contracting the AIDs virus from a blood transfusion some years earlier. Isaac Asimov continues to be regarded as one of the greatest Science Fiction writers and his stories are still enjoyed today around the world. There is approximatly 515 written works by Isaac Asimov, which is far too many to list here, I have listed the most popular by order of series.

For a complete list you can visit this site: Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987) Greater Foundation Series Pebble in the Sky (1950) The Stars, Like Dust (1951) The Currents of Space (1952) Original Foundation trilogy: Novels not part of a series The End of Eternity (1955) The Gods Themselves (1972) Nightfall (1990) - with Robert Silverberg The Ugly Little Boy (1992) - with Robert Silverberg The Positronic Man (1993) - with Robert Silverberg Short story collections The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955) Earth Is Room Enough (1957) Nine Tomorrows (1959) The Rest of the Robots (1964) Through a Glass, Clearly (1967) Nightfall and Other Stories (1969) The Early Asimov (1972) The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973) Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (1975) The Winds of Change and Other Stories (1983) The Alternate As

imovs (1986) The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986) Robot Dreams (1986) Cool Science Fiction My Life Philosophy Two (noteworthy) Sci-fi Quotes "Science Fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to.

Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could. Arthur C. Clarke, Forward to "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke", January - 2002 "You can't argue with mundanes because they do not appear to be fully aware". Alfred Bester (Psi Cop from Babylon-5 ) (Bester's quote refers to non-telepaths. Comic-Con attendees use the label "mundanes" to refer to people who "don't enjoy sci-fi") Two 'Hard Sci-fi' Writers Arthur C. Clark To film buffs, Arthur C. Clarke is best known as the author who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick to produce 2001: A Space Odyssey. The scientific community remembers him as the man who first conceptualized geosynchronous communication-satellite relays, in a 1945 paper that became the foundation for modern communications technology.

But science-fiction fans have any number of touchstones for the British author: He's one of very few to be designated a Science Fiction Grand Master, he's the author of the classic novels Childhood's End and Rendezvous With Rama, and he first created the popular axiom "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Now in his late 80s, Clarke has written or collaborated on more than 70 books, including three 2001 sequels, three Rendezvous With Rama sequels (co-authored with Gentry Lee), two autobiographies, and a wide variety of essays and short stories. His non-fiction includes collections of his correspondence with C.S. Lewis and Lord Dunsany, as well as many books on physics, science, and space travel, from 1950's guidebook Interplanetary Flight to 1994's The Snows Of Olympus, a graphic look at a terraformed Mars. His latest, Time's Eye, is a new collaboration with Stephen Baxter, the first in a series of novels involving a cataclysm that slices Earth into segments from across history, leading cosmonauts and prehistoric humans to mix in an epic struggle.

From his home in Sri Lanka, Clarke recently (2004-02) spoke with The Onion A.V. Club about religion, transcendence, the possibility of life on Mars, and the dinosaur that was named after him. It all began at Christmas 1948 - yes 1948 - with a four-thousand-word short story that I wrote for a contest sponsored by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). The Sentinel described the discovery of a small pyramid on the Moon, set there by some alien civilization to await the emergence of mankind as a planet-faring species. Until then, it was implied, we would be too primitive to be of any interest. The BBC rejected my modest effort , and it was not published until almost three years later in the one-and-only (Spring 1951) issue of "10 Story Fantasy" - a magazine that, as the invaluable Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wryly comments, is "primarily remembered for its poor arithmetic (there were thirteen stories)." From "Valediction", "3001: The Final Odyssey" Ballantine Books (1997) hardcover edition "Astrologers used to believe that Man's destiny is controlled by the stars.

But one day it may come to pass that the stars' destiny is controlled by Man." Arthur C. Clarke Frank Poole's body is recovered; Dave Bowman returns to Sol A Sinister Retelling of the Odyssey Story (since y2k) Time's Eye - A Time Odyssey: 1 (2004) 1 "2001: A Space Odyssey" began with "Moon-Watcher" in Africa; "Time's Eye" begins with "Seeker" in the North-West Frontier (Pakistan - Afghanistan border); Earth has been observed for eons by the "Firstborn" This books spends way-too-much time in the past and yet you need to read it in order to read the next book Sunstorm - A Time Odyssey: 2 (2005) 1 This book is much better than Timer's Eye (which spends far too long in the past) "Time's Eye" seems to be 30% Clarke and 70% Baxter "Sunstorm" seems to be 70% Clarke and 30% Baxter Firstborn - A Time Odyssey: 3 (2008) 1 This book is not as good as book 2 (Sunstorm).

This books spends too-much time in the past Rama Series Click to locate rare and out-of-print books Rama (the 1996 PC-based Game) Based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke. By now, the year 2130, all of the largest asteroids in the solar system have long since been discovered. Smaller ones are being downed at the rate of a dozen a day. So when a huge new asteroid appears the only surprise is that is was overlooked for so long. It is duly assigned the next available name, Rama, and is promptly forgotten about - but not for long. As Rama approaches the Earth, every question about it seems to have an answer that raises more questions. And as observations continue, the most impossible explanation becomes the only one: Rama is actually a spaceship. The next step is obvious: mankind must attempt a rendezvous. But only one of our spaceships is close enough. As fate has it, that ship is Endeavor - the ship that you command.

Without even reading them, you know what your orders will be: to rendezvous with the giant ship, to explore it, to meet with its inhabitants, and to return home before it speeds on its orbit away from the solar system. Yet even in your excitement, you realize it is not an easy mission. You will have to make difficult decisions - many of them. And you will have to work very fast - because if you stay on Rama too long, returning home will be impossible. From the first moment it has been clear: this is the mission of your lifetime. Thousands would gladly sacrifice anything for the chance. Only you can explore Rama. Rendezvous with Rama is the first computer adventure to be produced in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke. The program allows you to talk with three other crew members. Multiple disks offer extended play - and the game may be played with or without graphics. Arthur C. Clarke, world-famous author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, continues to be a major force in science fiction; over twenty-million copies of his books have been printed World-Wide. The novel Rendezvous with Rama has won three highest science fiction awards: the Hugo, the Nebula and the John W.

Campbell Awards. The adventure game Rendezvous with Rama was developed and produced by Byron Preiss Video Productions, Inc., leading designers of entertainment and educational software. Their technical director is Lee Jackson. How the World was One (1992) From The Dust Jacket: Arthur C. Clarke, visionary author of both science fact and science fiction, first conceived of satellite communications in 1945--and twenty-five years later his dream became reality. Now, in this new personal and colorful nonfiction work, Clarke examines the rapid transformation of our society by technology and communication. As the infant field of communications began growing in the early part of this century, so did the boy named Arthur C. Clarke--who watched, wide-eyed, as his small English village was transformed overnight. In his job as the village switchboard operator he once overloaded the circuits, excitedly eavesdropping on his first transatlantic call. From there his involvement grew more and more technical, culminating in his now-famous paper "Extra-Terrestrial Relays," which anticipated many of the developments of the next fifty years.

For five thousand years communication never advanced beyond the speed of horse and wind-driven ship--but in the explosive span of thirty years, it changed forever. Newer, faster communication toppled tyranny, won wars, and changed history all the way from the second Russian Revolution to the Gulf war. Here is the story of the stranger-than-fiction mishaps, oversights, capricious acts of fate, and incredible human energy that eventually transformed the earth into our modern global village. Clarke brings unique expertise and a lifetime of experience to How the World Was One. Beginning with submarine cables, through the development of fiber optics and communications satellites, and then projecting far into a future of neutrino, gravitational, and tachyon (faster than light) communications, Arthur C. Clarke shows how these remarkable innovations shaped and changed the earth--and made the world one. Excerpt from Preface, Page 1, Paragraph 3 Nevertheless, Toynbee was essentially correct. Except for a few dwindling tribes in (alas) equally dwindling forests, the human race has now become almost a single entity, divided by time zones rather rather than by natural frontiers of geography.

The same TV news networks cover the globe; the world's markets are linked by the most complex machine ever devised by mankind -- the international telephone/telex/fax/data transfer system. Excerpt from Preface, Page 2, Paragraph 2 Despite the linguistic, religious, and cultural barriers that still sunder nations, the unification of the world [by telecommunications] has passed the point of return... Excerpt from Chapter 1, Page 1, Paragraph 3 This state of affairs has existed for the greater part of human history. When Queen Victoria came to power in 1837, she had no swifter means of sending messages to the far parts of her empire than had Julius Caesar -- or, for that matter, Moses. Excerpt from Chapter 27, Page 200, Paragraphs 3-4 Telstar (and its successor Telstar 2, launched May 7, 1963) showed that active satellites could do everything that had been claimed for them, and with very modest powers -- as long as they were backed up by massive ground equipment.

The Bell System had built an even larger horn-antenna for the Telstar than for Echo; the giant ear at Andover, Maine, weighed 370 tons yet was able to track the speeding satellite to an accuracy of better than a twentieth of a degree. And that was the big problem. Because of its relatively low altitude (between 950 and 5,600 kilometres) Telstar 1 circled the Earth several times per day; its orbital period was only a fraction of the magic twenty-four hours. Excerpt from Chapter 27, Page 201, Paragraphs 3 ... paradoxically, it takes rather more energy to park [a satellite] twenty two thousand miles up than to land on the ten-times-more-distant moon. Contents: Cable Comeback Talking with Light As Far As Eye Can See (like this book's title, Clarke appears to have a sense of humor :-) Epilogue: Fin de siecle -- or Dawn of a New Millennium Postscript: The Second Russian Revolution Appendix A Appendix B NSR Comments: I was surprised to learn that many telegraph cable projects were doomed to failure because overly optimistic participants refused to learn Ohm's Law .

Only playing with technology resulted in the loss of many billions of dollars which is reminiscent of the losses associated with the Dot-Com (dot-con?) meltdown of 2000-2002. Some Useful Links: Arthur C. Clarke Quotes - The Quotations Page Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :"In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory".

(in Profiles of the Future .) Clarke's Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Though he wrote after the laws that "Since three laws was sufficient for both the Isaacs - Newton and Asimov - I have decided to stop here", he continued to write laws, as we can see in the Appendix 2 of The Odyssey File where he states the Clarke's 69th Law: "Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software." Clarke's Fourth Law: “For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.” Cool quote: A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible - indeed, inevitable - the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody. Arthur C. Clarke, "First on the Moon", 1970 Dr.

Isaac Asimov (PhD Biochemistry; not an honorary degree) From the rear dust jacket of "The Caves of Steel" Doubleday 1954 hardcover edition For a long time the author has led a double life: one as one of the masters of the fast, terse, often humorous galactic melodramas, and as a biochemist and teacher at the Boston University School of Medicine, where he is engaged in cancer research. Mr. Asimov says: "Science Fiction invades most of the facets of my life, even my serious research. At my final examination for a doctorate in biochemistry (with seven professors asking profound and embarrassing questions) the last question concerned one of the incidents in one of my science-fiction stories. I got my degree." Mr. Asimov also says he is better known for such stories as Pebble in the Sky, The Stars, Like Dust and The Currents of Space in the science fiction world (which takes science fiction very seriously) than he is ever likely to be for his cancer research. TODAY'S (1954) FICTION - TOMORROW'S FACTS LIFE Magazine says there are more than TWO MILLION science fiction fans in this country.

From all corners of the nation comes the resounding proof that science fiction has established itself as an exciting and imaginative NEW FORM OF LITERATURE that is attracting literally tens of thousands of new readers every year! Why? Because no other form of fiction can provide you with such thrilling and unprecedented adventures! No other form of fiction can take you on an eerie trip to Mars ... amaze you with a journey into the year 3000 A.D. ... or sweep you into the fabulous realms of unexplored Space! Yes, it's no wonder that this exciting new form of imaginative literature has captivated the largest group of fascinated new readers in the United States today! From the "The Left Hand of the Electron" Introduction to chapter 4 (The 3-D Molecule) In the days when I was actively teaching, full time, at a medical school, there was always the psychological difficulty of facing a sullen audience. The students had come to school to study medicine. They wanted white coats, a stethoscope, a tongue depressor, and a prescription pad.

Instead, they found that for the first two years (at least, as it was in the days when I was actively teaching) they were subjected to the "basic sciences." That meant they had to listen to lectures very much in the style of those they had suffered through in college. Some of those basic sciences had, at least, a clear connection with what they recognized as the doctor business, especially anatomy, where they had all the fun of slicing up cadavers. Of all the basic sciences, though, the one that seemed least immediately "relevant," farthest removed from the game of doctor-and-patient, most abstract, most collegiate, and most saturated with despised Ph.D.'s as professors was biochemistry. And, of course, it was biochemistry that I taught. I tried various means of counteracting the natural contempt of medical student for biochemistry. The device which worked best (or, at least, gave me most pleasure) was to launch into a spirited account of "the greatest single discovery in all the history of medicine" that is, the germ theory of disease. I can get very dramatic when pushed, and I would build up the discovery and its consequences to the loftiest possible pinnacle.

And then I would say, "But, of course, as you probably all take for granted, no mere physician could so fundamentally revolutionize medicine. The discoverer was Louis Pasteur, Ph.D., a biochemist." From the dust jacket of "Robots and Empire" Doubleday 1985 hardcover edition Isaac Asimov's ROBOTS AND EMPIRE heralds a major new landmark in the great Asimovian galaxy of science fiction. For it not only presents the trilling sequel to the best-selling ROBOTS OF DAWN, but also ingeniously interweaves all three of Asimov's classic series: Robot, Foundation, and Empire. This is the work Asimov fans have been waiting for - an electrifying tale of interstellar intrigue and adventure that sets a new standard in the realm of SF literature. Two hundred years have passed since THE ROBOTS OF DAWN and Elijah Baley, the beloved hero of Earthpeople, is dead. The future of the Universe is at a crossroads. Though the forces of the sinister Spacers are weakened, Dr. Keldon Amadiro has never forgotten -- or forgiven -- his humiliating defeat at the hands of Elijah.

Now, with vengeance burning in his heart, he is more determined than ever to bring about the total annihilation of the planet Earth. But Amadiro had not counted on the equally determined Lady Gladia. Devoted to Elijah Baley, the Auroran beauty has taken upon the legacy of her fallen lover, vowing to stop the Spacer's at any cost. With her two robot companions, Daneel and Giskard, she prepares to set into motion a daring and dangerous plan . . . a plan whose success -- or failure -- will forever seal the fate of Earth and all who live there. Culminating in a stunning surprise climax, ROBOTS AND EMPIRE is singular science fiction that excites the mind and stimulates the imagination. It is Isaac Asimov at his triumphant best, proving him, once again, the true Master of the genre. Back in 2004, Isaac Asimov (already dead for 12 years) sent humanity a message from 1988.

Okay so it was only a few paragraphs from a just-delivered 1988 book but I was "in the zone" and took it seriously because it reminded me of the posthumous messages sent by Hari Seldon to all of humanity (via the Time Vault ) in Asimov's Foundation Novels beginning with the Foundation Trilogy. You should read this message too because Asimov's Favorite Fifteen are the basis for a provocative humanistic / robotic philosophy which is so awe-inspiring that I could, if I so desired, create a religion based upon it (although I would not because Asimov would not have approved; Asimov had remarked more than once that Hubbard had gone astray with Dianetics). And here is something I do not understand, although half of Asimov's stories were written in the 1940s and 1950s, they do not seem anachronistic in any way. In fact, they seem to have been written last week. I suggest you read them once then wait 7 years before reading them again. You will not be disappointed. Neil Steven Rieck Asimov's Message (in the gray box) follows... p.s.

books also qualify as "time vaults" From "Author's Note" (pages ix to x) of "Prelude To Foundation" Doubleday 1988 hardcover edition © 1988 by Nightfall Inc. When I wrote Foundation, which appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, I had no idea I had begun a series of stories that would eventually grow into six volumes and a total of 650,000 words (so far). Nor did I have any idea that it would be unified with my series of short stories and novels involving robots and my novels involving the Galactic Empire for a grand total (so far) of fourteen volumes and a total of about 1,450,000 words. You will see, if you study the publication dates of these books, that there was a twenty-five-year hiatus between 1957 and 1982, during which I did not add to this series. This is not because I had stopped writing. Indeed, I wrote full-speed throughout the quarter century, but I wrote other things.

That I returned to the series in 1982 was not my own notion but was the result of a combination of pressures from readers and publishers that eventually became overwhelming. In any case, the situation has become sufficiently complicated for me to feel that the readers might welcome a kind of guide to the series, since they were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read. The fourteen books, all published by Doubleday, offer a kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency to begin with. The chronological order order of the books, in terms of future history (and not of publication date), is as follows: Syllabus reading order as suggested by Isaac Asimov (NSR comments/changes in RED): # ref Will I add additional books to the series? I might. There is room for a book 6 between Robots and Empire and The Currents of Space, and between Prelude to Foundation and Foundation (which turned out to be Forward the Foundation 4), and of course between others as well 6. And then I can follow Foundation and Earth with with additional volumes -- as many as I like.

Naturally, there's got to be some limit, for I don't expect to to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible. NSR Subscripts: Even though this book was originally published in 1950, the pre-1950 stories contained within seem to stand the test of time. This might have something to do with the fact that Asimov usually glosses over technological details while concentrating more on the human side of things. Remember that these stories were written during the age of vacuum tubes thus predating the age of transistors and chips; Asimov never mentions tubes or transistors but he does mention something called the Positronic Brain which is just a literary device for "unknown technology". One dated phrase he uses is "robot psychologist" which should probably have been "computer programmer" but who really knows if my criticism is correct. Artificial Intelligence (AI) programming may become so complex that "robot psychology" might become a programming discipline The story Robot Dreams did appear in a robot compilation published by Byron Press in 1986 titled Robot Dreams. A second robot compilation was published by Byron Press in 1990 titled Robot Visions.

Books 6-8 are part of Asimov's Galactic Empire series. Asimov thought that these books were not very good (as far as the Robot-to-Foundation story line is concerned). He once stated "You can skip these books and still have a very enjoyable read [of the other 12]" Primarily due to the book clubs of the 1950s and 1960s, there once was a time when Asimov was better known for these three books than he was for the Foundation Trilogy Book 8 (Pebble in the Sky) was republished in hardcover on January 2008 and I enjoyed it immensely. Book 7 (The Stars, Like Dust) was republished in hardcover on December 2008 and I enjoyed it as well. Book 6 (The Currents of Space) was republished in hardcover on April 2009 and think it was worth every penny. Book 10 (Forward the Foundation) was not in Asimov's original list because he had not yet written it. This means that books 11-15 reflect new numberings. Forward the Foundation was Asimov's last book.

Click here for suppressed information about Asimov's death in 1992 at the age of 72. Books 11-13 are known by the public-at-large as The Foundation Trilogy. Even still, for maximum enjoyment you should read books 9-15 in order. Since some well known Robots pop up here, you should read books 1-5 (or 1-8) first. It is unfortunate that we cannot able to travel back in time to convince Asimov to get 45 minutes of daily exercise so he could avoid the triple bypass surgery responsible for infecting his blood with a deadly virus. I cannot imagine this collection without Forward the Foundation and now can only wonder about what he had in mind for these other insertion points. Generally speaking, Asimov fans have been very critical about the work done by other authors commissioned by Asimov's estate . If you are a hard sci-fi fan like me then every one of these 15 books are worth reading. They seem to stand the test of time and do not seem dated in any way. Click to locate rare and out-of-print books Isaac Asimov = Hari Seldon in the Foundation Novels?

It has not escaped my attention that "stumbling upon Asimov's suggested reading order in an original book from 1988" is very much like "receiving a posthumous message from Hari Seldon ". Yes, Asimov still speaks to humanity today but I am certain he wouldn't want you to turn his humanist / robotic philosophies into a religion even though you could. Neil Rieck From the introduction to "Foundation and Earth" Doubleday 1986 hardcover edition On August 1, 1941, when I was a lad of twenty-one, I was a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University and had been writing science fiction professionally for three years. I was hastening to see John Campbell, editor of Astounding, to whom I had sold five stories by then. I was anxious to tell him of a new idea I had for a science fiction story. It was to write a historical novel of the future; to tell the story of the fall of the Galactic Empire. My enthusiasm must have been catching, for Campbell grew as excited as I was. He didn't want me to write a single story.

He wanted a series of stories, in which the full history of of the thousand years of turmoil between the First Galactic Empire and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire was to be outlined. It would all be illuminated by the science of psychohistory that Campbell and I thrashed out between us. The first story appeared in the May 1942 Astounding and the second story appeared in the June 1942 issue. They were at once popular and Campbell saw to it that I wrote six more stories before the end of the decade. The stories grew longer too. The first one was only twelve thousand words long. Two of the last three stories were fifty thousand words apiece. By the time the decade was over, I had grown tired of the series, dropped it, and went on to other things. By then, however, various publishing houses were beginning to put out hardcover science fiction books. One such house was a small semiprofessional firm, Gnome Press. They published my Foundation Series in three volumes: Foundation (1951); Foundation and Empire (1952); and Second Foundation (1953). The three books together came to be known as The Foundation Trilogy.

The books did not do very well, for Gnome Press did not have the capital with which to advertise and promote them. I got neither statements nor royalties from them. In early 1961, my then-editor at Doubleday, Timothy Seldes, told me he had received a request from a foreign publisher to reprint the Foundation books. Since they were not Doubleday books, he passed the request on to me. I shrugged my shoulders. "Not interested, Tim. I don't get royalties on those books" Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the rights to the books from Gnome Press (which was, by that time, moribund), and in August of that year, the books (along with "I, Robot") became Doubleday property. From that moment on, the Foundation series took off and began to earn increasing royalties. Doubleday published the Trilogy in a single volume and distributed them through the Science Fiction Book Club. Because of that the Foundation series became enormously well known. In the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Cleveland, the fans were asked to vote on a category of "The Best All-Time Series".

It was the first time (and, so far, the last) the category had been included in the nominations for the Hugo Award. The Foundation Trilogy won the award, which further added to the popularity of the series. Increasingly, fans kept asking me to continue the series. I was polite but I kept refusing. Still, it fascinated me that people who had not been born when the series was begun had managed to become caught up in it. Doubleday, however, took the demands far more seriously that I did. They had humored me for twenty years but as demands kept growing in intensity and number, they finally lost patience. In 1981, they told me that I simply had to write another Foundation novel and, in order to sugar-coat the demand, offered me a contract at ten times my usual advance. Nervously, I agreed. It had been thirty-two years since I had written a Foundation story and now I was instructed to write one 140,000 words long, twice that of any earlier volumes and nearly three times as long as any previous individual story. I re-read The Foundation Trilogy and, taking a deep breath, dived into the task.

The fourth book of the series, Foundation's Edge, was published in October 1982, and then a very strange thing happened. It appeared in the New York Times bestseller list at once. In fact, it stayed one that list for twenty-five weeks, much to my utter astonishment. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. Doubleday at once signed me up to do additional novels and I wrote two that were part of another series, The Robot Novels. - And then it was time to return to the Foundation. So I wrote Foundation and Earth, which begins at the very moment that Foundation's Edge ends, and that is the book you now hold. It might help if you glanced over Foundation's Edge just to refresh your memory, but you don't have to, Foundation and Earth stands by itself. I hope you enjoy it. Isaac Asimov, Resources Local Links My own reviews of Asimov's-15 were deleted on 2016.12.25 because Wikipedia does a better job (but if you really want to read them then click here ) See what Asimov had to say about Protein Folding in 1990.

Skip to my last "Isaac Asimov" paragraph below to learn about Isaac Asimov's strange and tragic death in 1992. Wikipedia Links It is my belief that is humanity's first real attempt at an Encyclopedia Galactica (although it was not implemented as Asimov envisioned in his Foundation Trilogy)

Question: Name the science fiction author of 'I, Robot'.
Answer: ISAAC ASIMOV