Isaac Asimov?

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by GalaxyClass1701, May 28, 2011.

  1. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 13, 1999
    Location:
    USA
    There's nothing that moves in that painting(at least to the visible eye)...but the whole thing looks like there is motion or a sense of depth that's pretty astounding.
     
  2. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    The reading order is today much debated, with some people favoring the publication order and others favoring the internal chronological order.

    For a number of reasons, I don't think that internal chronological order works for first-timers, as certain developments get spoiled way too early.

    The robot novels should be read in order -- Caves, Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire. You can read I, Robot before, in the middle, or after, even though that book takes place very early. The other robot short stories you can read at almost any time; they have little direct bearing on the Foundation mythos.
     
  3. Klaus

    Klaus Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2003
    Location:
    Beach condo, Bay of Eldamar
    ^^Publication order is definitely the way to go IMHO...
     
  4. timothy

    timothy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2010
    Location:
    The Draco tavern
    is there a list for either order?
     
  5. Australis

    Australis Writer - Australis Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Location:
    The Edge of Reality
    When people say 'Asimov covers", I immediately think of...

    [​IMG]
     
  6. ITL

    ITL Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2004
    Location:
    Palace Of The Brine
    ^ I had those!
     
  7. timothy

    timothy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2010
    Location:
    The Draco tavern
    now just curious has any one read:

    isaac asimov's robot city
    isaac asimov's robot's and aliens
    isaac asimov's robot's in time
     
  8. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    I read these when they came out and liked them. They were fun, but they weren't always true to Asimov's world and they did a number of things that I thought were "end runs" around the Three Laws. Still, I liked the ideas in the books. I prefer the first six books (the Robot City) books to the last six (Robots and Aliens). The characters return in four mystery novels published by iBooks about a decade ago, three by Mark Teidemann and one by Alex Irvine.

    I didn't enjoy this series a great deal. I found them tedious and the writing was juvie-level. However, that turns out to be what the author was going for, and the publisher marketed them otherwise.
     
  9. timothy

    timothy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2010
    Location:
    The Draco tavern
    ibooks? is that anything like e books, also looking for foundation's friends.
     
  10. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    No, iBooks was a publishing company of Byron Preiss' before his death. Preiss was the packager behind the Robot City books back in the 80s.

    Foundation's Friends was okay. I'd recommend getting the trade paperback edition -- it has more material than the hardcover and mass market editions. Most of the stories aren't anything great, but Orson Scott Card's "The Originist" is very good.
     
  11. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2003
    Location:
    RJDiogenes of Boston
    The Caliban trilogy was pretty decent.
     
  12. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    There's a new Susan Calvin novel out in hardcover, I Robot: To Protect, by Mickey Zucker Reichert.

     
  13. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Well, that sounds rather revisionist.
     
  14. Peak

    Peak Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2002
    Location:
    Sweden
    Which should make it fit rather well into the Robot/Empire/Foundation-series. Even Asimov started it after all when he joined everything together..

    Unfortunately, there's not much good to say of the books that have been written by other authors. I do still would like a book set after "Foundation and Earth" which
    killed off this Gaia-nonsense once for all (after all, the Foundation survived, there was after all quotes from Encyclopedia Galactica in the books).
     
  15. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    I disagree. Yes, Greg Benford's Foundation's Fear is not very good (it has some good ideas, but they're not Asimovian ideas or developed in an Asimovian way), but Greg Bear's Foundation and Chaos was solid and David Brin's Foundation's Triumph was easily the best official Foundation novel since Foundation's Edge. (I have to qualify that. Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis is actually better, but it's not an official Foundation novel.)

    Also, Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban trilogy is excellent. There are a few things I quibble with, but the storytelling is good, the characters are well drawn, and the writing is top-notch.

    Then you should read Foundation's Triumph, because that's an idea that Brin develops there. Brin's idea was that if there is a Gaia/Galaxia, then there's no need for an Encyclopedia Galactica. But since there is an Encyclopedia Galactica, then it follows that the Foundation triumphs over both the Second Foundation and Galaxia. That's why Brin quotes from a later edition of the EG than Asimov does. :)
     
  16. Peak

    Peak Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2002
    Location:
    Sweden
    I was really dissappointed in the first of the "Second Foundation Trilogy". The other two books were better (and I noticed that passage you quoted there), but I feel like "Foundation and Chaos" and "Foundation's Triumph" had to spend a lot of time to try to fix the problems from the first book (wormholes, really???).

    But, it was a long time I read these, and I recently begun to go through the Robot/Empire/Foundation-books again (are there a good shorter name for this series), so we have to see if I change my mind.

    "Robots in Time" are awful, though. Haven't read the Caliban trilogy yet. The "Robot City"-stuff and the "spinoffs" are okay-ish. Better than "Robots in Time", but that doesn't say much.. :p)

    Some stories in "Foundation's Friends" are quite good, actually, though.

    Still want to see a book that takes place after "Foundation and Earth", though. I would recommend an eventual merging of the first and second foundation.
     
  17. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2002
    I think Foundation's Triumph had some rather nice observations about Asimov's future history. The comparisons between the Empire and the Chinese dynasties was also a nice touch and the observation that the Seldon plan would ultimately triumph was a good observation on the part of the writers. The chaos fever idea and how it caused instability throughout civilization I thought was a load of rubbish as was the robots potentially committing mass genocide on the rest of galaxy to secure a human dominant universe.
     
  18. Owain Taggart

    Owain Taggart Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2009
    Location:
    Northern Ontario, Canada
    If you're disappointed with those, I highly recommend reading Psychohistorical Crisis by Donald Kingsbury. Sadly, it's not a licensed book, so all place names and characters have been changed, but all in all, I think it's more in spirit with the rest of Asimov's work than the actual Second Foundation. It was released around the same time as the Second Foundation trilogy, so I'm guessing that's why it didn't get the blessing of the estate, but to me it absolutely captured what made Asimov great.
     
  19. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2003
    Location:
    RJDiogenes of Boston
    Psychohistorical Crisis was great. Definitely a novel I need to re-read at some point.

    The three books of the Second Trilogy all blur together for me at this point, but it was an ill-advised project. They should have just created their own universe to develop their ideas in; in terms of being respectful to the source material, it was disastrous.

    I'd be happy to write Foundation And Galaxia, though. Asimov felt he had written himself into a corner, but I know a very Asimovian way out of it. :rommie:
     
  20. stonester1

    stonester1 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2004
    If you want to claim true literacy in science fiction literature, Asimov is an essential read.