Today is January 2, which is the birthday of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). It’s the first of two birthday posts for this date. The other is Charles Beaumont.
Asimov needs no introduction, I’m sure. Some of his work is still in print, primarily the Foundation books (at least the early ones although I’m not sure about the later ones) and some of the robot stories. His other short fiction, both science fiction and mysteries, as well as his later science fiction novels that are stand-alones haven’t fared so well.
The Foundation series, along with some associated novels (The Stars LIke Dust, Pebble in the Sky, and The Currents of Space) are set in the far future. The robot stories were relatively near future at the time, a future that is now in our past. Not all of the robot stories directly connected to the main series which concerned scientist Susan Calvin. (Note to self: write an essay about Asimov’s choice of a female scientist as protagonist in the early forties.) Then, there were the novels featuring R. Daneel Olivaw, which were set a little further in the future and were a blend of detective and science fiction.
In the last few years of his life, Asimov connected the two series, bridging the near future Susan Calvin and R. Daneel Olivaw with the Foundation series. The wisdom of this decision could be open to question, but it’s been so long since I read some of those works, that I’ll refrain from comment.
He also cowrote some prequels to the Foundation series with some of the major science fiction writers of the early nineties. I’ve not read them and won’t mention them further in this post.
What I’d like to focus on here are the robot stories.
They were first collected in 1950 in I, Robot which was published by Gnome Press. That’s the cover above. Some of them, especially the earlier stories in the book, are rather dated and don’t hold up well. Susan Calvin isn’t a character in the first few storeis. Once she makes an appearance, though, the quality increases. Remember, these are some of Asimov’s earliest stories. He was still learning his craft. Continue reading
