stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

The Stars, Like Dust

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:15:00 GMT

This is a short book, and quite different from the other Asimovs I've read recently. Specifically it doesn't have any robots, and isn't a murder mystery. Its also set about 1,000 years into the future from the previous Robot Mysteries. Its a good book, with a style similar to the original Robot Mysteries (distinct from the newer ones written 40 years later). Its short and an easy read. I liked it.

Update: I originally thought the space between the Robot Mysteries and this book was much bigger than apparently it is meant to be. According to Wikipedia's page on the empire series:

"Some sources further this argument by asserting that The Stars, Like Dust takes place about one thousand years following the events of Robots and Empire."

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Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:35:00 GMT

I'm getting really into reading second hand science fiction from the 1950s onwards. I read a few (but nowhere near all) of the Foundation series as a child, and I remember liking them a lot. Stolen from Wikipedia, here is a list of the books in The Foundation series in Asimov's suggested reading order:

C	Year	Title	Notes
	1950	I, Robot	Robot short stories. First collection, which were all included in The Complete Robot, though it also contains binding text (Mind and Iron), no longer in The Complete Robot. Stories: "Robbie" (also in Robot Visions) "Runaround" (also in Robot Visions) "Reason" (also in Robot Visions) "Catch that Rabbit" "Liar!" (also in Robot Visions) "Little Lost Robot" (also in Robot Visions) "Escape!" "Evidence" (also in Robot Visions) "The Evitable Conflict" (also in Robot Visions) Purchased from Bookbuyer's
1	1982	The Complete Robot	Robot short stories. Collection of Asimov stories written between 1940 and 1976. Stories: "A Boy's Best Friend" "Sally" (also in Robot Dreams) "Someday" "Point of View" "Think!" "True Love" (also in Robot Dreams) "Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" "Victory Unintentional" "Stranger In Paradise" "Light Verse" (also in Robot Dreams) "Segregationist" "Let's Get Together" "Mirror Image" "The Tercentenary Incident" "First Law" "Satisfaction Guaranteed" "Lenny" (also in Robot Visions) "Galley Slave" (also in Robot Visions) "Risk" "Feminine Intuition" (also in Robot Visions) "—That Thou Art Mindful of Him" "The Bicentennial Man" (also in Robot Visions) + those from I, Robot (without the binding story) Purchased from Galaxy Books
	1986	Robot Dreams	Robot short stories. Anthologised in a book with the same title. Stories: "Robot Dreams" "Little Lost Robot" (also in I, Robot) "Breeds There a Man...?" "Hostess" "Sally" (also in The Complete Robot) "Strikebreaker" "The Machine that Won the War" "Eyes Do More Than See" "The Martian Way" "Franchise" "Jokester" "The Last Question" "Does a Bee Care?" "Light Verse" (also in The Complete Robot) "The Feeling of Power" "Spell My Name with an S" "The Ugly Little Boy" "The Billiard Ball" "True Love" (also in The Complete Robot) "The Last Answer" "Lest We Remember" Purchased from Canty's Bookstore (no website)
	1990	Robot Visions	Robot short stories. Anthologised in a book with the same title. This collection contains Mirror Image, which is referenced in The Robots Of Dawn and occurs after The Naked Sun. Stories: "Robot Visions" "Too Bad!" "Robbie" (also in I, Robot) "Reason" (also in I, Robot) "Liar!" (also in I, Robot) "Runaround" (also in I, Robot) "Evidence" (also in I, Robot) "Little Lost Robot" (also in I, Robot) "The Evitable Conflict" (also in I, Robot) "Feminine Intuition" (also in The Complete Robot) "The Bicentennial Man" (also in The Complete Robot) "Someday" "Think!" "Segregationist" "Mirror Image" "Lenny" (also in The Complete Robot) "Galley Slave" (also in The Complete Robot) "Christmas Without Rodney" Purchased from Leigh's Favorite Books
	1992	The Positronic Man	Robot novel based on Asimov's short story The Bicentennial Man, co-written by Robert Silverberg Purchased from Canty's Bookstore (no website)
2	1954	The Caves of Steel	Robot novel. Purchased from Leigh's Favorite Books
3	1957	The Naked Sun	Robot novel. Purchased from Canty's Bookstore (no website)
4	1983	The Robots of Dawn	Robot novel. Purchased from Leigh's Favorite Books
5	1985	Robots and Empire	Robot novel. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
	1993	Isaac Asimov's Caliban	Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. Purchased from abebooks.com
	1994	Isaac Asimov's Inferno	Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. I have this one in large format, and still need it in paperback. Purchased from abebooks.com
	1996	Isaac Asimov's Utopia	Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. I have this one in hardcover, and still need it in paperback. Purchased from abebooks.com
6	1951	The Stars, Like Dust	Galactic Empire series. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
7	1952	The Currents of Space	Galactic Empire series. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
8	1950	Pebble in the Sky	Galactic Empire series. Purchased from Gaslight Books
9	1988	Prelude to Foundation	Foundation novel. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
10	1993	Forward the Foundation	Foundation novel. Purchased from Rasputin's Books
11	1951	Foundation	Foundation trilogy.
12	1952	Foundation and Empire	Foundation trilogy. Purchased from Rasputin's Books
13	1953	Second Foundation	Foundation trilogy. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
	1997	Foundation's Fear	Second Foundation trilogy by Gregory Benford. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
	1998	Foundation and Chaos	Second Foundation trilogy by Greg Bear.
	1999	Foundation's Triumph	Second Foundation trilogy by David Brin. Purchased from Bookbuyer's
14	1982	Foundation's Edge	Final chronological Foundation books. Purchased from bookstore in a basement, Curtin
15	1986	Foundation and Earth	Final chronological Foundation books. Purchased from Elizabeth's Bookshop

Next step, read them.

Update: this amazon list is also useful as it has a guide to the short story books and how they overlap, as well as a bunch more robot books written by other authors.

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Robots and Empire

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:02:00 GMT

I find the newer Asimovs harder to read for some reason -- I think it might be because they are more inclined to introspection that the earlier ones, but that might not be all of it. Overall I enjoyed this book, although I did find that I lost enthusiasm briefly in the middle. Overall, worth the effort though.

You can tell that Asimov was getting old at the time that he wrote this book, as he dwells extensively on the importance of living an interesting and worthwhile life, instead of necessarily a long life. Overall he makes the argument that this is what is wrong with Spacer society -- life is so long that its inconceivable to take risks early in life that might shorten that life. Later in life its too late however, as you are by then trapped in your comfortable rut. Its an interesting concept, and one which bears further consideration.

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Robots of Dawn

Thu, 29 May 2008 01:55:00 GMT

This book is the third in the third in the Robot mystery series, and is once again set on a Spacer world. This one was written 30 years after the first two, and Asimov's style has noticeably changed between the 1950s and 1980s.

The book starts off slowly, with a lecturing tone which I found quite annoying. For example, devoting an entire page to a discussion of whether the deliberate death of a a robot (even a human shaped on) is murder. Often the first part of the book feels like it is going excessively slowly.

However, its only the first third of so of the book which suffers this flaw. Its as if Asimov realized after a while that he also had a story to tell, and got on with it. The book then improves massively and has a good story.

So, overall I liked this book, although the first part of the book wasn't as good as the rest of the Asimov I've read.

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Naked Sun

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Bill Clarke was kind enough to lend me a compendium of Asimov that contained the next book in the series I'm reading at the moment. I've had to skip over some of the earlier collections of robot short stories, because they're quite hard to find. Specifically, I haven't been able to find anyone with a copy of The Complete Robot for sale, even new.

This book is the next in the Robot series, and the second which features Detective Baley. Again Baley is solving a murder, although this time its occurred on a Spacer world instead of his own Earth. Along the way he has to confront his own fear of open spaces, as well as other's fear of proximity to other humans.

This was again another excellent book. I enjoyed it a lot.

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Caves of Steel

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:00:00 GMT

Caves of Steel is interesting because it is a murder mystery set in the future, which at the time this book was written was a novel concept. It also presents an interesting almost-communist view of the future, where individual liberties are surrendered one by one in order to improve economic efficiency in order to support Earth's ever growing population. Implicit in that is the assertion that capitalism is inherently inefficient, but I'll leave that discussion alone.

This book is a really quick read. It took me a day (including actually going to work) to knock it over, which was fun. The book is a good, light read.

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I, Robot

Mon, 12 May 2008 05:32:00 GMT

The 1950s must have been a great time to be a science fiction author. WW2 was finally over, and seemingly massively stupid ideas like mutually assured destruction, nuclear rifles so powerful that they were as much a danger to those firing them as those who were on the receiving end, and Brylcreem were all the rage. Into this atmosphere of run away idiocy comes Asimov's I, Robot, the book which defined the three laws of robotics, and some how managed to not suggest that humanity should nuke each other all into submission. This book is still an excellent read almost 60 years later, and I think still shows us some of the future. Its a little depressing to think how little we've achieved towards Asimov's proposed future world, given the time line laid out in this book.

One of the interesting aspects of this book is Asimov's failure to predict things which seem so mundane now, but must have not been obvious to an observer in 1950. For example:

The commonness of computers now. One of the short stories revolves around a secret batch of robots, and the need to debug them. The protagonists can't use a computer though, because that would draw too much attention. Why not use a laptop? Because Asimov failed to predict them.
The use of wire recorders to record sound. No optical media (or whatever we'll have in the future) here.
The assumption that robots contain vacuum tubes.
The failure to account for inflation. This one should have been obvious! A batch of 63 robots for instance is valued at $2 million dollars in one of the stories, a sum so great that no one can conceive of deliberately destroying the batch.

A good book.

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