By Kendra Hibbert
July 11, 2003
As I wrote last column, I’ve officially declared July Retro Sci-Fi Novel Month here in the Forest of Dead Trees and what better way to start off than to look at Mr. Robot (not to be confused with Mr. Roboto), Isaac Asimov.
Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920 but his family moved to the United States in 1923 where his Father bought a candy store in Brooklyn. Young Isaac’s first published story was called MAROONED OFF VESTA and appeared in the March 1939 edition of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION which means, if you do the math, Asimov was only 19 when he was on his way to becoming one of the most prolific and influential writers of his time. He also at that tender age graduated from Columbia with a B.S. in Chemistry. He continued on in this field obtaining a M.A. and a Ph.D. and later went on to become Associate Professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine before he quit to focus full-time on his writing in 1958.
Asimov wrote some 468 books. Rumour has it that he has a book published in all of the ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System although there is some debate on that. Regardless he wrote a heap of novels, a tonne of short stories and a plethora of non-fiction on a wide variety of subjects (including an annotated guide to the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan) – daunting statistics especially if you’re interested in reading some of Asimov’s work but don’t know where to start. Hopefully if this is the case this column can bring your attention to the most famous works of Asimov -- a series (or trilogy of series, depending on how you look at it) which gained him the most sci-fi notoriety known as the Robot-Empire-Foundation Series.
Though Asimov never initially intended these three series to be interrelated, he later decided that all 15 of these books take place in the same universe. The fact is there are thousands of years between the Robot and the Foundation series and (with a few exceptions) none of the characters are the same but if these 15 books are read in sequential order these books recount the amazing rise and fall of a great Empire and narrate a few millennia of the incredible history of this inspired fictional world. Chronologically this is how these books are laid out (Warning: Mild Spoilers follow):
(1.) THE COMPLETE ROBOT published in 1982 is a collection of 31 short stories involving robots written between 1940 and 1976. Previously many of these stories were seen in an earlier collection, Asimov’s infamous I, ROBOT but that collection was published in 1950 and so is missing some of the author’s work which was written later.
If you’re going to read one book out of the Asimov collection I recommend this one - essential science fiction reading that contains the first appearance of the modern robot. (Incidentally, this collection contains BICENTENNIAL MAN, inspiration for the 1999 Robin Williams movie – the only Asimov story to hit the big screen with any kind of budget behind it. As an interesting side note the film rights to I, ROBOT was bought in 1967 by GUNSMOKE producer John Mantley and given to Harlan Ellison to write the screenplay. However huge production costs and Hollywood fickleness lead to the script being shelved. Yet fortunately, in 1994, a book was published called I, ROBOT: THE ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY which prints Asimov and Ellison’s brilliant collaboration and weaves many of the familiar faces and ideas of the Robot stories. It may be a little hard to find these days but scour through old books stores - or go to Amazon’s page for this book here – it’s well worth it to find what is generally considered “the greatest science fiction movie never made”. The film version of I, ROBOT currently filming starring Will “Get Jiggy Wit’ It” Smith and directed by Alex ‘THE CROW’ Proyas is, unfortunately, not based on Ellison’s screenplay).
(2.) THE CAVES OF STEEL, (3.) THE NAKED SUN and (4.) THE ROBOTS OF DAWN published between 1954 and 1983 are known as the Robot novels. Set a millennium into the future they delve a little deeper into the laws and functions of robots in the Asimov world. These stories follow Detective Elijah Baley and his positronic, humanoid robotic partner R. Daneel Olivaw as they solve murder mysteries in futuristic New York and beyond.
(5.) ROBOTS AND EMPIRE published in 1985 was written to bridge the gap and clear up some of the inconsistencies between the Robot novels and the Empire series which Asimov originally never intended on combining. This novel meets up with R. Daneel Olivaw 200 years after ROBOTS OF DAWN and ventures on some philosophical questions about the robotic laws Asimov established in his previous books.
(6.) (7.) THE CURRENTS OF SPACE and THE STARS, LIKE DUST (there’s an ongoing dispute about which of these two books is chronologically the first in the series) and (8.) PEBBLE IN THE SKY make up the Empire novels. Though more or less unrelated to one another they recount the years in the Robot-Empire-Foundation timeline when a vast powerful government rules the universe. Like George Lucas’ Prequel-verse these novels portray a Galactic Empire at the height of its power before it begins to crumble in the Foundation series. Unfortunately all of these titles are currently out of print so if you want to read them you’ll have to search used bookstores or (gasp!) maybe even visit the library.
(9.) PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION and (10.) FORWARD THE FOUNDATION were written late in Asimov’s life (the latter published posthumously in 1993) and follow a young Hari Seldon who is prominent as the founder of the Foundation (more on this below) and father of psychohistory - a division of science which can be used to predict the outcome of a large society. In these books Seldon is on the run from agents of the Galactic Empire for his theories, unpopular with the powers that be.
(11.) FOUNDATION published in 1951 is, like I, ROBOT a classic in science fiction literature. It’s a collection of four stories, originally published between 1942 and 1944, which follows Hari Seldon as
he attempts to establish The Foundation – two groups of scientists and scholars he forms and secludes from the rest of the Galactic Empire to save them and human culture from the 30,000 years of barbarism and warfare he has predicted using his controversial psychohistory. Though this novel is somewhat short on character development it’s tall on cool-ness factor. The focus is more on telling the story of the overall rise and fall of the Galactic Empire rather than the highs and lows of the individuals involved. Asimov saves the character development for the later novels in this series like…
(12.) FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE broken up into two novellas – the first demonstrating the might of Seldon’s mathematical equations and how it makes the Foundation virtually indestructible. The second introduces a superhuman called The Mule who falls into the miniscule percentile Seldon’s equations failed to account for thus making him a considerable threat to the great psychohistorian’s society.
(13.) SECOND FOUNDATION follows the great and powerful Mule as he searches for the Second Foundation society, secluded from the first to ensure its survival.
(14.) FOUNDATION’S EDGE has the two separate Foundation societies combining forces to try and find the planet Earth, long since forgotten and believed by many to be mythical.
( 15.) FOUNDATION AND EARTH the last book (chronologically) of the series which very nicely ties in elements of the Robot series and the Empire series to make a nice complete circle as the two Foundations finally return to humanity’s home planet Earth.
While these books represent only a fraction of Asimov’s published work they are by far his most famous material. Its influence and inspiration can be seen all through modern science fiction from STAR WARS to STAR TREK and inspired many aspects of science from the study of human relationships to the ethics of artificial intelligence. Asimov’s writing style in this mammoth series varies somewhat over the 50 or so years he wrote these books but for the most part his approach is concise and to the point, a style reminiscent of the 40s/50s era of sci-fi from which he emerged, an style which surfaced possibly due to the short story medium he started out in and continued to be involved in with his magazine ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION (which continues to publish some of the best sci-fi short fiction).
Spanning 15 books the Robot-Empire-Foundation novels make a great series to immerse yourself in for the two weeks or two years (depending on your reading speed) it takes to you to read them. And because most of these books are either collected short stories/novellas or fairly brief works (under 300 pages) they’re fairly easy to sporadically pick up and put down making these ideal books for summer reading and required reading for anyone who considers themselves a science fiction fan.
Next Column: Continuing with the Retro Sci-Fi Summer Month Of Fun I’ll be looking closer at the works of Ray Bradbury, possibly even reading THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES to appease the ongoing urgings to do so by PoopShoot EIC Chris Ryall. Come back in two weeks to read more about these classic authors so you can impress your nerd friends with your science fiction knowledge without ever having to pick up a book.
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