where is asimov

[star.torturer]

i have to ask why is Issac Asimov, one of the founding fathers of scifi, not in the authors forum??
i am discraced and i was wanting to comment on how good his books are as well

 

[j d worthington]

Oh, that's because, like his books, Ike pops up everywhere; can't pin the man down. I mean: from Biochemistry and Human Metabolism to The Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan??!!

Seriously: Start a thread. Though I'm not sure anyone here has read everything by the man (that's an awful lot of reading!) if you're talking his sf, I know quite a few people here have read that, and would almost certainly be willing to discuss. There are several important writers whose names I don't see -- just toss the ball out and duck! It's likely to come flying back faster than you're prepared for, loaded with comments....

 

[chrispenycate]

Though I may disagree with you description "Founding Father" I agree that the good doctor, while mentioned several times, has a paucity of threads dedicated to him alone.
So I suggest you start one, either in "general books" or "classic SF"; there are plenty of enthusiasts who'll join you, I'm certain.

Seems I was again beaten to the post.I'll have to learn to type faster

 

[steve12553]

Seems to me I've responded to several Asimov threads too. Certainly in Classic Science Fiction.

 

[steve12553]

Server connection locked up and caused a double post.

 

[Snowdog]

I think I read somewhere that there had to be 5 separate threads devoted to an author before they got their own section.

A lot of the classic (and mostly dead, unfortunately) authors like Asimov are no longer on the bookshelves of the high-street shops so a lot of younger readers simply never come across their books and don't know to seek them out. Plus (and I could be wrong about this) it is my perception that fantasy has become more popular than SF for younger readers. Therefore, the authors section has a preponderance of fantasy authors and also of authors who are currently writing, which is no real surprise.

Please do start a thread. he deserves his own section.

 

[star.torturer]

that is unfortunatley true. i only found Foundation by chance after serching the bookshop intensly i walked outside and found it on a display rack

 

[genisis2]

Though I may disagree with you description "Founding Father" I agree that the good doctor, while mentioned several times, has a paucity of threads dedicated to him alone.
So I suggest you start one, either in "general books" or "classic SF"; there are plenty of enthusiasts who'll join you, I'm certain.

Seems I was again beaten to the post.I'll have to learn to type faster

I think JD never leaves his computor

 

[j d worthington]

I think JD never leaves his computor

Of late, that's been more true than jest. This bloody cold/upper respiratory infection/allergy combination has pretty much kept me housebound for the last 3-1/2 weeks, usually with little or no sleep. As I was seldom coherent enough to do the sorts of things I normally do, I sort of superglued myself to the chair in front of the screen, so to speak. After various medical regimens, I finally seem to be on the road to kicking the stuff, so I'll leave a little room for Chris again. Once I start to wind down, I can actually have the joy of hearing what others think -- and in a state when I'm not fighting off hallucinatory heffalumps, either! (Those were hallucinations, right?)

Back to our regularly scheduled topic: For anyone interested, the set of Opus books Asimov did are fairly easily found on the 'net, at least, having gone through several printings. At the back of each can be found a list of the entire 100 books in that particular set: title, co-authors (where necessary; seldom with Isaac, but it happened), publisher, date. I don't know if they released an Opus 400, but it would be a pity if they didn't, as he died very shortly before reaching that number. At any rate, it's a great place to find out the variety of work he did, and to spot titles you might want to look up, at a quick glance.

Also, if I may make a suggestion: for those who love seeing how sf developed over the years, I'd recommend reading his Before the Golden Age (it was also a long-standing book club selection, so isn't difficult to find on the 'net and amazingly cheap) followed by his The Early Asimov to see what sf was like from the inside from one of the giants of the early Golden Age -- and this works as a sort of odd early biography, as Asimov gives you a lot about his life throughout both; and Before the Golden Age is a gigantic (nearly 1000 pages of small print) volume giving some wonderful stories for each year of the 1930s; very enjoyable stuff, some serious corn, but a lot of gold in there, as well.

I look forward to a discussion of Asimov's work. He remains a favorite, and has been since I first stumbled across I, Robot at the tender age of 6 and was happily hooked on sf for life!

 

[genisis2]

Sorry off topic - get well soon JD.

The last Asimov I read was Foundations Edge and I Robot when I was in my teens. I quite enjoyed his style of writing. Someone told me{long time ago} he has short mystery stories and supposedly that these were very good but I have never come across any. Has anyone read these?

 

[j d worthington]

Yes. And they're classic old-style mysteries, for the most part. He also wrote some mystery novels, such as A Whiff of Death. Some of his mystery stories also combined sf and mystery, or detective, elements, such as the Lije Bailey/R. Daneel Olivaw stories: The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, "Mirror Image", The Robots of Dawn, etc. Several of his shorter mysteries can be found in the various Tales of the Black Widowers collections he published over the years. There's often a bit of sly or gallows humor mixed in with the mystery, by the way -- something not often seen in Ike, as I recall.

And thanks for the kind wishes. I think I'm finally on the mend -- getting some decent rest, anyway, and feeling better overall. "That passed in time; this, too, shall pass."

 

[steve12553]

I also picked up I, Robot at the public library at a very young age. I read foundation and about 20 years ago I tried to read every book that he had tied into his future history. I looked aroung my den and bedroom and found sixteen of his books (two are large compilations of short stories) and there may be more that haven't been put in the right place when I reorganized a while back. I really enjoyed his ability to create or extrapolate a world.

 

[star.torturer]

i am rather enjoying foundation, i red the first 3 sections of it this morning after getting up at about 11

 

[j d worthington]

Yep, it's still an enjoyable set of books. The original trilogy went on to win the only "Best SF Series of All Time" special Hugo award, as I recall.

 

[Foxbat]

Well, for the record, I'm a fan of Asimov as well
I believe there is a thread somewhere in the classic section which particularly discusses the Foundation series which you may find whets your appetite.

One thing I discovered recently (and I'm going to have to hunt down the short story to prove that I am correct) I found a reference to PsychoHistory in a story from the 1930s. I always thought that Asimov coined the phrase but it seems someone got there before him. It didn't quite mean the same as Asimov's usage but I found it surprising nonetheless.

 

[Foxbat]

Found the story on my first attempt - The Piper's Son by Lewis Padgett. It was 1945, not the 1930s (my mistake). I think Asimov's was a bit later than that with his Pschohistory.

 

[steve12553]

Found the story on my first attempt - The Piper's Son by Lewis Padgett. It was 1945, not the 1930s (my mistake). I think Asimov's was a bit later than that with his Pschohistory.

You peaked my curiousity, so I had to lookit up. Foundation (the novel) was published in 1951 but I thought I remembered that he published a short story first called Foundation. That showed up in 1942 and was followed by other Foundation stories that were incorporated in the novels. On the other hand I don't know if I have read the shortstory or not and because of that, I don't know if he used the term Psychohistorian or not.

 

[Asmer20]

Seems I was again beaten to the post.I'll have to learn to type faster

Cest-a dire ecrivez la langue vous parlez!

 

[j d worthington]

I'd have to look up the exact dates, but Isaac came up with the term in the first story, "Foundation", which forms the first section of the novel Foundation. (In fact, all three novels were originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, beginning in the very early '40s and lasting throughout the decade, before being collected together into their publication as novels. This was common practice for quite a long time -- well into the 1970s, as I recall.) "Lewis Padgett" is the nom de plume of Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore; friends and colleagues of Isaac's, and among the best of the "Golden Age" writers, so the use of the term was with full knowledge and consent on Ike's part; simply a part of one writer sparking another's creativity.

 

[Foxbat]

Aha! That goes some way towards explaining the situation (and makes a lot of sense). I'd never heard of Padgett and didn't realise it was an alias.

Thanks for enlightening me folks