Favourite Short Story? (Isaac Asimov)

[Pyan]

I'd also have to recommend "The Ugly Little Boy",

Read so long ago, but still remembered almost verbatim - must be the test of a favourite for me!
And "The Singing Bell" from Asimov's Mysteries.

 

[jeff.s.p]

I agree... "Ugly little Boy",.. not his most profound.. but certainly clear in my mind after having read 20 years ago.

~Jeff

 

[manephelien]

Yeah, Ugly Little Boy is certainly one of my favorite stories, and as I recall it was Asimov's favorite story out of his own works.

 

[Eleniel]

Victory Unintentional, there's another great one

 

[pnerd]

Among the short stories I read so far, my favourite would be either "The Last Question" or "The Bicentennial Man". It's hard to choose one as the favourite between these two.

 

[Lillyanna]

As a child, I was emotionally scarred by the story Rain Rain Go Away. So much so, that today I cannot think of a single book by Asimov that I've read. I must have been very young.

!

 

[skeptic_heptic]

I loved 'Profession'

 

[Contrary Mary]

I've read many of Asimov's short stories. My two favorites are "nightfall" and "The Ugly Little Boy".

I have personally always liked Asimov's short stories better than his novels.

 

[Randolph]

It's been a long time since I read Asimov, but the one story of his that's stuck with me is "The Last Question." The story itself is great - almost poetic in a way - and the vast amounts of time and space it covers really fires up my imagination. The whole concept of *spolier*

Spoiler

mankind creating a machine that becomes so powerful it reverses entropy and sets the universe back to the beginning, thereby creating mankind, is amazing.

I think it has aged very well, unlike most sci-fi from that period.

 

[GrantG]

I can't remember the name (I was a freshman in high school when I read it) and I've only read maybe fifteen of his short stories, but my favorite out of that batch was about a group of robots on a spaceship. The robots don't really ignore the Laws of Robotics, but they find ways around them because - get this - the robots found religion. I think their new religion influenced them to believe that they were superior to humans, which is why they no longer thought that they had to obey orders.

There were only two human characters in the story, if I remember correctly, and I think they appeared in another one of his short stories (it seems like one of their names was Donovan). Anyhow, I thought it was great.

 

[AE35Unit]

Tough one. Nightfall Ugly Little Boy or Bicentennial Man. Or maybe something from I,Robot. Just so much good stuff!

 

[CBellenis]

As well as his better known stories, I love the ones about the little devil/imp thing (Azrael? Azazeal?) told by an old boy in his gentlemen's club. They are funny and off-the-wall/

 

[pnerd]

...the little devil/imp thing (Azrael? Azazeal?)...

I think you mean "Azazel".

 

[Moonbat]

I've just read 'earth is room enough' and I liked almost all of the stories.

Someday
Satisfaction guaranteed
Jokster

These three were all robot stories and very good.

Also
The fun they had - I knew about this story but hadn't ever read it, very good.

I must say Asimov's short stories are truly great, and have motovated me to write more of my own.

 

[dimewestern]

Hi, there. 1st time to use this forum. Pardon the simple-mindedness of the query, but why are the stars appearing at the end so significant? Is it that the cultists had predicted them and thus religion disproves science? Also, if the people are eager for light, wouldn't the stars be welcome? I love Asimov, but for some reason the impact of this story eludes me. Teaching this in a SF course in the fall as a favor to the administration of my school--help!

 

[j d worthington]

Hi, there. 1st time to use this forum. Pardon the simple-mindedness of the query, but why are the stars appearing at the end so significant? Is it that the cultists had predicted them and thus religion disproves science? Also, if the people are eager for light, wouldn't the stars be welcome? I love Asimov, but for some reason the impact of this story eludes me. Teaching this in a SF course in the fall as a favor to the administration of my school--help!

a) The stars, though legendary and part of their belief system, have never been seen by any generation in millennia; attempts to simulate the stars would be nowhere near as powerful -- imagine never having seen a night sky in your life, and then finding yourself suddenly surrounded by the vault of the night studded with all those lights.

b) The immensity of it all (as mentioned): where with the sunlight -- especially of multiple suns -- things seem a good deal cosier and more "earthbound", once you remove all such light and are left with the genuine physical and emotional impact of the immensity of the universe, something which would completely upset all one's emotional and mental preconceptions (save on the most theoretical level), it would become something overwhelming, even suffocating -- yet at the same time so remote and gigantic that it simultaneously dwarfs not only the individual but the entire species to insignificance. And, again, not on some abstract philosophical level, but at an immediate, down-on-the-bone emotional and instinctual level.

c) It bears something of the same impact as the mythic "seeing the eye of God", and in fact this is something many writers have addressed in different ways: if one suddenly were confronted with the true face of the infinite -- something which we are still very far from even beginning to approach -- then one truly is "looking upon the face of God", and there is simply no way to be emotionally or psychologically prepared for such an experience. It is the supernal experience ne plus ultra, and something human egos simply are not likely to easily withstand.

While the light of the stars would be immense, it would still only emphasize the loneliness of this little planet in the vast void -- hence the fires to "bring back the light", to once again reassert control over their reality (whatever their ostensible reasons for such may be, it is a desperate attempt to reestablish for known in place of the completely unknown which they now face).

 

[Fried Egg]

Also, don't forget that they had speculated that there might be a "few" stars out there to be revealed. Their gross underestimation was underscored by the fact that their starscape was far more densely populated than ours is (because of their relative proximity to the galactic core) thereby suprising the reader as well as their protagonists in the story.

 

[dimewestern]

Thank you! If you don't object, your answer might wind up in some class handouts/notes. One final question: the people of Lagash are seeing an ordinary star-filled night sky as we think of it? Thanks again for the thoughtful, nonpatronizing response.

 

[dimewestern]

Didn't read this before I posed the question.

 

[j d worthington]

As a point of interest in light of the discussion above:

Solar eclipse pits superstition against science - Yahoo! News

And this, despite the fact that total solar eclipses aren't exactly terribly uncommon here on Earth, not to mention the fact that the entire process has been understood (and that understanding taught) for a very, very long time....