The Science Fiction Review Books,TV,Movies,Technology Gold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac Asimov

Gold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac Asimov

Book Cover

In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction.  I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later.

On Science Fiction

Here, Asimov gives us a brief history of the roots of Science Fiction. He also describes the origins of the robot concept, tracing the roots back to the eighteenth book of Homer’s Iliad. Also, he goes over very early books like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Asimov also describes the evolution of Science Fiction in media, from the early magazines (of which he was an avid reader), to books, movies, and TV. Some of the names he listed were completely foreign to me. I think at some time in the future, I’ll look up some of his favorite authors of the time and check them out. He also talks about Science Fiction’s effect on technology and gives a couple examples of some technologies that he is attributed to predicting.

Writing Science Fiction

As I was reading the essays, it felt like he was talking to me, and in turn I was getting to know him as a person, not just a writer. His writing style is very smooth and easy to read. I believe it is a testament to his claim that when he writes, he just writes. At several points he congratulates himself on his ability to simply write with very little revision, essentially just correcting grammar and word placement once everything is done. After all, being one of the most prolific writers his time, or any time for that mater, he did have the right to have a strong sense of self-esteem.

One tidbit that I found very interesting is that Asimov had never really made use of outlines when writing stories. He would usually just work out an opening, and an ending, and make everything up along the way. Simply put, his characters would take on a life of their own. Another fact, which I already was aware of, is that he heavily relies on dialogue between characters, and there is very little “action” along the way. His books, at least to me, seem to be more cerebral than many others I have read.

The Stories

The title story, Gold, is an interesting one, especially around these times of economic turmoil. Gold, today in the real world, is topping $1000(US) an ounce while digital money has lost much of its value. A relatively unknown author seeks the help of a world famous director to produce a compu-drama from his book. These compu-dramas were basically movies heavily reliant on technology, interestingly enough much as our current movies are evolving into. I won’t spoil the plot, but the book in the story is very reminiscent of The Gods Themselves. The author admits that he is just an average writer, but wants to be immortalized by having his book made into a compu-drama. The director, on the other hand, is already one of the most famous figures in the entertainment industry. The author has everything to gain, while the director has everything to lose. Why then, should the director take the risk of taking on this new project? Gold was the offer, nearly impossible to find, having an equivalent value in credits, but with the sense of tangibility, not just a number on a computer screen.

Gold was a very interesting story, well worth anyone’s time to check out. As for the other stories, there is a diverse mix of plots present. They include science experiments, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and time travel to name a few. Of these remaining stories, my favorites include Cal (which I’ve read previously), Alexander the God, and Kid Brother.

I highly recommend this book as a must have for any Isaac Asimov fan, or Science Fiction fan for that matter. Also, the final section can serve as a general starting point for those interested in writing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please prove you are a human * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Post

Isaac Asimov’s Robots and Aliens Book 4: Alliance by Jerry OltionIsaac Asimov’s Robots and Aliens Book 4: Alliance by Jerry Oltion

Robots and Aliens Volume 2 book cover

This review will most likely contain spoilers for any previous books in the series, read at your own risk.

Fairly early in Intruder we saw that there was a third Silverside that had taken over Robot City. After an intense search Derec finally reclaimed control with the help of his friends. Now, Derec is faced with three robots without solid definitions of “human”. I think that this novel is quite a bit more philosophical in the search for what makes someone human. Not too much happens plot-wise, most of the bulk is focused on defining what is human. We do get a slightly better glimpse at the origins of the Silversides and a hint at where the series might end up toward the end.

Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy ZahnThrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn

HeirToTheEmpire.jpg
HeirToTheEmpire” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

When I heard about production of Star Wars Episode VII and the ensuing controversy about the Expanded Universe vs canon, I started thinking about reading Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy again. I first read the books almost 25 years ago! I decided that I didn’t really care if the new movies conflicted with the books. I remembered being blown away, so figured they were worth reading again. These books were a very important to me at the time because it was my first real taste of Star Wars outside of the theatrical films. There were other books released before this, but the Thrawn Trilogy marked the resurgence of my interest in Star Wars.

I’ll admit that I’ve been a bad reviewer and powered through the series without stopping to write my reviews. I normally read on my lunch breaks at work and have not had hardly any time outside of work and family life to devote to reviews as I did just a few years ago.

After reading just a few chapters of Heir to the Empire, I realized that there was quite a bit that I didn’t remember, including a rather large plot line that ran through the last two books (Dark Force Rising and The Last Command). Toward the end of The Last Command, I came across a huge plot twist that I had absolutely no memory of until just before it was revealed. I’m simply amazed at how much of this series I couldn’t remember. In a way, it was a blessing because I almost experienced the book for the first time again. This was kind of weird for me as I always thought I had an excellent memory when it came to books. I gave my wife a hard time about not remembering some fairly important stuff in the Wheel of Time series, despite her reading it at least 3 times through from beginning to end as new books came out. At the time I had only read the series once through. (more…)

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray KurzweilThe Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil

The Age of Spiritual Machines Book Cover
A few months ago a co-worker of mine suggested that I read The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil. We had been talking about AI and he mentioned that this was an interesting read. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, as I had never heard of Kurzweil before. After a few Google searches I got the impression that he was a quirky futurist.

This book was published back in 1999 and by the end looks very much like science fiction. Many of his predictions are founded on some sort of research. I can see how they would have seemed a bit “out there” almost 10 years ago. I wondered how many of his predictions would hold up. Central to his philosophy is the Law of Accelerating Returns. In short, technology will continue to progress ever faster as time goes on. He displays an interesting graph of the exponential increase of computational power in various models of computers over time. The line is slightly curved upward, which represents an increase in exponential growth over time. So, according to Kurzweil computation is progressing exponentially exponentially faster.
(more…)