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To compile a bibliography over the production of Isaac Asimov is virtually impossible. His name crowns close to 300 books and so many shortstories and articles that a complete listing probably even don't exist. He has written science fiction novels, popular science articles (more than 2500 for the magazine "Fantasy and Science Fiction" alone), an endless row of professional books explaining micro- and macrocosmos to the masses. He has written referensbooks, short essays for "TV-Guide", peculiar things like three volumes of "indecent limericks" ("The Sensous Dirty Old Man"), an annotated edition of Lord Byrons "Don Juan" and a 640.000 words long autobiography (that alone is just as long as a dozen science fiction novels). Asimov was one of the most productive authors in history, so productive that some critics decided that his name couldn't be anything else than an alias for an entire group of writers. The truth is that there was only one of him and that he worked entirely without help. He wrote both the original draft and the final script for each text, answered his mail and answered the phone. He did it all with a modest little reference library, a cheap pocket calculator and a phenomenal memory. Since his production was so extensive I chose to do a "mini-bibliography" concentrating on only the central works of his science fiction production. The 15 books, all published by Doubleday, are a future history of sorts, that might not be entirely uniform, since Asimov according to himself never intended uniformity to begin with. The chronological order of the books, as the future history is concerned, should be according to this listing. If you wish to view "compressed" lists of his books you can go to either the list of fiction or the list of non-fiction. |
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"The Complete Robot" (1982). A collection of 31 robot stories, originally
published between 1939 and 1977, which includes all shortstories in his
previous collection, "I, Robot" (1950). He wrote only one robotstory since
this was published, "Robot Dreams". Listing of
all the shortstories in this volume can be found here.
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| "The Caves of Steel" (1954). Detective Elijah Baley investigates the murder of an offworlder in Spacetown. In the opinion of the Spacers, the murder is tied up with recent attempts to sabotage the Spacer-sponsored project of converting Earth to an integrated human/robot society on the model of the Outer Worlds. To search for the killer in the City's vast caves of steel, Elijah is assigned a Spacer partner named R. Daneel. That's Robot Daneel. And notwithstanding the celebrated Three Laws of Robotics, which should make such a murder impossible, R. Daneel is soon Elijah's prime suspect... |
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"The Naked Sun" (1957). On the remote planet Solaria the first murder
for two hundred years has been committed. The Solarians are Spacers with
a civilization based on robots instead of slaves - and some pretty weird
taboos and phobias. Into this strange set-up comes Terran detective Elijah
Baley, investigating the murder for his government. But Baley finds aspects
of life on Solaria difficult, even terrifying to cope with - as an Earthman,
he is used to living underground. From the moment of his arrival on Solaria,
Baley's investigation becomes an ordeal of nerves under the pitiless glare
of the naked sun...
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| "The Robots of Dawn" (1983). A puzzling case of roboticide takes Elijah Baley from Earth to the Planet Aurora, where humans and robots have, till now, always coexisted in perfect harmony. Only the gifted roboticist Han Fastolfe had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime, but Baley must prove the man innocent. For the murder of Jander Panell is closely tied to a power struggle that will decide who will be the next interstellar pioneers in the universe. Armed only with his own instincts, his sometimes quirky logic and the immutable Three Laws of Robotics, Baley sets out to solve the case. But can anything prepare a simple Earthman for the psychological complexities of a world where a beautiful woman can easily have fallen in love with an all-too-human robot? |
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"Robots and Empire" (1985). 200 years have now passed since the events
in "The Robots of Dawn". Elijah Baley, the
famous detective, has been dead for a long time now. But his adversary, the
Auroran roboticist dr. Kelden Amadiro, is till alive. He hates Earth and
all that it stands for. Earth shall be destroyed and the Earthmen should be
put in their place once and for all... The birth of a fourth robotic law
takes place here too...
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| "The Currents of Space" (1952). Trantor had extended its rule over half the galaxy, but the other half defied its authority, defending their corrupt fiefdoms with violence and repression. On the planet Florina the natives labored as slaves for their arrogant masters on nearby Sark. But now both worlds were hurtling toward a cataclysmic doom and only one man knew the truth - a slave unaware of the secret knowledge locked inside his own brain. Rik had once been a prominent scientist until a psychic probe had reased all memories of his past. Now he was a humble laborer in the kyrt mills of Florina. Then the memories began to return, bringing with them the terrible truth about the future - a truth that his masters on Sark would kill to keep secret...even at the cost of their own survival! |
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"The Stars, Like Dust" (1951). Mankind has conquered space and moved
toward the starry heart of the Galaxy. Earth belongs to a prehistoric era,
its radioactive blue horizon mute witness to forgotten wars. The ruthless
government of the planet Tyranni has established an Empire across the whole
of the Horsehead Nebula. Biron Farrill is the young son of the one-time
ruler of a subject people. On a secret mission to Earth, he barely escapes
an assassin's bomb. Worse, he hears that his father has already been murdered.
From now on it will be a case of death or freedom for the Galaxy...
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| "Pebble in the Sky" (1950). One moment Joseph Schwartz was a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he was a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learned, was a backwater, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dared to claim it was the original home of man. And Earth was poor, with great ares of radioactivity ruining much of its soil - so poor that everyone was sentenced to death at the age of sixty. And Schwartz was sixty-two... |
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"Prelude to Foundation" (1988). It is the year 12,020 G.E. and emperor
Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great
multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created
a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet
Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would
destroy if only he could read the future. Hari Seldon has come to Trantor
to deliver his paper on psycho-history, his remarkable theory of prediction.
Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed
his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power
that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire, the man who holds the key
to the future - an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the
Foundation.
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| "Forward the Foundation" (1993). Hari Seldon is working with the development of psycho-history, the mathematical way of foreseeing and controlling the future. His guardian is Eto Demerzel, first minister to the emperor. Through Demerzel Seldon and his staff of scientists have obtained a refuge at the imperial university. The downfall psycho-history have foreseen is getting more and more obvious and Seldon feels a growing anxiety that he won't be able to finish his work. Without the help of psycho-history humanity will be thrown into total barbary when the Galactic Empire breaks down and fall. |
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"Foundation" (1951). For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire had
ruled supreme. Now it was dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the
revolutionary science of psycho-history, could see into the future - a dark
age of ignorance, barbarism and warfare that would last thirty thousand
years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathered the best
minds in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brought them to a
bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for
future generations. He called his sanctuary the Foundation. But soon the
fledgling Foundation found itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising
in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope was faced with
an agonizing choice: Submit to the barbarians and be overrun - or fight
them and be destroyed.
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| "Foundation and Empire" (1952). Led by its founding father, the great psycho-historian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its superior science and technology, the Foundation survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior-planets. Yet now it must face the Empire - still the mightiest force in the Galaxy, even in its death throes. When an ambitious general determined to restore the Empire's glory turns the vast Imperial fleet toward the Foundation, the only hope for the small planet of scholars and scientists lies in the prophecies of Hari Seldon. But not even Hari Seldon could have predicted the birth of the extraordinary creature called the Mule - a mutant intelligence with a power greater than a dozen battle fleets, a power that could turn the strongest-willed human into an obedient slave. |
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"Second Foundation" (1953). After years of struggle, the Foundation lay
in ruins - destroyed by the mutant mind power of the Mule. But it was
rumored that there was a Second Foundation hidden somewhere at the end of
the Galaxy, established to preserve the knowledge of mankind through the
long centuries of barbarism. The Mule failed to find it the first time -
but now he was certain he knew where it lay. The fate of the Foundation
rested on young Arkady Darell, only fourteen years old and burdened with
a terrible secret. As its scientists girded for a final showdown with the
Mule, the survivors of the First Foundation began their desperate search.
They too wanted the Second Foundation destroyed - before it destroyed them.
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| "Foundations Edge" (1982). The great Galactic Empire is since long ago just part of the history, but the Foundation has become a power that embraces more and more of what used to be the Empire. It has now been 498 years since the Foundation was founded by the scientist Hari Seldon. Terminus, where the Foundation has its seat, is in a period of peace and progress. A minor crisis has just been dealt with. Then Hari Seldon once again appears, or more correct, a holographic recording of him. The meeting with the founder give birth to some extremely difficult questions and the young politician who asks them is sent away out into space to find the answers on his own. Does the Second Foundation still exist? And is it still controlling the destinies of the human race? He eventually finds an answer, a very unexpected answer... |
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"Foundation and Earth" (1986). Exile Councilman, Trevize, having found
Gaia, a world inhabited by telepathic beings, journeys onwards with his
companions in their quest for new knowledge of the mysterious planet Earth.
As they near their destination, Bliss the Gaian begins to pick up the thought
waves of intelligent beings - but are they human? What new mysteries - and
dangers - await the intrepid voyagers on the ancient ancestral planet?
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| Unfortunaley Isaac Asimov is no longer with us. Otherwise, maybe he would have added on to this magnificent work of the future history. There could be something more between "Robots and Empire" and "The Currents of Space", connecting the two closer together. Likewise, maybe there should have been a connecting link between "Foundations Edge" and "Nemesis"? The planet we named Nemesis could be the embryo of what we learn to know as Gaia eventually. And after "Foundation and Earth" there is no limitation to how many sequals there could be. And of course there are spots in between many of the other stories as well. |
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All these shortstories are collected in "The Complete Robot" |
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A Boy's Best Friend
Sally Someday Point of View Think! True Love Robot AL-76 Goes Astray Victory Unintentional Stranger in Paradise Light Verse Segregationist Robbie Let's Get Together Mirror Image The Tercentenary Incident |
First Law
Runaround Reason Liar! Satisfaction Guaranteed Lenny Gallery Slave Little Lost Robot Risk Escape! Evidence The Evitable Conflict Feminine Intuiton ...That Thou Art Mindful of Him The Bicentennial Man |
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Should you find a dead link an e-mail would be highly appreciated too. |
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