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New stories?
Second Foundation
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Just when we thought that there would be no more psycho-history, robots or
crumbling Empires or Foundations, just when we thought we had seen the
last of the likes of Daneel and Seldon, there they are, the new stories!
With the permission -- and blessing -- of the Asimov estate, three
of today's bestselling SF writers,
Gregory Benford,
Greg Bear
and David Brin, have conspired (like the original Foundation!) to complete
the epic "Foundation" saga Isaac Asimov left
unfinished.
But, they are not the only ones taking over where Asimov left off. Based on his robot stories Roger MacBride Allen, Steve Perry and Gary A. Braunbeck among others have written new stories on familiar themes and in familiar surroundings. |
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Hari Seldon has been nominated as First Minister by Emperor Clean. But as
his appointment is being considered, Hari's simple life grows complex with
bodyguards, assassination attempts, staff discord and the continuing
public debate over artificial intelligence. As the story opens, Hari is
about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the all but impossible
task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel
planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife"
Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science
that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit
him against future history's most awesome threat. As the friction over
whether robots have souls heats up, two A.l.s, Joan of Arc and Voltaire,
go rogue and flee. The chase is on.
A rousing adventure that combines intellectual debate with the ingenious possibilities of true science fiction, "Foundation's Fear" will bring Asimov's greatest creation back to a new and bestselling life. 
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The acclaimed "Second Foundation"
trilogy continues with Greg Bear's "Foundation
and Chaos", the gripping new novel about a galaxy-wide power
struggle within the ranks of the robots that have served and protected
humankind for 20 centuries.
Hari Seldon, frail and full of years, is on trial for daring to predict the Empire's fall, and the time has come for the long-anticipated migration to Star's End. But R. Daneel Olivaw, the brilliant robot entrusted with this great mission, has discovered a potential enemy, even deadlier than the figurehead Emperor's brutal minions -- one of his own... |
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Humaniform robot Lodovik Trema is the only survivor of a bizarre insterstellar accident. Exposed to a neutrino storm, his positronic brain has apparently erased the holographic template of the Three Laws of Robotics. If this is true, Lodovic's service to human kind is no longer a question of destiny, but of will, and therefore, no longer absolute. Daneel needs Lodovic, so he sends him to Eos, the legendary secret planet where the robots perfect their service to humankind. And Lodovic says he is healed. Yet, can he be trusted, when stirrings of discontent are arising all over the galaxy? Other robots are questioning their mission -- and Daneel's strategy. And humans, too. Hidden in the steel caves of Trantor, sought by loyalist and rebel alike, is an obscure heatsink worker's daughter, a girl whose amazing mental powers are also the result of disaster: the deadly human malady known as Brain Fever. Young Klia Asgar's awesome but unwanted psychic abilities promise to join man and robot in a common destiny... or a mutual destruction.
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David Brin's "Foundation's Triumph"
concludes the "Second Foundation". Now
Hari Seldon is about to risk everything for knowledge - and the power it
bestows.
Effectively imprisoned on the all-steel planet Trantor, Seldon knows that his Second Foundation is growing in secrecy on the far planet Terminus, safe in the hands of "The Fifty." His work complete, Seldon is prepared to die content - until he learns of a new theory that may explain the Chaos Planets that have threatened his Foundation from its very inception. |
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Escaping in the company of a bureaucrat, a pirate and a beautiful stowaway, Seldon roams the galaxy by star shunt, a wormhole link, and later, by private spaceship, searching for the answer to what he thinks is the last remaining mystery. But instead he finds a tangle of ambition, doubt, and treachery. Lodovika Trema, no longer bound by the Three Laws, is gathering rebellious robots in an Empire-wide conspiracy. And Daneel Olivaw, who has devoted twenty thousand years to humankind, now has a new master. The Secret Foundation itself is at risk. Are The Fifty with their awesome mentalic powers enough to assure humankind's future? Or will the Second Foundation succeed the first only to fall to the powers of chaos that have bedeviled - and beguiled - Hari Seldon from the beginning?
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When an experiment with a new type of robot brain goes awry, the result
is the creation of "Caliban", a
conscienceless robot that is not monitored by the
Three Laws of Robotics
that keep humans safe.
Before his death in 1992, Isaac Asimov conceived the next step in robot evolution: Caliban. In a universe protected by the Three Laws of Robotics, humans are safe. Robots are bound by law to care for and to obey them. But when an experiment with a new type of robot goes awry, Caliban is created. He is without guilt or conscience -- and he has no knowledge of or compassion for humanity. |
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Allen continues the exploration of the ramifications of Asimov's
Three Laws of Robotics
begun in Caliban. This time, he deals with
murder onthe planet "Inferno", a theoretical
milieu of the Earth Settlers and the Spacers from the independent colonies,
which he drew from Asimov's robot novels and expanded upon in Caliban.
This novel involves a good theoretical puzzle that will keep readers
turning pages but still emerges as mostly a homage to the departed science
fiction master.
When a key politician is murdered, suspicion falls on Caliban, the only robot without or conscience, with no need to obey or respect humanity. It is a robot without the Three Laws. But the stakes go deeper than one man's life. Caliban is challenging long-held ideas of a robot's place in society. Will he lead his New Law robots in a rebellion that threatens all of humanity? The exciting sequel to Caliban and Inferno, "Utopia", explores the last of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
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Annabelle Donohoe, the CEO of World Tech, is mad as hell.
Her dreams of world domination died the day Zac Robillard discovered her evil plans and fled World Tech, taking his greatest creation, his beloved I-Bots, and all his research, with him. (Read about their origins in Isaac Asimov's "History of I-Botics") More than super-machines, more than robots, the I-Bots are eerily human in appearance, but not in abilities. Their genetic components -- based on human DNA -- and mechanical infrastructures give them pshyical strength and powers humans can only imagine, and a measure of free will impossible in robots. |
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Annabelle wants them back and will stop at nothing to get her way,
including hiring the world's deadliest assassin to find Zac, and his
I-Bots -- the beautiful Radiant and Killaine, clever Itazura, Psy-4, and
Stonewall -- and bring them in... or kill them. For if Annabelle cannot
have the I-Bots she vows that no one else can either. But Janus, the
ruthless killer, is not the only hunter they must elude...
Surrounded by enemies, Zac and the I-Bots can find no safe place, not even the streets. In the year 2013, the Silver Metal Stompers, a neo-Nazi gang, roam the nation's cities wreaking havoc on robots, especially Scrappers, outmoded homeless robots who huddle in hobo camps, rusting away unless they are repaired by a mysterious humanitarian and robotarian called DocScrap. In an unlucky twist of fate, the Stompers discover DocScrap is none other than Zac Robillard and that the I-Bots aren't exactly human... and vow to crush Zac and the I-Bots into wreckage. Based on an original concept by Isaac Asimov, "Time Was" is a nonstop action adventure combining all the excitement of Golden Age SF with the technological wonders of modern cybernetics and quantum science.
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Should you find a dead link an e-mail would be highly appreciated too.
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