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The Stories
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Many of Asimov's shortstories sacrificed everything for a gimmick, sometimes nothing more than a word game or a surprise ending. Even clever gimmicks can be repetitive, like in the three stories about technological societies so sophisticated that things we take for granted today have to be re-discovered: how to write in "Someday", mathematics in "The Feeling of Power", going outdoors in "It's Such a Beautiful Day". Sometimes the gimmick was really memorable. "Franchise" makes election methodes to a locigal conclusion - computer elections with "lottery-drawing" by a scientifically selected average citizen. "What if?" pictures time as set, but floating, that with different means give the same results for newly-weds that devote their curiosity to what could have happened if they hadn't met as they did. 
The better of his longer stories wins over their gimmicks, but there can be gnawing doubts. "Profession" reduces trends in accelerated education to the absurd. When everybody else find their niche through programming adapted to their brain patterns, the main character discovers that he, as a really creative individual, must educate himself. That an interstellar civilization is dependent on one world's rituals "Reading Day", "Teaching Day" and employmentseeking "Olympic Games" is more plausible, of course, than the secret conspiracy of creative individuals. Just as unpleasant is the silent conspiracy in "The Dead Past", but it's calculating source has a sharper satirical vein, that plays with the concept of granting funds for scientific research and the "ghost" of government control of curiosity. Without authorization for direct observation of the ancient Carthage a historian convinces a physicist to build his own "time-viewer" with the help of classified information, a simple task for the scientist. Before the government has time to act, these  well-meaning rebels have created
a surveillance technique that reaches back into the recent past and
totally eliminates all privacy in the present. If the interests of the
scientist and public policy collides in that story, then the interests of
science and ethics do the same in "The Ugly
Little Boy". Even if it's not the best of Asimov's stories it's
definitely his most emotional. It puts the absolute necessity of
scientific reasearch against its effect on human individuals, especially
a little neanderthal boy, snatched away from his own time to the future,
and the nurse who takes her job to take care of him deadly serious.
Other stories with human interest are also outstanding among Asimovs short stories, like "Dreaming is a Private Thing" with its impressionist glimpses of a literal dream industry from an entrepeneur's point of view. At first sight "The Martian Way" is just another gimmick story. Since the martians are dependent of water as reaction mass for their spaceships the martian colonizers sees their way of living threatened by a political "Earth first"-movement, that threatens to shut down the water supply. To a martian the solution is simple: get ice from the rings of Saturn. That novel overwins its gimmick, does propaganda for human progress, suggests a new kind of civilization and is satirical against recurring demagogical figures in America.
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| If the best of Asimov's creations are from the 50-s, the most popular comes from the previous century. Only 21 years of age he wrote "Nightfall", which probably is the most popular shortstory of all in science fiction. It makes fun of all the "mass cliches" of the 30-s and includes its stereotype characters inhabiting a distant planet. The place is unlikely and the story deals with an "alien" race who gets to experience darkness only once every 2000nd year. Yet "Nightfall" is classical in its science fiction perspective and has an undertone of miracle. The astronomical situation is, although it's fundamentally unstable, theoretically possible. The panic the darkness leads to is a plausible metaphor for the periodic division of civilization. The scientist's point of view presents a suggestive antidote; to study the remarkable phenomenon, not worship it. Curiosity looses to the benefit of fear and causes the same tone of ambivalence to science that gives the emotional undertone in other works by Asimov. |
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The robotstories 
The robotstories, found in three volumes, "I, Robot"
, "The Rest of the Robots" and
"The Bicentennial Man", put into existance
The Three Laws of Robotics,
formulated together with the editor of Astounding,
John W. Campbell Jr. Asimov invented these control mechanisms to counteract
what he saw as a "Frankenstein" complex in science fiction.
 Through repetition
of problems, exploration of boundaries and loop holes in the three laws,
these stories trivialize the fear of technology, which is their undertone,
instead of removing the cause for it. A late "follow-up" to the
robotstories is "The History of I-Botics"
(1997). Asimov here presents a high-tech adventure set in post-World War II
Germany, where a German scientist creates the first functional cyborg --
half man, half robot.
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Even if some short stories are more prominent than others, like
"Liar", "Reason" and
"The Last Question", they are over-shadowed by his two first novels
with the detective from Earth, Elijah Baley, and his extra-terrestrial
robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, "The Caves of Steel"
and "The Naked Sun". These stories take
place 3000 years into the future, when humans have populated other star
systems, but the people on Earth have very little to do with them. As examples
of classic mystery stories they led Asimov to write other detective stories,
of which the ones about Wendell Urth are of science fiction nature. In
difference from those the robot novels give a clear picture of the necessity
of cooperation between man and machine in a technological society, on this
planet as well as on others.
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As a novelist Asimov is mostly known for the "Foundation" trilogy. It's nine stories are loosely based on historical parallels with the roman empire and they hypothesize a determining "psycho-history" that questions the free will of it's anti-heroic main characters. In a galaxy empire that's falling to pieces they struggle to preserve science and humanity's knowledge and guide the entire human race through a dark and barbaric era, until civilization once again can be strong and a new empire can come into existance. With the help of psycho-history the dark era shall be minimized in time and the entire galaxy will be guided back on track again. Although Asimov was not the first to explore such an empire, his work was different: decision-making instead of blood and action and this empire is a civilization of only human beings. Three novels that take place in earlier periods in the history of the Empire, "Pebble in the Sky", "The Stars, Like Dust" and "The Currents of Space", are important because they show a radio-active Earth scorned and neglected by it's children far away on other worlds. Loosely connected to the same future history is "The End of Eternity" , where the anti-utopias of the 20th century appears in what can be described as the closest Asimov ever could come to writing a conventional love story. 70 000 centuries of Earth history is stabilized through time travel by the organization "Eternity". It's interference creates a universe in which the Galactic Empire can come into existance.
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| "The Gods Themselves" show a quite different side of Asimov, with a more serious view on artistry and contemporary social connections. The issue for debate is the threat of an energy crisis temporarily solved by tapping energy from another universe and whether it's ethically and moraly defendable or not to create a shortage of energy in this other universe on the account of the beings that inhabit it. The main interest for the reader is the para-universe itself and the in large succesful creation of an alien civilization and consciousness. Unfortunately the alien civilizations point of view is overlooked in the end and the energy crisis' solution is shifted from their cosmos to yet another para-universe with an authoritative wave of the hand. |
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| The only real progress in Asimov's writing in 15 years were sacrificed a decade later in order to give the audience what it wanted. Two very late sequals to his most popular series showed few of his virtues as an author and all his weaknesses. In a world with optimal cooperation between man and machine, "The Robots of Dawn" mediates between its predecessors, in which either machine or man where the dominating, but it has little of their class, innocence or conciseness. By connecting most of his novels with "Foundations Edge" he adds yet a mutual force to the First and Second Foundation in favour of good and/or stability, Gaia, and a hint that the robots in his other series plays an important role in the progress and control of the galaxy. Indefinitely talking for no other obvious reason than filling up, without taking any real consideration to changes in his own world since his previous books, these two instantly became "best-sellers" and contained loose ends available for further sequals. |
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In "Foundation and Earth" he took up where
"Foundations Edge" left off, but more or less
went back to with less dialog and more acting solve the problems. The same
goes for "Prelude to Foundation" in which all
that will lead to what will be called the psycho-history takes place.
"Foundation and Earth" shows that the robots
have been there in the background to aid us all along. Yet another sequal
that has come in the last years is "Robots and Empire"
. It fills the gap between "The Robots of Dawn"
and "The Currents of Space". There the
explanation to why Earth is radio-active is given.
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| 1. |
A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a
human being to come to harm
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| 2. |
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such
orders would conflict with the First Law
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| 3. |
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does
not conflict with the First or Second Law
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Should you find a dead link an e-mail would be highly appreciated too. | |
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