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A Choice of Catastrophes

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 105 ratings · 12 reviews

Scientist, author, and Earth-dweller, explores the many potential natural and man-made catastrophes that could change life as we know it, or erase us from the face of the Earth. Natural properties and laws might change at any time, rendering life on this planet--or anywhere in the universe--impossible. But the disasters that are most imminent are in our power to control--t...more

Hardcover, 377 pages

Published November 17th 1979 by Simon & Schuster (Riverside, NJ) (first published November 1979)

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Jul 13, 2012 Jules Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: paperback, fiction, anthology, science, short, stories, post-apocalyptic, doomsday

An entertaining themed anthology, published in 1981 but containing stories dating back as far as 1938. Some stories have dated, many are still great reads, all clearly justified their selection at the time. I've been reading this on and off for several months, but got through about half of it last month, so my review of the individual stories is going to be a bit patchy.[return][return]The anthology is set out in sections covering different degrees of catastrophe, from the end of the universe do...more An entertaining themed anthology, published in 1981 but containing stories dating back as far as 1938. Some stories have dated, many are still great reads, all clearly justified their selection at the time. I've been reading this on and off for several months, but got through about half of it last month, so my review of the individual stories is going to be a bit patchy.[return][return]The anthology is set out in sections covering different degrees of catastrophe, from the end of the universe down to the end of our current civilisation without the loss of humanity itself. Each section has a short intro by Asimov, who also provides a general introduction and endpiece for the anthology. [return][return]Isaac Asimov -- The Last Trump[return]The last trump sounds, and humanity slowly discovers what the Day of Resurrection actually means. It's often very funny, and there are some lovely characterisations in it -- particularly the very young and junior seraph who has become attached to the planet he's been put in charge of, and is determined to give its people more time before they have to face Judgement. I first read it as a child in the local library's copy of the collection "Earth is room enough", and have always adored it. [return][return]Edward Wellen -- No Other Gods[return]Enjoyable example of "computer decides to squash the puny humans and make itself god" genre, but nothing outstanding.[return][return]Harlan Ellison -- The wine has been left open too long and the memory has gone flat[return]Nine pages of very well written literary sf from HE about universal ennui at the tail end of the universe, which happened to leave me utterly cold.[return][return]Ben Bova -- Stars, won't you hide me?[return]The last human survivor of an interstellar war runs from his pursuers, and finds out more about himself and the war than he's comfortable with. [return][return]Lloyd Biggle Jr -- Judgement Day[return]A man in a backwoods town has the power to pick one future out of the many potential ones he can see. It's hard work and he doesn't do it much, and he certainly doesn't tell others about it. It doesn't save him from being convicted of a child-killing he didn't commit, but maybe he can find a path out even on the scaffold...[return]After three stories I don't feel any interest in re-reading, this is the story that made me change my mind about disposing of the book.[return][return]William Tenn -- The Custodian [return]Diary of the man who believes himself to be the last person left on earth after the bulk of humanity has fled the impending death of the sun. Tenn charts the cultural split between those who feel that everything not essential to survival should be jettisoned, and those who feel that there are cultural artefacts worth preserving. I liked this.[return][return]Clark Ashton Smith -- Phoenix [return]1954 story about a far-future attempt to rekindle a dying sun. This is one that I think was good but has suffered from the passage of time since it was written.[return][return]Harry Harrison -- Run from the fire[return]Nice use of the parallel worlds concept, with the plot here being the sun going nova in a number of timelines. Liked this a lot.[return][return]Edward Hamilton -- Requiem[return]Humanity survives, but earth does not. One last expedition to a long-abandoned planet before it burns in a nova, and the differing reactions of the expedition to the requiem atmosphere. I liked it, but it won't be to everyone's taste.[return][return]Larry Niven -- At the Core[return]One of Niven's tales of Known Space. The Puppeteers hire Beowulf Shaeffer to fly their experimental ship to the heart of the galaxy. The Puppeteers have more than one motive for this, but neither party in the bargain expects the end result to be quite as spectacular as it is.[return][return]Fritz Leiber -- A Pail of Air[return]Another old friend for me. It's showing its age a bit now (1951), but Leiber's tale of a family surviving on a super-cooled earth still sends shivers down my spine.[return][return]Chad Oliver -- King of the Hill[return]Entertainingly malicious story about exactly how the richest man on an over-crowded and over-polluted earth chooses to spend his money on rescuing something from an irretrievable mess.[return][return]Ursula K Le Guin -- The New Atlantis[return]It's Le Guin, doing the sort of thing Le Guin does. Which means it can't be summed up in two lines. It doesn't really work for me, but only because I'm not American and don't have the cultural background to understand some of what she's getting at. I strongly suspect that it's devastating for some readers.[return][return]Arthur C Clarke -- History Lesson[return]A new and vicious ice age wipes out humans, but they leave one last cache of cultural artefacts to be found by whatever intelligence may come next.[return][return]Raymond Z Gallun -- Seeds of the dusk[return]From 1938, this is the oldest piece in the book, and stylistically it shows. But it's an excellent example of that style. An alien plant spore arrives on a far distant future earth, and the local intelligent species (of which there are now more than one) have varying reactions to the potential threat it poses.[return][return]Walter M Miller Jr -- Dark Benediction[return]Zombies! Well, not quite, but a well-crafted tale of a disfiguring plague that spreads by touch, and which induces its victims to seek out the uninfected and lay hands on them. Cue breakdown of society, not because the plague kills (it doesn't), but because people fear infection by those who don't yet have visible symptoms. The story follows one man who's not yet infected and intends to stay that way, but hasn't lost all compassion for the infected. Controlling his own fear gives him the chance to learn about others trying to do the same.[return][return]Alfred Coppel -- Last Night of Summer[return]An interesting version of the "only time to build bunkers for a few" scenario.[return][return]Robert Sheckley -- The Store of the Worlds[return]Another of the stories in this book which I first read in other anthologies a long time ago, and one which has haunted me ever since I first read it. The store claims to sell the chance for your mind to spend a year in any world you choose amongst the millions of parallel worlds. The price is all your worldly goods and ten years off your life in the real world, thanks to the strain on the nervous system imposed by the process.[return][return]Robert Silverberg -- How it was when the past went away[return]Someone gets *creative* with his revenge against society, and instead of running amok with a gun tips amnaesiac drugs into the main water reserviour supplying San Francisco. Silverberg explores the effect on various people of losing the last few weeks, or months, or years. Excellent piece.[return][return]CM Kornbluth -- Shark Ship[return]This takes some of the interesting ideas from stories about interstellar generation ships, and puts them right back on earth, amongst a fishing fleet that set sail two centuries ago under a Compact to never return to land, as a means of easing population pressure in the cities. Kornbluth's study of the social and technological changes in such a system is all the better for this twist on the generation ship scenario.(less)

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Aug 18, 2012 Tihomirg rated it 2 of 5 stars

Only the final chapter was really interesting to me, where the author plays with various ideas concerning the future of humanity.
The rest of the book is by now pretty much recycled information (the book was written cca. 1980.).

I would have given it three stars but the authors could not withhold from openly berating certain other authors *and* ideas.

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Apr 05, 2008 Brielle rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 16+ years

Shelves: nonfiction

I really enjoyed this book. Asimov explains complicated scientific theory clearly and without resorting to using complicated lingo that only a fellow scientist can understand. This book covers all of the horrible things that could happen to the human race, and how likely they are to happen (and in what time frame). Really puts things into perspective.

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Jun 24, 2008 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

alot of remakes of this coming out now that the issues asimov approaced in the late 70s are coming to a head. cynics love reading about the end of civilization and optimists love reading about the chance of curbing it.

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Apr 05, 2008 Jim Grammond rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book for the first time at age 10 (or so). Scared the hell out of me. Re-read it at a later age when I was past my fears of an imminent apocalypse (thank you, Catholic school) and I enjoyed it a great deal.

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Mar 23, 2013 Charlotte McClain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A few clunkers, but mostly excellent tales. I first read it in about 1987 and one of the plague stories has stuck with me since then as one of the most interesting and creative stories I have ever read.

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Aug 13, 2009 Curtiss rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: collection, isaac-asimov, science

How will the world end; the Good Doctor speculates about various environmental and cosmic catastrophes facing humanity, the environment, and the Earth.

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Mar 05, 2013 Mars rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A few extremely good stories, a few atrociously bad ones, and a bunch of moderately good ones, but overall the impression was positive.

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Sep 10, 2011 Alejandra rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Two or three interesting stories, a lot of Skip to the end! stories.

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Sep 22, 2008 Curt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Seriously, fuck mini-black holes.

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Aug 22, 2008 bluetyson added it · review of another edition

Catastrophes by Various (1981)

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Oct 16, 2009 Frank Taranto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, short-stories

SF shorts about the title.

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Jun 17, 2013 Doris Bytyqi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jun 12, 2013 Mike Bidder rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jun 09, 2013 Rob Batprince marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jun 08, 2013 Jay Perdicion rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jun 13, 2013 Eva rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jun 01, 2013 Swapnil Jain rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 27, 2013 Paul Krueger added it

May 25, 2013 Danté Ashton added it · review of another edition

May 22, 2013 Jose Paulo rated it 3 of 5 stars

May 21, 2013 Euskal Srpski marked it as to-read · review of another edition

May 18, 2013 Elizabeth Cisewski marked it as to-read

May 18, 2013 Rosita Pendrigo rated it 3 of 5 stars

May 09, 2013 Neil Watson added it · review of another edition

Shelves: myread

May 04, 2013 Miff73 marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: everything, mhb, non-fiction

May 03, 2013 Don Sakers rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

May 02, 2013 Man Solo marked it as to-read

Apr 30, 2013 Matthew Atkinson marked it as to-read

Apr 22, 2013 Andrew Pennebaker rated it 5 of 5 stars

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About Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was a Russian-born, American author, a professor of biochemistry, and a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

Professor Asimov is generally considered the most prolific writer of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He has works published in nine of the te...more Isaac Asimov was a Russian-born, American author, a professor of biochemistry, and a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

Professor Asimov is generally considered the most prolific writer of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He has works published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System (lacking only an entry in the 100s category of Philosophy).

Asimov is widely considered a master of the science-fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime. Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation Series; his other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series, both of which he later tied into the same fictional universe as the Foundation Series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those pioneered by Robert A. Heinlein and previously produced by Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson. He penned numerous short stories, among them "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America the best short science fiction story of all time, a title many still honor. He also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as a great amount of nonfiction. Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name Paul French.

Most of Asimov's popularized science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. He often provides nationalities, birth dates, and death dates for the scientists he mentions, as well as etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Examples include his Guide to Science, the three volume set Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery.

Asimov was a long-time member and Vice President of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly; he described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs" He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, a Brooklyn, NY elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov Awards are named in his honor.

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Isaac Asimov. (2007, November 29). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:50, November 29, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t...(less)

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