Speculations: 17 Stories Written Especially for This Volume By Well-Known Science Fiction Authors, But Their Names are Concealed By a Code and It's Up to You to Figure Out Who Wrote What

by Isaac Asimov (editor), Alice Laurance (editor), Phyllis Gotlieb (contributor)

Provides a double dose of suspense-the stories themselves, by noted writers including Barry Malzberg, Robert Silverberg, and Bill Pronzini, and the puzzle of figuring out, from clues within the stories, the identity of the author

Genres: Science Fiction, Collections

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd little anthology that somewhat missed the mark. Rather than just presenting a volume of original stories by various authors, they put a list of titles on one page and a list of the authors on the next page. You were supposed to read the stories and then play a matching game to guess who wrote what. There was a key provided at the end whereby you could break a secret code that revealed the identity, if you had plenty of paper and pencils and patience. As I recall, I got a few of them right from recognizing their singular styles or internal references; Gene Wolfe, Barry Malzberg, R.A. Lafferty, Alan Dean Foster, and maybe Asimov himself. I was unfamiliar with several of the contributors so couldn't have recognized them, but there were several others I thought I'd know but didn't, including Jack Williamson, Robert Silverberg, Mack Reynolds, and Zenna Henderson. I don't think the book sold very well or ever had a U.S. paperback edition; the hardback has no cover illustration, just a big sea of neo-futurist type on a pale boring baby blue background. It was an interesting idea, but ultimately didn't work very well. (I find it bemusing that the Goodreads entry lists all of the contributors and the titles of the stories they wrote, thereby negating the whole concept.)

[Biblioworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Слушал советские еще радио-спектакли по этим рассказам.
Рассказы - супер, а спектакли огорчили - очень наигранные, непрофессиональная музыкальная озвучка, неправдоподобные эмоции. В общем неприятно было слушать.

[Cheryl]

she wrote a good Quora piece (about archetype vs cliche...) and to make a special effort to appreciate her writing (of star trek novels & others)