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I, Robot -- More Robots?
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I read most of the Foundation series a couple of years ago. I need to read the rest of his books relating to the robots and the empire.
There is "The Rest of the Robots" which has another 8 or so short robot stories. I've read "The Naked Sun" & a few others too. Hard to remember as it's been years. Some stories were also peppered through out his other short story books. I should get a copy of "The Complete Robot". I love the twists on his laws & how something so seemingly simple & iron clad can get goofed up.Have you ever read any of his mysteries (Black Widows?) or other books? His book on measurement (nonfiction) is excellent.
Over the years he wrote lots of short stories which involved robots to lesser or greater extents. If I recall correctly all of his robot stories were collected into a single volume (at least those that were written at the time; he wrote many more later)...that might be The Complete Robot. When it was released as paperback, however, it was too long for a single book, so they broke it into two books, the second of which was "The Rest of the Robots". Since then, though, there have been many more stories and they're scattered at random throughout his many collections.As far as the novels are concerned, IMHO, the Elijah Baley/R. Daneel Olivaw novels are among his very best, particularly the first three (the two listed above, along with Robots of Dawn). There was at least one, and maybe two more written after that.
The Foundation books, which chronologically take place many millennia after the Elijah Baley books, were originally completely independent but eventually merge back to the robot stories Baley/Daneel stories (this was clearly never planned when he was first writing them and was an idea that came about in the 80's, toward the end of his career). The galactic empire novels (The Stars Like Dust, Pebble in the Sky, and...um...a third whose name escapes me and I can't be bothered to look up; they're not actually a trilogy, rather three novels that take place in the same universe in similar time) take place chronologically between the Elijah Baley and Foundation books but have no mention of robots at all in them.
That actually covers the vast majority of his novels (he really was much more known for short stories). There area a few others, e.g., The End of Eternity, Nemesis, The Gods Themselves (?), which are all more or less independent of the others and have nothing to do with robots. Books like Bicentennial Man were (only fair) adaptations of popular short stories, so robot related. The Norby Robot books are essentially completely unrelated children's books, primarily written by his wife.
No, Jim..I've only read the Asimov robot books I already mentioned. I will certainly get to the Foundation books at the very least.....Here are a couple of interesting links:
http://www.scifi-review.net/insane_li...
This is a time-line showing the chronology of all the Robot, Empire, and Foundation novels as well as most of the stories. It also includes work done by other authors.....
Also there is Asimov's recommended reading order:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/link...
I second the recommendation of "Caves of Steel" and "Naked Sun." I also would say you can and should read "Robots of Dawn.""Robots and Empire" is OK, but not as good as the first three.
I believe Asimov is the only author to publish in every category of the Dewey Decimal system. Quite a distinction & allows for some broad reading by him.I read his SF short stories first, I think. Not sure if it was robots or just general SF. Over the years, I've read many of his other books. Going back & reading "I, Robot" is interesting because I can see pieces of it & pieces of the other genres in his writing. It's fascinating that he was so learned in so many areas & could put it on paper.
Asimov's autobiographies (yes, more than one) are an interesting read, as well.
As far as I know I have read all the Robot novels and stories and all of the Foundation novels (as well as numerous other novels and stories of his). Asimov was a great writer (publishing in every category apart from the 100s in the Dewey Decimal system) but I have found his fiction hugely disappointing. There is no way that I would class the Foundation Trilogy as a classic of SF. I think most of Asimov's fiction is dull and not especially well-written: the ingenuity and cleverness that Asimov brings to the table does not compensate for the tediousness and poor literary quality of his stories. I like Asimov but I think it is a fact that 90% of his fiction wasn't very good.
That sure is a lot of reading of material you didn't care for.....
Hollis wrote: the ingenuity and cleverness that Asimov brings to the table does not compensate for the tediousness and poor literary quality of his storiesI'm going to have to disagree. I compared books with you and I see that you are also a big Terry Pratchett fan which I think may help me understand your perspective on Asimov. Pratchett's work is written in a very clever literary style. He is a great wordsmith which I appreciate. This is why I like much of Fantasy because it lends itself to good prose.
While completely different, I think Asimov's writing is more stylistically reflective of his medium than it is "poor quality" writing. He is writing Robot SciFi - I think his writing purposefully reflects that - it is structured, concise, direct - I think it puts the readers in a "robotic" reading mode - does that makes sense?
Anyway - initially I wasn't thrilled with the writing style either but the more I thought about it, I started to appreciate how I believe it works for the novel.
I actually love asimovs style.In many cases he gives just enough detail for you to fill in the gaps. When he is more verbose on discription it is usually a critical point to his story.
For some this makes for dryer reading. for me it is the exact opposite my imagination colors in the scenes. It also leads to two people reading the same story and having often very differnent experinces.
I enjoy authors that are more descriptive at the same time I find to much description as over whelming. And some authors like tolken it can even be tedious. I find myself actually skipping pages at a time. I don't need a 3000 word discription of a leg of lamp thank you.
Libby wrote: I'm going to have to disagree. I compa..."
Yes, I see that it puts you in the mind to think logically and coherently but I think SF (and fiction) is about much more than that. If I wanted logic and information I could read one of Asimov's many brilliant science books. This is a debate which no-one is going to win: whenever I state my opinion that Asimov is dull to read (mostly) I am met with fans who will deny what seems obvious to me.
Adam Roberts (an acclaimed SF novelist as well as an academic) has written an excellent history of science fiction that I would highly recommend. In his essay on Asimov he recognises that much of his fiction is 'feeble' and that the prose is 'dry and flat' (which it is). The reason he gives for Asimov's popularity despite this is the fact that Dr A deals with big ideas and SF is after all the genre of ideas. I think that is the best explanation of his popularity and I count myself as a fan of his work as a unified whole but I am still unable to comprehend why people regard him as the best SF writer ever or a brilliant word-smith. I think if you had the choice between choosing a novel at random from the Asimov canon or choosing one from the canon of Arthur C. Clarke or Iain Banks, I cannot understand why you would choose Dr A.
All that Asimov gives you is a story and fiction is about more than that: it's about language and style just as much as it is story, it's about character just as much as it is plot. In Asimov, the characters consist of names and hair colours, the dialogue is ultra-contrived, unenjoyable and mechanical. Hardly a coincidence that most of the dialogue in his stories is spoken by machines...
Hollis wrote: "This is a debate which no-one is going to win..."The reason these threads are fun is because it's a discussion not a debate - there really isn't a winner and shouldn't need to be.
I can see why you'd be met w/ a lot opposition when offering criticisms of Asimov. I agree with a lot of what you are saying about the style but I think it is still an amazing book because, yes, the grand ideas overcome the stylistic issues. I'm more of fantasy reader so I'm not that informed regarding SciFi authors - but personally, I would consider Asimov one of the greats because of his ideas. I would agree that he is certainly not a word-smith and his prose is not the better aspect of his works - its the concepts
I am happy to consider Asimov as a great but only in the same way that L. Sprague de Camp, van de Vogt and Clifford Simak are greats. They were influential in their times (deservedly so) but they have faded away rapidly and Asimov is going the same way (in my opinion). I think the only thing that has kept Asimov on the library shelves is the ideas (as you say) and also his reputation as an intellectual giant and polymath, regardless of his work in science fiction.
ONe reason that Asimov is hard to evaluate is he wrote so MUCH> Naturally, when you write many stories, you are going to come up with a few weaker ones.To use an analogy, Agatha Christie wrote about 80 mysteries. Some are pretty short and forgettable but And Then there were None is being read to this day.
In Asimov's case, I suspect the Three major Robot neovels with Elijah Bailey and Daneel Olovaw (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn) are going to be read for a long, long time yet. Caves of Steel has been Around for 50 years already!
I also personally beleive that Asimov was actually better in the short story form. And as he wrote so long and so much and was influential for years, I don't see him fading away too soon. Sure, some of his books are weaker than other--that is usually true of ANY author who writes a lot.
If I were to recommend any of Asimov's book fiction, I would start with Caves of Steel. It's good to start at the beginning, and the first three Robot books are the best of Asimov's novels. (Of which I've read quite a few.)
When I read them, they did not seem out of date. Rather, there is a simplicity to all of Asimov's work that may not intrigue adults or young, but experienced readers of fiction.
I would agree with Hollis in this: Clarke or another classic sf author would probably be a wiser recommendation for most reading friends.
When I read them, they did not seem out of date. Rather, there is a simplicity to all of Asimov's work that may not intrigue adults or young, but experienced readers of fiction.
I would agree with Hollis in this: Clarke or another classic sf author would probably be a wiser recommendation for most reading friends.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Complete Robot (other topics)The Naked Sun (other topics)
The Caves of Steel (other topics)
I've read the first two in the Robot Novels series, which takes place about 1400 years after the events of I, Robot. They are the books which feature Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw.
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
I've also (recently) read The Complete Robot, which has I, Robot plus a lot more of Asimov robot stories. Most of them take place at or around the same time period as I, Robot. There is also one Baley/Olivaw story ("Mirror Image") as well as "The Bicentennial Man", which was made into a movie starring Robin Williams......