award – Page 4 – Made by Mikal

Friday

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 4, 2009
Post category:Book

This is the first Heinlein book I have read in a long time -- since High School in fact. I read this one simply on an impulse, as the back cover description made it sound interesting. Heinlein isn't on the list of authors that I am pursuing at the moment, although I might consider changing that. This book covers a more complicated Earth than the one we have right now, although in some ways its more simple. The main character Friday doesn't ever seem to have trouble making friends, and portions of the book are just a series of her romantic entanglements. Most of the complexities are political. The story is mostly about a journey, both physical as well as emotional, and interestingly there isn't a consistent opposing force. I suspect that might be unusual, at least for the stuff I read. This book was good, even if the constant romantic entanglements seemed extraneous. [award: winner nebula 1982; winner hugo 1982; winner locus 1983; winner prometheus 1983] [isbn: 034530988x]

Nightfall (short stories)

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 28, 2009
Post category:Book

There are four Asimov books called Nightfall. There is a two volume collection of short stories (Nightfall One and Nightfall Two), a single volume version of this collection, and a novel length version of the short story "Nightfall", which headlines the short story collections. I've previously attempted to explain the list of short stories in the various versions of the collection at http://www.stillhq.com/book/Isaac_Asimov/Nightfall_Short_Stories.html. There is also a correlation with previously published Robot short stories at http://www.stillhq.com/book/Isaac_Asimov/Robot_Short_Stories.html. I just finished reading the short story collection (in this case in a single volume). I haven't read any Asimov short stories in a few months (since September last year to be exact), and I had forgotten how much I enjoy them. One of the advantages of these short story collections is that you get to cover a lot of ground, and there is a real sense of accomplishment in finishing a short story. I think also that the shorter form keeps the author honest -- there simply isn't room to waste space on long passages which don't progress the plot. This collection is excellent, much like the others I have read from Asimov. I will note that I particularly enjoyed "The Up-to-date Sorcerer",…

Foundation’s Edge

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 19, 2008
Post category:Book

I'm back to reading Foundation Series books actually written by Isaac Asimov. This one is the fourth in the Foundation Series if you count them in the order they were written, but is the second last in chronological terms. Its set 500 years after the failure of the first galactic empire, and follows the first Foundation's attempt to discover if the second Foundation still exists. Well, its a bit more complicated than that, but I don't want to ruin it for you. As an aside, the user interface described for the ship's computer is really cool. Its a bit like augmented reality, mixed with gesture control, mixed with a direct interface into the brain. I'm not saying I want one in my house, but its cool that a book written in 1983 still has a user interface description which isn't dated, and still seems plausible. This book has minor inconsistencies with the story presented in the second foundation trilogy (Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos and Foundation's Triumph), but I see that more as a failure in those followup authors than in this book. In fact, I've already complained about how untrue to Asimov's vision some of those books are elsewhere.…

Foundation and Empire

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 14, 2008
Post category:Book

This is the second book in the original foundation trilogy, which I am reading as part of the the extended Foundation series that I am working my way slowly though. This book contains two stories -- both of them Seldon crises, although one of them unpredicted by Hari. As Hari had always said in the series -- his techniques can only predict broad social trends, and the not the work on individuals. What happens if a single person who could not be predicted appears? This story covers that scenario. I found this book harder to read than the previous one, but that might have been because I've had a pretty distracted week. Once I actually sat down to read without too many interruptions, I enjoyed it. The comments from others on LibraryThing are fair though -- the character names are odd, and the writing does feel a little awkward. [isbn: 0553293370] [award: winner hugo 1946] (LibraryThing for some reason gets the ISBN mapping for this book wrong. The above link's ISBN is right, but this link goes to the right place).

Robot Dreams

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 18, 2008
Post category:Book

Robot Dreams is another of the robot short story books from Asimov. It is a bit deceptive though and frankly quite annoying because only one of the stories in the book is a robot story, and its not very long.I am of course ignoring the robot stories that already appear in I, Robot and The Complete Robot. The rest are unrelated short stories by Asimov that aren't about robots, and aren't even consistent with the universe that the Foundation books exist in. That's what makes it so annoying for Asimov to recommend that you read the book as part of the extended Foundation series. Grumble. Don't get me wrong, the other stories are fine, its just that they're not the robot stories that I was led to believe they would be. Wikipedia is a little more clear on the situation than I was: Robot Dreams (1986) is a collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories, intended largely to show a series of Asimov robot-inspired drawings by Ralph McQuarrie. All the stories except the title one, written specifically for the volume, can be found in various other Asimov collections. The companion book, which also showcases McQuarrie's drawings (and includes Asimov essays in…

Pebble in the Sky

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 24, 2008
Post category:Book

This is Asimov's first book, and not his best. Its set on an Earth which is radioactive (possibly because of a global nuclear war as supposed in the book, or perhaps because of events described in Robots and Empire). There is a galactic empire at this point, and overall humans have forgotten that they originated on Earth. (I find that a little hard to believe by the way. Whilst it is true that we have lost historical records from thousands of years ago, we do have some and archeology has constructed at least a partial history for humanity. Additionally, we now have pretty solid record keeping as a society, and it is left unexplained where all those records might have gone. Finally, there is no mention of techniques like carbon dating, which presumably could have been used to prove that Earth is indeed the original planet.) I did like the general gist of the book, although the conclusion was unsatisfying as well. Overall, not Asimov's best work. [isbn: B000K052KS;0345335635] [award: nominee hugo 1951]

Robots of Dawn

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 29, 2008
Post category:Book

This book is the third in the third in the Robot mystery series, and is once again set on a Spacer world. This one was written 30 years after the first two, and Asimov's style has noticeably changed between the 1950s and 1980s. The book starts off slowly, with a lecturing tone which I found quite annoying. For example, devoting an entire page to a discussion of whether the deliberate death of a a robot (even a human shaped on) is murder. Often the first part of the book feels like it is going excessively slowly. However, its only the first third of so of the book which suffers this flaw. Its as if Asimov realized after a while that he also had a story to tell, and got on with it. The book then improves massively and has a good story. So, overall I liked this book, although the first part of the book wasn't as good as the rest of the Asimov I've read. [isbn: 0553299492;0345315715] [award: nominee hugo 1984]

Caves of Steel

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 14, 2008
Post category:Book

Caves of Steel is interesting because it is a murder mystery set in the future, which at the time this book was written was a novel concept. It also presents an interesting almost-communist view of the future, where individual liberties are surrendered one by one in order to improve economic efficiency in order to support Earth's ever growing population. Implicit in that is the assertion that capitalism is inherently inefficient, but I'll leave that discussion alone. This book is a really quick read. It took me a day (including actually going to work) to knock it over, which was fun. The book is a good, light read. [isbn: 0553293400] [award: nominee hugo 1954]