Short stories, including a new robot story, as well as editorials and essays from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

While not his best short stories, I enjoyed Asimov’s writing, and there was a large variety, from a combined robot/Azazel story to a tale of “just get along!”, some funny and others serious. I probably enjoyed the titular Gold the most, as it showed how to create a hyper-visualization of the central part of The Gods Themselves, and was most engaging. The real gems in this volume, however, are the essays, most taken from his editorials in the magazine he helped create. I love how he rambles on about different subjects, because they are always interesting and well thought out, and it’s written as if he’s speaking or having a conversation. His digressions on science fiction (no matter what it’s called), inspiration, plagiarism, vulgarity and the simplicity of life are at once informative and seem very naïve. If only the world worked with such logic! They were also written in a very different time, though it doesn’t seem so long ago. Back then, the world still looked to the future with hope that science could make it better, and that we would be going to the Moon, the planets, and the stars. People no longer have that kind of trust in science. If only we could keep dreaming of amazing futures and reach for the things that science fiction writers imagine, the future would be bright. Asimov is still an inspiration, and I’m glad to have reread these stories and essays.

It’s been a while since I picked up a short story collection, but the last time I read this book, I gave it high marks, and I can see why. As usual, short stories are a mixed bag. Some are short, others are long, some are interesting and some are not.

The first story, Cal, describes a robot going wrong. Cal starts out as simplistic as possible, but when given too many human characteristics, he becomes more human emotionally and is able to circumvent some parts of the Three Laws of Robotics. I wasn’t particularly enamored with this story, but it did segue into an Azazel story. The way the robot believes he could kill his master was jarring, but thinking back on it, the changes made him more annoyed with humans and with the way his master was holding him back and becoming jealous. This highlights the dangers of messing with something so fragile as a positronic brain…

Other stories were fun but maybe simplistic, like In the Canyon, Good-bye to Earth, Frustration nd The Smile of the Chipper (another Azazel story). These left me without much of an impression afterward, and I had to go back later to recall what they were about. The Nations in Space was a naïve way to say “just get along, nations of Earth!”. It was very heavy-handed, but is seriously relevant today. Similarly, Alexander the God shows how money and power can be corrupted into total loss of freedom. In his later years, Asimov seemed to enjoy plays on words, which led to stories such as Battle-Hymn and Feghoot and the Courts, which were simple stories but end on a silly twist on words. Left to Right is also kind of based on that theme.

While also simple, the story Hallucinations was an interesting way of communicating with aliens, though in today’s atmosphere, I doubt anybody would spend the trillions of dollars to move off the planet’s surface just to save them, which is sad. It highlights a huge difference between Asimov’s way of seeing solutions compared to the inertia of humanity. Maybe we moved too far in the direction of science, leaving behind the emotional reality of humans, but if we could believe in the power of science again, understanding all that we’ve learned more recently, then we could reach for the stars again.

The Instability is pure science, and takes into account the rotation of the universe, leading to a surprise ending –who knows what created the Big Bang anyway! Fault-Intolerant is a cautionary tale of AI way before it became reality. It’s scary to see how much of Asimov’s predictions in this story is already true. Kid Brother shows the extreme of mental illness when a woman chooses the life of a robot over her own son.

I wasn’t sure where the story Gold was going, or even how it was science fiction, until it blossomed into a wonderful retelling of the middle section of Asimov’s own The Gods Themselves. The method of storytelling was unique, radiating emotions, visuals and shadows for an audience. It must be read to be understood! The most fun parts were the debates on how the rational, emotional and intellectual of that story should be portrayed. The bits between the author and the director were less interesting, and sounded more like a grumpy old man. But the way they narrowed down how to show the emotional and physical characteristics of the three characters was brilliant. A really fun story.

The highlight of this book, though, is the second half, collecting many of Asimov’s essays and editorials from when he was the main editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, which I subscribed to for many years. He has interesting thoughts on everything, and they are always well articulated and never inflammatory, a huge contrast to what usually appears today.

I loved his articles on writing, science fiction in general, plagiarism (and his absolute sense of justice, even taking one of his stories out of circulation because he used the same idea as somebody else), worldbuilding, other authors, his proud contribution to three words in the English language, and more.

Some of my favorites center around his own writing, which he admittedly loved talking about, like how he used the Three Laws of Robotics to reveal his pseudonym in the Lucky Starr stories, the evolution of his Foundation novels and how he joined them with his robot novels, sequels, and the influence of science fiction on the future.

I’ve often taken to heart his emphasis on calling Science Fiction by its rightful name, or shortening it to SF, but never sci-fi. In that one article, which struck me hard, he used sci-fi to categorize bad science fiction, and used the unabbreviated form for the more noble stories that can be considered great and influential stories.

The one article I had trouble with was about book reviews. I of course maintain a book review website, and I would have disappointed Asimov in every respect. He was raised in a different era, and followed the rules quite literally of “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” It’s a nice attitude, but in a way it’s dishonest. I go to the other extreme –I’m quite ruthless in my reviews. I don’t hesitate to rip into a novel if I think it’s bad, either poorly written or boring. Of course it’s all subjective, and there are people who love things I believe to be horrendous! And that’s why he always hesitated to call out bad books. He had a huge amount of influence, and if Asimov said something was bad, people would avoid it, certainly. I don’t give out five star reviews easily, but neither do I give out many one star reviews. I’ve always believed that giving five stars to everything cheapens and ruins the validity of the five star review. So something has to blow me away to get that. Asimov would certainly sing praises over great books, but his disappointment would only be shown by not hearing from him, a response that also applied if he didn’t read something, didn’t have time to write anything about it, and a whole slew of other reasons. In other words, he was more apt to give out praise, but silence didn’t mean anything.

I’m happy to have reread this book of short stories and essays, but more the essays. Asimov gives insights into things I never knew I needed insight into!

I always love going back to Asimov.  He writes so clearly, and has a lot of fun.  His stories were great, sometimes strange.  His essays, almost all of which were taken from the IASF Magazine editorials, were inspiring.