Asimov

Post Reply New Topic

Lemme see here, how did the joke go . . .

"Isaac Asimov had writer's block once . . . it was the worst 10 minutes of his life."

I like his popular works on history and science. They are not super scholarly but they are readable and interesting.

ruveyn

HAHAHAHA NO. the dude is dead.

Also yeah I liked his books. Reading the Foundation trilogy now. Interestingly, an uncle of mine is a huge sci-fi fan and went to all the sci-fi cons in the 60s & whatnot when he lived in Chicago with his siblings and my grandmother. He apparently has a lot of Asimov books and will send me some of them



It's interesting that you say that...given he didn't like many of the people in MENSA because they were precisely that. (elitist, etc)



Well. people currently do things similar to that now :/

Oh, what I mean was that he's only like from say some fifty or so years back. Not like...well, authors like...Isabel Allende, or from the 1800s, well, older authors.

That is only a half percent of his output.

ruveyn

I remember trying to work my way through the Foundation books many years ago. Very hard to get into, I may have to pick up a copy of them and give them another go at some stage. This is the problem when they are library books on a short term loan, and you reading style means you can read a chapter and not pick up the book again for months and it is just like it was a day after you last read it. Oh my strange brain! Anyway, I digress...

I have also read I Robot, and that is much easier to read, being a collection of short stories tied into a central theme. Which brings me to my main thought in relation to these books, Dr. Susan Calvin, the robopsychologist, it's been a while but looking back, does she not seem very AS'ish in the way her character is portrayed, the preferring machines over people, understanding positronic brains better than human brains, the asexuality (for the most part) of the character, the oddly distant and cold personality. Like nearly all of the rest of the film I Robot, it seems the most disappointing that this rather unique character was thrown aside and turned into another cardboard cutout heroine. But that is a rant for another day.

john

I love Susan Calvin. I can certainly understand that she likes robots better than people. Giskard, too. Robots are much easier to understand. She seemed more...admirable and sensible, I guess. Or rather, maybe I'm a Susan Calvin-ish type personality as well.