|
The Best Of Isaac Asimov
''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' is a collection of twelve science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, published by Sphere in 1973. It begins with a short introduction (six pages in the Doubleday hardcover edition) giving various details on the stories, such as how they came to be written, or what significance merits their inclusion in a "best of" collection, as well as some of Dr. Asimov's thoughts on a best of collection itself. The stories included are two of his early works, two of his late works (post-1960), and eight from the 1950s, which he refers to as his "golden decade" in the introduction. Except for the last story in the book, "Mirror Image", none of the stories are related to his ''Robot'' and ''Foundation'' series, while a few ("The Last Question", "The Dead Past", and "Anniversary") mention the Multivac computer. Contents *Introduction *"Marooned off Vesta" (1939) *" Nightfall" (1941), novelette *"C-Chute" (1951), novelette *"The Martian Way" (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multivac
Multivac is the name of a fictional supercomputer appearing in over a dozen science fiction stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov's depiction of Multivac, a mainframe computer accessible by terminal, originally by specialists using machine code and later by any user, and used for directing the global economy and humanity's development, has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period (1950s–1960s). Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000. Description Like most of the technologies Asimov describes in his fiction, Multivac's exact specifications vary among appearances. In all cases, it is a government-run computer that answers questions posed using natural language, and it is usually buried deep underground for security purposes. According to his autobiography ''In Memory Yet Green'', Asimov coined the name in imitation of UNIVAC, an early mainframe computer. Asimov had assumed the name "Univac" denoted a com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1973 Short Story Collections
Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam. * January 17 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes President for Life of the Philippines. * January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. Nixon is the only person to have been sworn in twice as President (1969, 1973) and Vice President of the United States (1953, 1957). * January 22 ** George Foreman defeats Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight world boxing championship. ** A Royal Jordanian Boeing 707 flight from Jeddah crashes in Kano, Nigeria; 176 people are killed. * January 27 – U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ends with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. February * February 8 – A military insurrecti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Billiard Ball
"The Billiard Ball" is a science fiction short story by American author Isaac Asimov, written in September 1966 and first published in the March 1967 issue of '' If''. It appeared in Asimov's 1968 collection ''Asimov's Mysteries'', in his 1973 collection ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'', in his 1986 collection ''Robot Dreams'' and in '' The Complete Stories, Vol. 2''. Plot summary An example of what Asimov called his "late style," the story is a journalist's recollection of the events surrounding the discovery of an anti-gravity device in the mid-21st century. Heavy with physics theory, the story describes the relationship between the creator of the device, the billionaire inventor Edward Bloom, and his former classmate James Priss, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist who had developed most of the theory that made the device possible. The men are expert billiards players and bitter rivals. Challenged to execute a shot on a table which is equipped with the device, Priss sends a b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dying Night
"The Dying Night" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the July 1956 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', and was reprinted in the collections ''Nine Tomorrows'' (1959), ''Asimov's Mysteries'' (1968), and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). "The Dying Night" is Asimov's third Wendell Urth story. Plot summary Three astronomers, who have been working on the Moon, Mercury and the asteroid Ceres, meet for the first time in ten years at a convention on Earth. They also meet a former colleague of theirs, Romero Villiers, who had to stay on Earth because of illness. Villiers claims to have invented a mass-transference/teleportation device, but dies under suspicious circumstances before he can demonstrate the device to his friends. Another scientist who has seen the device demonstrated suspects that Villiers has been murdered by one of his classmates, and he questions them. In the course of his investigation, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fun They Had
"The Fun They Had" is a science fiction story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in a children's newspaper in 1951 and was reprinted in the February 1954 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', ''Earth Is Room Enough'' (1957), ''50 Short Science Fiction Tales'' (1960), and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). Written as a personal favor for a friend, "The Fun They Had" became "probably the biggest surprise of my literary career", Asimov wrote in 1973. He reported that it had been reprinted more than 30 times with more being planned. It is about computerized homeschooling, and what children miss out on by not being in school together. He surmised that the story was popular with children because "the kids would get a bang out of the irony." Summary Set in the year 2155, when children learn individually at home using a mechanical teacher (robotic teacher), the story tells of 11-year-old Margie Jones, whose neighbor Tommy finds a real book in the at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Deep (short Story)
"The Deep" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written in July 1952 and first published in the December 1952 issue of ''Galaxy Science Fiction''. The story subsequently appeared in the Asimov collections ''The Martian Way and Other Stories'' (1955) and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). In ''In Memory Yet Green'', Asimov wrote that his motive in writing the story was to deliberately test whether one could do ''anything'' in science fiction, so he invented a society in which mother love was considered obscene. Plot summary The Race is a technologically advanced alien society with telepathic abilities that lives underground on a planet with rapidly depleting energy resources. The aliens decide to teleport themselves to a new planet, which happens to be Earth. A sentry sent by The Race to establish a teleport on Earth suffers shock when exposed to unfamiliar aspects of human life, including maternal bonding, weather changes, and the inabili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Martian Way
''The Martian Way'' is a science fiction novella by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1952 issue of ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' and reprinted in the collections ''The Martian Way and Other Stories'' (1955), ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973), and ''Robot Dreams'' (1986). It was also included in ''The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two'' (1973) after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965. There were originally no female characters in "The Martian Way", but ''Galaxy'' editor H. L. Gold insisted that one be included. Asimov complied by giving Richard Swenson a shrewish wife. It was not what Gold had in mind, but he accepted the story anyway. When Asimov wrote "The Martian Way" in 1952, it was thought that the fragments making up Saturn's rings might be over a mile in diameter. It is now known that none of the ring fragments is more than a few meters in diameter. The final journey back to Mars is described to be under constant ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
C-Chute
"C-Chute" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the October 1951 issue of ''Galaxy Magazine'' and later appeared in Asimov's collections ''Nightfall and Other Stories'' (1969) and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). One of the few Asimov stories that feature aliens, the story deals with a group of people imprisoned by an alien race when their spaceship is captured. The emphasis of the story is on the interactions and group psychology of the prisoners, all of whom have differing backgrounds and motivations. An argument between Asimov and the editor Horace L. Gold over this story was the inspiration for Asimov's story "The Monkey's Finger". Plot summary During Earth's first interstellar war, a civilian transport traveling to Earth is captured by the Kloros, a chlorine-breathing race of intelligent beings. The ship is commandeered by two Kloros along with six human civilians as prisoners of war. The humans fall into argument ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nightfall (Asimov Short Story And Novel)
"Nightfall" is a 1941 science fiction short story by the American writer Isaac Asimov about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated by sunlight at all times. It was adapted into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990. The short story has been included in 48 anthologies and has appeared in six collections of Asimov's stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "Nightfall" the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards and included it in ''The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929–1964''. Background Written from 17 March to 9 April 1941 and sold on 24 April, the short story was published in the September 1941 issue of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' under editor John W. Campbell. It was the 32nd story by Asimov, written while he was a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University. Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marooned Off Vesta
"Marooned off Vesta" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was the third story he wrote, and the first to be published. Written in July 1938 when Asimov was 18, it was rejected by ''Astounding Science Fiction'' in August, then accepted in October by ''Amazing Stories'', appearing in the March 1939 issue. Asimov first included it in his 1968 story collection ''Asimov's Mysteries'', and subsequently in the 1973 collection ''The Best of Isaac Asimov''. Plot summary "Marooned off Vesta" tells the story of three men who survive the wreck of the spaceship ''Silver Queen'' in the asteroid belt and find themselves trapped in orbit around the asteroid of Vesta. They have at their disposal three airtight rooms, one spacesuit, three days' worth of air, a week's supply of food, and a year's supply of water. They are initially despondent about their impending suffocation until one of the men is inspired to melt a hole in the water tank. This begins to prope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anniversary (short Story)
"Anniversary" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the March 1959 issue of ''Amazing Stories'' and subsequently appeared in the collections ''Asimov's Mysteries'' (1968) and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). The story was written for the twentieth anniversary of Asimov's first published story, "Marooned off Vesta", in the March 1939 issue of ''Amazing''. The magazine reprinted the earlier story with the new one, and he feared that someone would write a letter stating that the earlier's writing was better, but no one did. The story is also part of a loosely connected series of stories by Asimov about the supercomputer Multivac. Plot summary Warren Moore and Mark Brandon are two of the three survivors of the wreck of the ''Silver Queen'' in the asteroid belt. Every year, they meet on the anniversary of the disaster to celebrate their survival. On the 20th anniversary, Brandon has a surprise: he appears at Moore's house wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
