Isaac Asimov, the foundations of science fiction Book

It is impossible to write a literary critique of Asimov without mapping his development as a writer, which necessitated a substantial insertion of biographical info. For this, Gunn could draw on his personal experiences as well as Asimov's avaliable autobiographies In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt . The focus remains on the effect events in his life have had on the irregular frequency of his output, such as his spell in the Army or the plain fact that he didn't see fiction as a viable income until this 'hobby' surpassed the earnings of his scientific career in chemistry. His personality traits are more intimately entwined with the stories themselves: the claustrophilia that shapes the Caves of Steel and the humanism that minimizes the presence of alien lifeforms in favour of a galaxy dominated by the human Empire of the Foundation universe.

It's 2016 now, not 1982. What does this book still have to offer ? Conversely, what can it no longer offer ? Let's look at the negatives first. Asimov was still alive, with a decade to go. Allthough his most memorable ideas had already been put to paper, this is still an incomplete critique. Furthermore, a biographical frame during life is a sanitized thing; the autobiographical Asimov who provided it was with fewer flaws than the Asimov revealed in Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction. For one thing, the green sexuality and stock woman characters in Asimov fiction (apart from the metal-blooded Susan Calvin) can only be understood by looking behind the writer's bedroom door. The wide social sphere which recognition in the field of Science Fiction brought him was not without its friction, nor were his relationships with John Campbell and other editors. You will not find this in any of the bio-pieces that introduce his stories collections.

Contemporary bias apart, the analysis is outstanding. Gunn traces the evolution and main themes of Asimov's work with greater clarity than later chronicers of the man and his typewriter. It is interesting to see how well a "Universe" took shape in the hands of a man who never really aspired to unify his visions of the future into a coherent timeline. They cannot be linked without contradictions, but to the reader, the Asimov history of the next millennia is tangible. The sparseness of his prose (the 'empty stage' as Gunn likes to call it), so devoid of the action that would be expected of a boy raised on pulpy 20's SF, is defended here as the prerogative of the scientific mind which believed in rational paths to solve a problem. Flash Gordon was already fleshed out by laserbeams to preach the gospel of 'aggresive negotations'.

It's a fair point against those who portray Isaac Asimov as a loud-mouthed Smart Alec with more quantity in output than style. He could be all of that - there have to be a few turds in an opus this vast - but 400 books doesn't bestew the recognition of 'one of the great Three of Science Fiction' upon you, with engineers embracing the Three Laws of Robotics as they build their machines to mount the stairs or react to human emotion with the proper facial expression.

If numbers were literary merit, Danielle Steel would be Jane Austen. And I just know somebody will bring up the fact now that Jane Austen in every novel was harping against the "women are who they marry" milieu of her day. She used that emotion to shape a universe that will serve gender debates for another two centuries. And we'll no doubt write our robot's Laws accordingly by then.


WORKS CITED
and by Isaac Asimov
by Michael White