2023年9月12日 · Asimov isn't as consistent about expressing the laws of robotics as you might think. Throughout his stories, he played with the ideas to see how they'd play out. And it doesn't help that they were written at very different times. Worse, in the 1980s he was integrating the Robots and Foundation universes - so some of the rules changed.

In my opinion, it gives a better sense of the development of the story and Asimov's direction than simply following the chronology or the writing order. Also, I think it's compulsory to read 'Forward the Foundation' last. Asimov "ended" the series by taking it back to its beginning - …

2011年3月10日 · One more novel needs to be appended to these lists. Donald M. Kingsbury wrote, with the permission of the Asimov estate, a novel wich takes place in the new/Second Foundation Empire. The book is called Psychohistorical Crisis. It was published in 2001 and is a fantastic addition to the canon of Asimov's Foundation books.

2011年1月13日 · Asimov deliberately didn't talk about the technical aspects of his robots, so that he could focus on the characters involved. This is one of the main reasons why his stories written in the 1940s and 1950s aren't too dated; because he didn't talk about transistors and vacuum tubes, he talked about fictional technologies like the positronic brain.

Apart from the Foundation and Robot series, Asimov's works aren't interrelated very strongly. So apart from the Robots quadrilogy (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire) and the Foundation series (original trilogy, two sequels, and two prequels) which should be read in order, there is little in the way of spoilers.

Asimov uses three important concepts in his development: The statistical distribution (of a population), which affects the general trends. The presence of outliers (such as the Mule in the Trilogy), and ; Chaos theory, where small fluctuations …

2011年1月12日 · It's best enjoyed after reading Asimov. But of all the sequels, I'd recommend Orson Scott Card's story "The Originist" from Foundation's Friends which reads like pure Asimov in spirit, but better written than anything Ike ever did himself. I recommend reading all of these after the Asimov-written books. "The Orginist" fills in a beautiful bit ...

Their science of prediction and control is biological rather than statistical, but their intentions are similar to those of Asimov's psychohistorians. So, considering that Paul is the son of Lady Jessica, a Bene Gesserit, and receives a Bene Gesserit training, it seems likely that Herbert was inspired by Foundation .

Asimov's works can almost certainly be considered canon, but there's really very little guidance after that. But we can apply reason: The stories in the multiple-author anthology "Foundation's Friends" were written while Asimov was alive, but are of questionable "canon".

2021年1月22日 · In the short story "Profession" (1957) by Isaac Asimov, much of the story revolves around the Olympics that take place on Earth every year. As a child, the main character asks his father about the origin of the word Olympics.