Mark R. Kelly
-
Recent Posts
- Links and Comments 19 Feb 2021
- Notes and Quotes: Ray Bradbury on Good, Evil, and Knowledge
- Links and Comments: Reality as a Common Ground
- Links and Comments: RL, as despicable as DJT
- Links and Comments: Republicans and Doing the Right Thing, Not; Religion as LARP
- Links and Comments: Astronomical Photos from APOD
- Nonfiction Notes: Matthew Hutson’s The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
- Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY
- Links and Comments: Political Matters This Week: 11 Feb 2021
- Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING
Bookmarks
- CNN
- NYT
- WaPo
- Guardian US
- NPR
- Google News
- Slate
- Salon
- Vox
- The Week
- The New Yorker
- The Atlantic
- Nature
- Science
- Scientific American
- Why Evolution Is True (Jerry Coyne)
- Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta, et al)
- Progressive Secular Humanist (Michael Stone)
- The Morning Heresy | CFI (Paul Fidalgo)
- File 770 (Mike Glyer)
- Tor.com
- AlterNet
- Towleroad
- Joe.My.God
- APOD
- xkcd
Categories
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- Bible
- Book Notes
- Changing One's Mind
- Children
- Commonplace Book
- Conservative Resistance
- Conventions
- Cosmology
- Culture
- Economics
- Evolution
- Films
- Games
- Heinlein
- Human Progress
- Humanism
- Isaac Asimov
- Links
- Lunacy
- Mathematics
- Meaning
- MInd
- Morality
- Movies
- Music
- Narrative
- Personal history
- Pet Peeves
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Politics
- Provisional Conclusions
- Psychology
- Quote at Length
- Quotes
- Ray Bradbury
- Religion
- Reviews
- Robert Silverberg
- Robert Wright
- Science
- science fiction
- Science Fiction Nonfiction
- Short Fiction
- Silverberg
- Skiffy Flix
- Social Progress
- Space
- Species Reset
- Spirituality
- Star Trek
- Steven Pinker
- Supernatural
- Technology
- Ten Commandments
- The Book
- The Gays
- Thinking
- Travel
- TV Sci Fi
- Uncategorized
- Website Issues
- Writing
Archives
- February 2021 (13)
- January 2021 (20)
- December 2020 (10)
- November 2020 (11)
- October 2020 (15)
- September 2020 (13)
- August 2020 (22)
- July 2020 (27)
- June 2020 (11)
- May 2020 (13)
- April 2020 (9)
- March 2020 (7)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (12)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (9)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (2)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (16)
- January 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (3)
- June 2018 (7)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (11)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (6)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (8)
- November 2017 (11)
- October 2017 (8)
- September 2017 (14)
- August 2017 (12)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (15)
- May 2017 (21)
- April 2017 (24)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (22)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (9)
- September 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (4)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (18)
- May 2016 (11)
- April 2016 (12)
- March 2016 (9)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (18)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (17)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (12)
- June 2015 (14)
- May 2015 (14)
- April 2015 (7)
- March 2015 (13)
- February 2015 (19)
- January 2015 (20)
- December 2014 (11)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (3)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (16)
- June 2014 (19)
- May 2014 (34)
- April 2014 (26)
- March 2014 (37)
- February 2014 (27)
- January 2014 (19)
- December 2013 (11)
- November 2013 (8)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (21)
- August 2013 (13)
- July 2013 (6)
Meta
Category Archives: Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov: THE EARLY ASIMOV (1972)
This is a book I’d never read before, and debated recently about whether to ever read it. On the one hand, life is too short to read every book one might have accumulated, and this book consists, frankly, of all … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Isaac Asimov: THE EARLY ASIMOV (1972)
Asimov, I, ROBOT
(The photo shows a 1969-era Science Fiction Book Club edition of a Doubleday hardcover, with the jacket copy claiming the book is “Long out of print and in great demand”; a 1984 mass market paperback from Del Rey; and the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Asimov, I, ROBOT
Asimov, THE CURRENTS OF SPACE
[draft] The third of Asimov’s “Galactic Empire” novels, first published in 1952, opens with a fish out of water situation a bit like that in PEBBLE IN THE SKY. But first there is a prolog as the book opens with … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Asimov, THE CURRENTS OF SPACE
Asimov, THE STARS, LIKE DUST
This second of Asimov’s three “Galactic Empire” novels is the least interesting of the three, despite the poetic (and gratuitous) title. It’s entirely about circumstance, with no specific science fictional content at all. Presumably this is an example of Asimov … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Asimov, THE STARS, LIKE DUST
Asimov: PEBBLE IN THE SKY
Isaac Asimov began publishing stories in magazines in 1939, but his first book wasn’t released until 1950, and that first book was his first proper novel, PEBBLE IN THE SKY. By 1950 however he had published in the magazines all … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Asimov: PEBBLE IN THE SKY
Asimov, Six Lucky Starr novels
In the 1950s Isaac Asimov wrote six short science fiction novels for the ‘juvenile’ market, what today we would call ‘young adult.’ These were: DAVID STARR, SPACE RANGER (1952) LUCKY STARR AND THE PIRATES OF THE ASTEROIDS (1953) LUCKY STARR … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Asimov, Six Lucky Starr novels
Asimov: THE WINDS OF CHANGE
THE WINDS OF CHANGE AND OTHER STORIES, published in 1983, is the 11th of 14 collections of SF and fantasy stories from the ‘main sequence’ of Asimov’s collections: the set of his collections that don’t overlap, that don’t consists of … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov
Comments Off on Asimov: THE WINDS OF CHANGE
Isaac Asimov: Foundation
Rereading classic SF in the 21st century: In which I both tease out themes of, and try to summarize, Isaac Asimov’s first Foundation book. I reread Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, i.e. the first book in the ‘Foundation Trilogy,’ a couple weeks … Continue reading
Posted in Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Isaac Asimov: Foundation
Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 4
Comments about “Nightfall”, “The Dead Past”, “The Last Question”, “The Bicentennial Man”, and “The Ugly Little Boy”. To finish up commenting on my rereading (or in a few cases, reading for the first time) some 100 short stories, novelettes, and … Continue reading
Posted in Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 4
Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 3: “Reason” — a Creationist Robot!
Asimov began writing stories about robots very early in his career; the first one, “Robbie”, was published in September 1940, only a year and a half after his first-published story, “Marooned Off Vesta”, in March 1939, and the second robot … Continue reading
Posted in Isaac Asimov, science fiction
Comments Off on Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 3: “Reason” — a Creationist Robot!