Category Archives: Isaac Asimov

Asimov, I, ROBOT

Posted on 16 August 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

(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 →

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Asimov, THE CURRENTS OF SPACE

Posted on 6 August 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

[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 →

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Asimov, THE STARS, LIKE DUST

Posted on 1 August 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Asimov: PEBBLE IN THE SKY

Posted on 26 July 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Asimov, Six Lucky Starr novels

Posted on 10 July 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Asimov: THE WINDS OF CHANGE

Posted on 20 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Isaac Asimov: Foundation

Posted on 21 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 4

Posted on 21 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 3: “Reason” — a Creationist Robot!

Posted on 21 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Rereading Isaac Asimov, part 2

Posted on 11 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

So over the past four or five weeks, I’ve read (or re-read, in most cases, some 40 years or so since I first read most of these stories in the late-’60s/early-’70s) some 100 Isaac Asimov stories, including the complete contents … Continue reading →

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