Okay, that reminds me very much of “Isaac Asimov’s science fiction favorites”, which is an audio title I got from www.audible.com - actually the first program I ever got from them, and it’s still available in the catalog despite the many years since I purchased it.
It is narrated by Isaac himself, and it has the same kind of informal introduction and comments, and ‘Last Question’ is just one of the great stories picked for inclusion. From memory the list features:
“I just make them up, see?” (poem)
Someday
Satisfaction Guaranteed
The Feeling of Power
The Last Question
Living Space
Spell my name with a Z
The ugly little boy.
Great feedback in this thread! Thanks everyone. I’m going to read all these recommended stories later in the day when I have some time after class and report back.
You’re lucky he was an atheist, otherwise he’d be haunting you. I got him to sign the issue of Galax6y where The Martian Way first appeared. His name was misspelled on the cover. After 20 years, he was still pissed at H. L. Gold.
And now for something completely scary. Columbia got the rights for the Foundation Trilogy Story and Roland Emmerich will direct. And you thought I Robot was bad. :eek:
I can’t wait for the climactic hand-to-hand and mind-to-mind battle scene between the reincarnated Hari Seldon and the Mule in the ruins of Old Trantor.
Yes, Asimov spoke English like a Jew whose native language was Yiddish (which it was, more or less). Pleasant to listen to, but not the sort of voice to read something as sublime as “The Last Question.”
it seemed to me that he spoke more like a native of Brooklyn - my ancestral home also. I assume he understood Yiddish, but I don’t remember him saying his parents spoke it at home, but I’ll have to pull out my copy of the first autobiography to check.
Ever since I first read it in Omni years ago, I’ve been partial to How it happened. It takes real skill to put together an ultra-short that entertaining.
“The Feeling of Power”. Great prediction that calculators would become so ubiquitous that no one could do math by themselves anymore. The prediction that computers would be too expensive to use in missiles - not so much.
I, Robot was not bad. It had way too much action for an Isaac Asimov story (defined as ‘virtually any action’), yes, but the trailer left all of the philosophy out of it. Obviously it wasn’t an accurate representation of the original work, but that’s impossible to do with a collection of short stories anyway. As a devoted Asimov fan, I thought it was quite good.
I forgave I, Robot and was able to enjoy it on its own terms when I realized that the film was inspired by the Asimov book, not based on. It’s a fine distinction, but the film took the title and the Three Laws concept and built a new story with those as the inspiration. It’s not intended to be faithful to the book of short stories at all, but rather it’s an additional, separate story. Had it been based on the book, one would expect it to follow the plot of at least one of the stories.
So, you liked Susan Calvin as a sexy action heroine?
I wasn’t expecting all that much, but it was far, far worse than that. And, the existence of Harlan’s script makes it a tragedy.
Would it have been significantly different if they hadn’t soldered on the Asimov stuff to the original plot? Not very, I think.
