h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi there,

Very informative article indeed ! It will be very useful for new readers of Asimov's stories.

Just one question : Why haven't you included R. Daneel Olivaw ? After all, he IS the most important robot in all of Asimov's work(as you can read in the foundation).

CU,

TM.

Very good question TM.
None of the Robot Novels:
The Caves Of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots And Empire

are mentioned
Plus the later robot stories in other collections.

Well actually Bluebottle, those stories mainly revolve around R. Daneel Olivaw.... But you're right, I think the scope of the article has been the robots from the "I, Robot"-series.

TM.

In fact, the article's original title was "I, Robot" but it got changed by the absolutely lovely editor who I trust completely with any decision he or she should care to make.

Ah - that explains all.
Good article, Cassanova

<BB<

Some of my all time fave books there.
I would like to see an article about them, very cool stuff

Indeed Casanova,

It explains it. So why don't we explain the difference between I, Robot and Robots to the editor ? Or is there going to be another installment about R. Daneel Olivaw and the likes in the future ?

That would be cool, those later stories are a bit more integrated in real 'Asimov-life' than the I, Robot stories. After all, that was groundbreaking work. It culminated in Asimov tying them all together at the end of his life. IMO his most worthy achievement(except for the Foundation ).

Anyway, I just always liked R. Daneel... and Elijah Bailey of course. Reminds me of Inspector Morse...

TM.

For those not too familiar with the work of Issac Asimov and his work.

The Foundation series of novels (some of his best work) leads on from the robot series of novels Caves of steel etc.. into a massive space opera saga of dramatic proportions that ends with Asimov's final novel Forward the Foundation a prequel/sequel kind of thing to the whole inter-connected narrative of robots/humans and technological dystophia.

Subsequent cash-ins by other authors on this saga fail to really develop the narrative any further forward and resort re-hashing the plotline from previous novels using Asimov's characters and taint an otherwise classic piece of fiction.

Read the originals, ignore the cash-ins and enjoy Asimov at his best.

So, you're not impressed with Caliban/Utopia/Inferno or the "2nd Foundation Trilogy"?

I haven't read them, but am curious. But then I saw one of the authors was Greg Bear, who completely butchered a sequal to Arthur C. Clarke's "Against The Fall Of Night".

<BB<

I bought Caliban thinking heh, this might actually live up to the memory. But it was a total rehash of old plot lines and It didn't actually add anything new to the mix.

I was intregued by the prospect of a second foundation series but the I figured the story had ran its course in the first. Asimov had meant it that way otherwise forward the foundation wouldn't have tied everything up so neatly. So I wasn't convinced in the end...

I must admit to have read far too many Asimov books for my own good and become far to used to his style and narrative structuring so any other author "doing Asimov" would seem like a poor substitute anyway.

This is just my opinion of course, so make up your own mind if you are considering buying these books.

I, too, have read many of Asimov's books, both novels and anthologies. I think I've got between 50-60, I'm not sure. I tend to buy them second hand for between 10p and £2 - much cheaper than getting them £6 each new!
As I buy my books second hand it means I tend to buy more, but it's harder to find particular books. I've got "Caliban" and "Utopia", and "Foundation's Fear", but I'm waiting to pick up the other three before I read them.

Have you read "The Positronic Man", "Nightfall" and "The Ugly Little Boy" co-written works? I just wonder to what extent those were Asimov, and how much they were Silverberg.

But as I said, so far I've found Greg Bear to be a very disappointing author.

<BB<

It sounds like we have a similiarly large collection of Asimov's work, I stopped collecting years ago when it went beyond 70 or 80 odd novels of one sort or another (including none fiction) and I couldn't find anymore published in this country (I bought new, mostly).

I have the two nightfall short story book collections but not the silverberg collaboration, as for the ugly little boy again I have read the short story but not the collaboration.

I have read the postronic man I think. It was in another story collection I bought a while back. From what I can remember Silverberg took a back seat to Asimov and added a back story here and there within the framework already established by Asimov in the Bicentennial Man. It did work OK, but the original was more direct and less long winded at making its point.

I can't comment on the work I haven't read but silverberg was getting second billing on the collaboratative extensions of earlier work up until Asimov's death which makes me believe he was just fleshing out a few ideas to save on leg work for Asimov while he worked on more orignal work.

After Asimov's death however Silverberg must have seemed the obvious canditate to take up the Asimov brand name of fiction. With more responsibility to the reader Silverberg did his best but he simply couldn't compete with Asimov's experience and wealth of knowledge and we (the fanbase) knew this upon reading his work.

This is why the Silverberg as Asimov books have petered out as time as gone by because they simply aren't selling to the people they are aimed at us (the original Asimov fans).

Silverberg does have talent I'll give him that but like you I did not warm to his style of writing when he was doing Asimov.

Sorry to hear your having trouble tracking down more Asimov. Specific novels are always difficult to get hold of if you don't stumble on them accidently. I had a lot of difficulty completing my Asimov space ranger series but I finally found the one novel I was missing, the books you are after are out there if you look. Maybe?

After I pretty much maxed out on Asimov, I started reading Philip K Dick. My collection of his work is slowly building but it'll take a long while to get close to competing with my Asimov collection.

I hope that answered your question. Its only my opinion as I say.

What is your opinion on the matter?

I'm overwhelmed by your response to my question!
Here's a list of the Asimov books I have - as you can see I've got most of the science fiction novels and anthologies, it's mainly a case of collecting the Norby stories and the remaining Black Widowers anthologies as I only own 2 of them.

Asimov's Mysteries
4. Banquets Of The Black Widowers
5. Puzzles Of The Black Widowers
Buy Jupiter
Earth Is Room Enough
Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain
1. Prelude To Foundation
2. Forward The Foundation
3. Foundation
4. Foundation & Empire
5. Second Foundation
6. Foundation's Edge
7. Foundation And Earth
Gold
I, Robot
Magic
Nemesis
Nine Tomorrows
Nightfall One
Nightfall Two
Opus: The Best Of Isaac Asimov (200)
Pebble In The Sky
Robot Dreams
Robot Visions
1. Space Ranger
2. The Pirates Of The Asteroids
3. Oceans of Venus
4. The Big Sun of Mercury
5. The Moons Of Jupiter
6. The Rings of Saturn
The Alternate Asimovs
The Best Science Fiction Of Isaac Asimov
The Bicentennial Man
1. The Caves Of Steel
2. The Naked Sun
3. The Robots Of Dawn
4. Robots And Empire
The Currents Of Space
1. The Early Asimov Volume 1
2. The Early Asimov Volume 2
3. The Early Asimov Volume 3
The End Of Eternity
The Gods Themselves
The Martian Way
The Rest Of The Robots
The Stars Like Dust
The Tragedy Of The Moon
The Union Club Mysteries
The Winds Of Change
Through A Glass, Clearly

Co-written:
Nightfall
Child Of Time
The Positronic Man

As I've been reading them over about 10-15 years it hasn't seemed so many, but if I had to read them all through in one go it would seem to take forever! But I definately enjoy Asimov's style.

I haven't read anything by Silverberg, Roger Macbride Allen or any of the others doing the Foundation stories apart from the Asimov/Silverberg collaborations.

I felt that the Asimov/Silverberg Nightfall added tremendously to the original tale - the background as well as the before and after made it even more convincing - as did the fact that I read it at the time of the 1999 eclipse! That was definately a high-quality story, I know many of my friends consider it the best science-fiction novel they've read, but yes, The Positronic Man wasn't to that standard, although better than the film.
At the moment I plan to read Arthur C. Clarke's Collected Stories, although that will certainly take a while!

<BB<

Hello again,

I'll have to check out that Nightfall novel then, I enjoyed the original short story so I'll probably enjoy the novel as well.

Like you I started young reading Asimov, I think I was about 8 or 9...
The first book I read of his was Space Ranger, which was probably a good place to start before dipping into the short story collections and the more cerebal Robot stories, stand alone novels and Robot/Foundation series.
From your list we have an almost identical collection plus or minus a few books.

I have read quite a lot of Arthur C Clarke, he impressed me for a while with his short story collections, 2001, 2010 and Readevous with Rama (highly recommended if you haven't read it). By the time I read his later novels particularly the sequels to Readevous with Rama, Cradle and especially 3001 the plot and characterisations had taken second place to set dressing which really started to irratate me. I feel he was resting on his laurels with these novels and not really pulling out all the stops... I could be wrong, it might be how he intended them to read.

I agree that the film of the Bicentenial man wasn't as good as the book/short story. But it almost didn't get made, so a not so bad film is better than no film at all. Filming novels into a two hour film means your going to lose something in the translation. Where was the comedy in Bladerunner for example that was so evident in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

I have the (very) rare published screenplay of I, Robot which sort of almagamates elements of the Susan Calvin stories in I, Robot and the early Daneel stories written by Issac Asimov which was touted for years around Hollywood before being scrapped for being too expensive and complictated to produce... This was at a time when CGI didn't really exist and Starwars had just been released. Its a good yarn but whether it would actually make a good film or not depends on too many things to guess.
A.I. this summer is probably the closest we'll get to a proper Robot movie. Its not Asimov, but I'm sure it will use elements of his in the narrative...

I heard a rumour a few years back that Hollywood was going to try to attempt to film Foundation... I think that this was JUST a rumour but how do you reckon it would turn out? Hopefully it wouldn't be directed by the same guy that did Home Alone this time, but who knows...

Talking about films of sci-fi Philip K Dick's Minority Report has also been put into production.
A ever so slightly unfilmable short story, I thought. Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise it will be the story of a pre-cognative police agency preventing crimes before they happen by predicting them before they occur, through the use of three mutant pre-cogs idiot sevants attached to a computer that interprits their prediction of the future. Criminals can therefore be caught before any wrong doing happens, changing the future and preventing the crime.

The crux of the story is that Tom Cruise's character has to proove himself innocent of commiting a murder in the future predicted by the three mutants before the murder is committed while he is on the run from his own department. There is an evil complictated twist at the end which I won't spoil for you because I can't even remember it for myself. It should be good anyway, if Spielberg can make it work on screen.

Comments and questions please...

Coincidentally, the frirst book of Asimov's I read was "Space Ranger" - I bought that and "The Big Sun of Mercury" and "The Rings Of Saturn" from a "Help The Aged" shop for about 20p each. After that I started picking up the anthologies - "Martian Way" and "Bicentennial Man" - and it just grew from there.

I actually enjoyed "The Bicentennial Man" film - I was dreading watching it when it came out, but it was much better than I expected it to be. You're right that in a film you can't expect to get all the subtlety of a book. It's also partly what they say about Radio being more visual than television because the pictures are so much better. Imagination can still out-do special effects. I expect a lot of people will be disappointed when "The Lord Of The Rings" comes out this year.
As for "A.I.", I gather that it is very similar in style to "Bicentennial Man". I'm interested in seeing it for a number of reasons, not only because it will be intelligent science-fiction (hopefully), but also because it was one of Kubrick's projects.
I'm not sure about how succesful filming "Foundation" would be - the big question is how much would be filmed? The first part is essentially a court-room battle, which I don't see how filming would improve on. The later parts would be more interesting to film, but you may miss the subtlety of the beginning... I admit to being sceptical about how that one would turn out.

I haven't read any of Philip K. Dick yet - I've not been avoiding him, I guess there's no real reason why I haven't started yet, so I can't really comment. But I have read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke. I agree that most of what he has done since 1980 has been quite poor - 3001, for example, was quarter lecture, quarter quotes from the previous three, a quarter all about his space elevator fixation, and the remaining quarter contradicted the other three. The worst thing he has written has to be "Ghost From The Grand Banks" which is all about the Titanic, and he didn't bother to put any effort into researching the Titanic, or the Mary Rose - which he describes the raising of, but every detail is wrong. His early work is amazing to read, I think he's just getting a bit senile with age now, and perhaps tried too much to change his style to include more relationships between characters - something that doesn't seem to have been a success.

<BB<

That is a coincidence... I bought my copy of Space Ranger in the local newsagents new for a couple of quid. it strikes me now that you don't often find Issac Asimov available in the newsagents anymore?

I also enjoyed the Bicentennial Man film. I was dreading the cringeworthy experience of Robin Williams mugging his way through the whole film and ruining it, but it turned out OK. Its not one of my favorite films I must admit, but it was an entertaining enough two hours. I haven't read any Tolkien (shame on me) but I think you are right that the film of Lord of the Rings may disapoint a few people.
I for one am looking forward to seeing it as Peter Jackson hasn't disapointed me yet with his work and with Lord of the Rings he can't really go far wrong with the material as far as I understand.

A.I. will hopefully not disapoint either, from what I have heard it will put a darker spin on things than the Bicentennial Man (not hard) and definately try to be an intelligent film that will ask questions of the audience. Maybe it will succeed. We'll find out when it opens.

As for Arthur C Clarke he hasn't wrote a book in years now, has he? You may very well be right in your assumption that he is getting a bit senile in his old age. Maybe he simply hasn't got the will anymore to write another novel after completing 3001 and having it panned by critics and readers alike. His attempts at characterisations in 2061, 3001 and Cradle seem to be very old fashioned now in the way they interact. They do not drive the story, they are cyphers for endless speaches explaining whats supposed to be happening and why we should be excited about. It always a bad sign when authors start signposting the "the exciting bit" rather than just getting on with the story.
We could never accuse Asimov of doing that, now can we?

Arthur C Clarke's early work is still worth reading but it sounds like you have probably already started to get tired of his inconsistent nature of his later (lack of) technique.

I highly recommend the collected short story collections 1-6 of Philip K Dick, if you are interested in having a change. I'm sure you can get cheap second hand copies from somewhere. They will provide a good grounding to read his full length novels, later. Some of which are quite frankly astonishingly imaginative, yet highly believable.
Now, I can't accuse Arthur C Clarke of that in recent years.

Don't take my word for it of course, read them and see...

Hello, this is your friendly author here.
Erm, I've only read the original foundation trilogy, none of the sequels or prequels. I thought about buying the whole lot, and then reading them through in Asimov-space chronological order (as opposed to Publisher-space ). As I only tend to buy books from Oxfam and car boot sales (being a poor student ) it's taking some time to amass the collection.

I have, however, just finished the Bicentennial Man and Buy Jupiter anthologies, and as soon as my exams are over (I have Prelims in three weeks - ARGH!) I'll contemplate the necessary articles.

Graham "Casanova"

I've read "The Lord Of The Rings", but am accused of being abnormal because I prefered "The Silmarillion". True, I found it very hard to read, but I felt it was more than worth it.I'm trying to collect the other 12 "Lord of the Rings" books at the moment, but they were never popular, so they are hard to find second hand. I too am a poor student, but luckily I know several good Southampton second-hand book shops.

I hope A.I. will succeed. Stanley Kubrick spent at least 7 years on the project, so it has had plenty of time to mature. He also consulted heavily with Brian Aldiss I believe - although he is another SF author I have not read. My only qualm is that Speilburg seems to be rushing into it a little - he seems desperate to make the film in tribute to his friend, but he is also working on several other projects this year. I would have preferred a more Kubrick approach to the film, but we'll see.

I'm not sure how much Arthur C. Clarke is writing at the moment. He has released several books in the last couple of years that he has "co-authored" with at least 3 different authors. His name, of course, is printed first, yet I'm convinced that his name is on far too many novels for him to have been the driving force behind them all. Perhaps he seems to just suggest about 3 or 4 different story lines to different authors, have them write it, and then edit the novel and include a bit here and there and then claim co-authorship. I don't know. What I do know is he hasn't written a book on his own for some time, but he has written about 7 with other authors, which I'm surprised at at his age.

But still, it's an interesting read. I have read most of his early work, it's just a pity that his later work does not match the standard, although the one of his co-written novels I have read ("The Trigger" co-written by Michael Kube-something) I was impressed by.
But I'll look out for more Philip K. Dick. I once saw one of his books for sale which shocked me - it was titled "Blade Runner - by Philip K. Dick". Only if you read the small print on the inside could you see that it was really "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?". But then, all the copies of "The Bicentennial Man" for sale now have Robbin Williams face on the front.

Casanova - I definately recommend that you read as many Asimov books as you can - he isn't considered the best SF author for no reason!

One thing I am interested in at the moment is what the sequal to John Wyndham's classic "The Day of The Triffids" "The Night Of The Triffids" is going to be like. Have either of you read much John Wyndham?

<BB<

I haven't actually *read* Wyndham's DotTs, but I did see the dodgy fifties/sixties (whenever it was, time's a black hole as far as I'm concerned unless we're dealing with the 80s) B-movie. It was pretty good, until it got to the end. Because that's all it did. It got there. It didn't DO anything. Ho-hum.
Anyway, a sequel would be interesting to watch, in a Hollywood "How to ruin a movie by giving it a budget" style (a paradigm, btw, which also worked for Red Dwarf - look how much better series I-VI were).

While I'm chatting on a BBC site, let's see how much "Bring back Doctor Who in a non-'crap American' way like that goddamn Paul McGann film" traffic I can generate.

Oh, and don't mention the election. I brought it up once but I think I got away with it

The film version of "Day Of The Triffids" was very strange and was completely different to the book. The film tried too hard to be like "The War Of The Worlds" where, in "The War Of The Worlds" the air kills the invaders, but in the "Triffids" film, water did. The novel, though, is different in that they find no way to kill off the Triffids, and it ends with all the humans on Earth being killed except for a few living in safety on the Isle of Wight. (In my view, a perfect end to an invasion novel). There was a true-to-the-original BBC Television Series in the 80s, but as I was in nappies at the time, I can't really remember it. I'd love to see it, though.

I definately agree with you about Doctor Who, though. There are a few Doctor Who fans on the Guide I've met, including Munchkin, Seagull's Lost Horizon and TIMELORD.

<BB<