Now into The Robots of Dawn.
Struck by weird predictive misfires in Asimov. The main futuristic storage medium is still film. They have “book film viewers.” They have phone booths even as late as The Stars, Like Dust.
What made wireless+digital tech so hard to see in 1950?
Conversation
In Naked Sun, cryofreezing of eggs and sperm is not anticipated but ex-utero fetal development exists, so the premises of the society are weirdly screwed up.
1
5
Somehow the internet was a major blindside for people. It is implied that the robots have radio communication on Solaria and there’s a sort of VR telepresence but nothing like a proper internet. Computers are accessed like libraries.
2
1
13
Vannevar Bush envisioned the Memex (on microfilm) back in 1945 but it was still too hard to imagine how computers, digitization, and radio would converge. The comms imagined all sounds like analog radio. Including “sub-ether” futuristic hyper spatial comms.
1
10
First proper minicomputer in 1961, first internet link in 1969, but first true science fiction envisioning the internet only in 1984, with neuromancer, 15 years after it was created in rudimentary form. Why the huge lag? What caused the blinders?
10
16
Robots of Dawn is as thick as Caves of Steel and Naked Sun combined. I have a 3-in-1 volume. And iirc Robots and Empire is even bigger. World inflation.
1
5
Same with Harry Potter. Is it a general rule that big world builds have increasing volume sizes? Though Asimoverse has 4 start points.
3
3
How did I miss that Dr. Hans Fastolfe, inventor of Daneel, also dreamed of psychohistory? Giskard and Daneel got the idea from him I guess, and Daneel kept it alive till he met Sheldon.
2
9
Finished. This reread was interesting. Written in 1983 this was 25 years after Naked Sun in 1957. The last 2 robot books and the last 4 foundation books were all written in the 80s and 90s. So Asimoverse was written in the 59s and 80s. What was he doing in the 60s and 70s? 🤔
1
2
If you look at the chronological bibliography it looks like Asimov doesn’t the 60s and 70s mostly writing pop nonfiction. I’ve read a bunch but damn didn’t realize he’s written so much and f that.
1
2
* so much of that
The Gods Themselves is the only new novel in the 2 decades 🤔
His short stories too show a slow down.
Replying to
So basically a furiously productive phase from 1939 to 1957 (ages 19 to 37), then a really long 25y sabbatical into nonfiction till ~1982 (ages 37 to 62), then a mature late life burst age 62-72 wrapping up his peak work neatly in a bundle with 6 keystone novels.
2
1
8
This is fascinating and encouraging. That you can come back to 25 year old material and really level it up.
2
1
6
Robots of Dawn is not great. Lots of kinda unnecessary sex-fetish stuff. Too much exposition. And looking now from a technique perspective, R. Giskard is a bit of a deus ex machina. He ties up every loose end in Asimoverse and is way too powerful. More so than Daneel.
4
6
Still, it’s elegantly done and Giskard is a well-crafted character. Despite being basically the closest thing to a god in Asimoverse, he’s kinda interesting.
On to reread of Robots and Empire, the main keystone book.
2
5
The cover of robots and empire, 1986, is kinda silly. But definitely very 80s. AFAIK the robots depicted have no relationship with the story.
3
9
Oh hey, Asimov articulated the Thucydides trap in 1985, 27 years before Graham Allison did in 2012. Also the use of the word “crisis” suggests he was thinking of this as the Zeroth Seldon crisis: intuited by Bailey and solved by Giskard. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydide
1
1
10
Didn’t pick up on this in previous read, but this book repeatedly emphasizes Baley’s uncanny future prediction instincts that weren’t mentioned in previous books. I think Asimov was kinda retconning protopsychic second foundation genes into Baley. I bet he’s Raych’s ancestor.
1
3
This is a character continuity glitch. In previous books. Baley is a bit of a present focused type. He picks up distant future arguments from others.
1
2
Close reading genre fiction is so much more fun that close reading literary fiction
1
9
Much of Robots and Empire is Daneel and Giskard standing around bearing witness to unfolding history. A great parody version would be something like mystery science theater with only robots
1
1
5
Some of this connective is a bit too on the nose. Giskard infers basic premises of psychohistory watching Gladia whip up a crowd on Baleyworld and concludes emotional contagion makes bigger crowds easier to control than smaller ones or individuals. Talk of autocatalytic effects.
1
2
There’s some clear influence of 80s chaos theory in Asimov’s last books. Quite explicit in the Foundation preludes. Late retcon as opposed to 80s authors who used stuff like Prigognine’s physics as a starting point.
1
4
The Ljje-Daneel bromance is really overdone in this book. Very heavy handed. I’d forgotten the deathbed scene, but this book really sets Lije Bailey up as the of prophet of psychohistory. Like Moses to Seldon’s Jesus or something.
1
3
The plot of Robots and Empire involves the three mile island disaster as the trigger for Earth’s turn away from fission power. It was written in 1985, 6 years after the accident and a year before Chernobyl.
1
6
If the book had been published just a little later, Chernobyl would have made way more sense as the historical reference point. Funny how such plot choices date a book and the future it imagines.
1
6
Finished. The ending still packs a bit of an emotional punch on the reread.
Much of the book is long dialogues between Daneel and Giskard as they solve the mystery, but with way more philosophical commentary than I remember. This is basically the theology book of Asimoverse.
1
5
I now kinda want to read the newer non-Asimov Caliban trilogy books that fill in the gaps between this and Foundation.
1
