Isaac Asimov

Asimov, Isaac - ăzˈəmŏf, 1920–92, American author and scientist, b. Petrovichi, USSR, grad. Columbia Univ. (B.S., 1939; M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1948). An astonishingly prolific author, he wrote over 400 books. He first became prominent as a writer of such science fiction as I, Robot (1950, repr. 1970), The Caves of Steel (1954), and his most famous novel, The Read More...

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Isaac Asimov

1 .

The Roving Mind
by Isaac Asimov. 384 pgs.

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The Roving Mind

Contents

Foreword Isaac Asimov: Science Popularizer, Skeptic, and Rationalist

A Celebration of Isaac Asimov — a Man for the Universe

Introduction

Part I the Religious Radicals

1: The Army of the Night

3: The Reagan Doctrine

4: The Blind Who Would Lead

5: Creeping Censorship

6: Losing the Debate

Part II Other Aberrations

7: The Harvest of Intelligence

8: That Old-Time Violence

9: Little Green Men or Not?

10: Don'T You Believe?

11: Open Mind?

12: The Role of the Heretic

Part III Population

13: The Good Earth is Dying

14: The Price of Survival

15: Letter to a Newborn Child

Part IV Science: Opinion

16: Technophobia

17: What Have You Done for Us Lately?

18: Speculation

19: Is It Wise for Us to Contact Advanced Civilizations?

20: Pure and Impure

21: Do We Regulate Science?

22: For Public Understanding of Science

23: Science Corps

24: Science and Beauty

25: Art and Science

26: The Fascination of Science

27: Sherlock Holmes as Chemist

Part V Science: Explanation

28: The Global Jigsaw

29: The Inconstant Sun

30: The Sky of the Satellites

31: The Surprises of Pluto

32: Neutron Stars

33: Black Holes

34: Faster Than Light

35: Hyperspace

36: Beyond the Universe

37: Life on Earth

Part VI the Future

38: Transportation and the Future

39: The Corporation of the Future

40: The Future of Collecting

41: The Computerized World

42: The Individualism to Come

43: The Coming Age of Age

44: The Decade of Decision

45: Do You Want to Be Cloned?

46: The Hotel of the Future

47: The Future of Plants

48: Bacterial Engineering

49: Flying in Time to Come

50: The Ultimate in Communication

51: His Own Particular Drummer

52: The Future of Exploration

53: Homo Obsoletus?

54: Volatiles for the Life on Luna

55: Touring the Moon

56: Life on a Space Settlement

57: The Payoff in Space

Part VII Personal

58: I Am a Signpost

59: The Word-Processor and I

60: A Question of Speed

61: A Question of Spelling

62: My Father

Acknowledgments
2 .

Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: The First Encounter ("Of Life Beyond: Man's Age-Old Speculations" by Isaac Asimov begins on p. 33)
by James L. Christian. 320 pgs.

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Extraterrestrial Intelligence:: The First Encounter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Foreword: the Nefertiti-Tut Express— a Journey Through Time, Thought, and Being

The Story of Life: Earth's Four-Billion-Year Beginning

Of Life Beyond: Man's Age-Old Speculations

The Search for Life Beyond Earth: a Scientific Update

First Contact: the News Event and the Human Response

Conversations with Mr. Spock

The Discovery of Extraterrestrial Intelligence: a Religious Response

Mything the Point: Etis in a Hindu/Buddhist Context

Would Etis Be Persons?

The Abdication of Human Intelligence

Etis and the Problem of Intelligence

Consciousness and the Cosmos

Angular Truth and Planet X

Life and Death in the Biocosmos

Homo Telluris: the Conscious Cosmic Caddis Fly

Appendix: for Further Reflection

Bibliography: for Further Reading
3 .

Science Fiction, Children's Literature, and Popular Culture: Coming of Age in Fantasyland (Chap. 10 "In Defense of Stone Tablets: Isaac Asimov Explains Why Science Fiction Is Skeptical about 'New Information Technologies'")
by Gary Westfahl. 180 pgs.

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Literature often is central to individual maturation. It typically reflects, in one way or another, the experiences of the reader and the larger strains of society. This book examines representative works of science fiction, children's literature, and popular culture as mirrors of what it means to grow up in the contemporary world. That world is permeated by technology, and technology thus figures prominently in the process of growing up and in these literary works. Included are chapters on Superman, the Hardy Boys, Star Trek, music videos, and other topics.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 How Charlie Made Children Hate Him: Fantasy and Reality In Stories for Small Children

2 The Three Lives Of Superman-- And Everybody Else

3 Mystery of the Amateur Detectives: the Early Days Of the Hardy Boys

4 Giving Horatio Alger Goosebumps, Or, From Hardy Boys to Hapless Boys: The Changing Ethos of Juvenile Series Fiction

5 From the Back of the Head To Beyond the Moon: the Novel And Film This Island Earth

6: Opposing War, Exploiting War: the Troubled Pacifism of Star Trek

7 Even Better Than the Real Thing: Advertising, Music Videos, Postmodernism, And (eventually) Science Fiction

8 Legends of the Fall: Going Not Particularly Far Behind the Music

9: Hollywood Strikes a Pose: Seven Tales of Triumph, Treachery, And Travail in Old Tinseltown

10 In Defense of Stone Tablets: Isaac Asimov Explains Why Science Fiction is Skeptical About "New Information Technologies"

11 Partial Derivatives: Popular Misinterpretations Of H. G. Wells's the Time Machine

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
4 .

Science Fiction: Ten Explorations (Chap. 2 "Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-53; serialized 1942-49)")
by C. N. Manlove. 249 pgs.

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Science Fiction: Ten Explorations

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1: Introduction

2: Isaac Asimov, the Foundation Trilogy (1951‐ 53; Serialized 1942-49)

3: Frederik Pohl, Alternating Currents (1956)

4: Brian Aldiss, Hothouse (1962)

5: Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

6: Robert Silverberg, Nightwings (1969)

7: Philip José Farmer, to Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

8: Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama ( 1973)

9: Clifford D. Simak, Shakespeare's Planet (1976)

10: A. A. Attanasio, Radix (1981)

11: Gene Wolfe, the Book of the New Sun (1980-83)

12: Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index
5 .

Science Fiction ("The Golden Age: Asimov" begins on p. 75)
by Adam Roberts. 204 pgs.

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This outstanding volume offers a clear and critically engaged account of the phenomenon of science fiction. Adam Roberts provides a concise history of science fiction also explaining key concepts in SF criticism and theory, in chapters such as Gender, Race and Technology. He examines the interactions between science fiction and science fact, anchoring each chapter with a case study drawn from short story, book or film, from Frank Herbert's Dune to Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black .Introducing the reader to nineteenth-century, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Feminist and Cyberpunk science fictions, this is the essential guide to a major cultural movement.

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Contents

Series Editor’s Preface

Acknowledgements

1: Defining Science Fiction

2: The History of Science Fiction

3: Gender

4: Race

5: Technology and Metaphor

6: Conclusion

Glossary

Select Bibliography

Index
6 .

Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds (Discussion of Isaac Asimov begins on p. 139)
by George E. Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin. 324 pgs.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Concept of Mindscape

I Premises

1: Nature: Laws and Surprises

2: The Survival of Myth in Science Fiction

3: "The Swelling Act": The Psychoanalytic Geography of Fantasy

4: Metaphorical Drive -- or Why We'Re Such Good Liars

5: The Playing Fields of Eden

6: Bookscapes: Science Fiction in the Library of Babe

Mappings

7: Belief and Other Worlds: Ktesias and the Founding of the "Indian Wonders"

8: Universal Mindscape: The Gaia Hypothesis in Science Fiction

9: Recent Feminist Utopias: World Building and Strategies for Social Change

10: Time and Vast Eternities: Landscapes of Immortality in Orson Scott Card's Fiction

II: Avenues of Power: Cities as the Mindscapes of Politics

12: The Two Landscapes of J. G. Ballard's Concrete Island

13: Neuroscience Fiction: The Roman à Synaptic Cleft

Methods

14: Islands in the Sky: Space Stations In the Universe of Science Fiction

15: What Really Happened on Mulberry Street?

16: Infinity in Your Back Pocket: Pocket Universes and Adjacent Worlds

17: Landscape and the Romantic Dilemma: Myth and Metaphor in Science-Fiction Narrative

18: "The Adjutant": Suggestions for Maps in Time and Space From Greene to Johnson to Lem

Examples: A Forum

1: The Ultimate Mindscape: Dante's Paradiso

2: Pascal's Terror

3: The Revolutionary Mindscape

4: Suggestions for a Typology of Mindscapes

Biographical Notes

Index
7 .

Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction (Discussion of Isaac Asimov begins on p. 143)
by Gary Westfahl. 224 pgs.

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Although the exploration of space has long preoccupied authors and filmmakers, the development of an actual space program, discoveries about the true nature of space, and critical reconsiderations of America's frontier experiences have challenged and complicated conventional portrayals of humans in space. This volume reexamines the themes of space and the frontier in science fiction in light of recent scientific and literary developments. Included are the observations of noted science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Gregory Benford, James Gunn, and Jack Williamson, along with contributions from leading scholars in the field.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

1: Introduction: Frontiers Old and New

Works Cited

I: The Challenge of Space

2: Space vs.Time

3: Big Dumb Objects and Cosmic Enigmas: The Love Affair between Space Fiction and the Transcendental.

Works Cited

4: Flying to the Moon in French and American Science Fiction

Works Cited

5: What Is This Thing Called Space Opera?

6: On the Final Frontier

II: The Cinema of Space

7: The True Frontier: Confronting and Avoiding the Realities of Space in American Science Fiction Films

Works Cited

8: The Art of Technology: Contours of Space in the Science Fiction Film

Works Cited

Works Cited

9: Space for Resistance: The Disruption of the American Frontier Myth in 1950s Science Fiction Films

Works Cited

10: Way Station -- The Motion Picture: A Possibly Premature Progress Report

III: The Pioneers of Space

11: Flight of Passage: Space Travel as the Metaphoric Crossing of the Threshold

Works Cited

12: Take Me to Your Leader: A New Future for First Contact Stories

Notes

Works Cited

13: Space and the Frontier in Leslie F. Stone's "The Fall of Mercury"

Notes

Works Cited

14: Space Opera without the Space: The Culture Novels of lain M. Banks

Works Cited

Notes

15: Re-Mythologizing Outer Space with C. S. Lewis and Cordwainer Smith

Notes

Works Cited

16: Painwise in Space: The Psychology of Isolation in Cordwainer Smith and James R Tiptree, Jr.

Works Cited

IV: Other Frontiers

17: Social Science in Space and Time

Works Cited

18: Space, Future War, and the Frontier in American Nuclear Apocalypse Narrative

Works Cited

19: Men and Women in Separate Spaces

Works Cited

20: Cyberspace:The Moral Dimension

Works Cited

21: New Worlds for Old

Works Cited

V: Singularitiles: Perspectives on Space

22: Comments on Space and Time

23: Sir Arthur C. Clarke: A Telephone Conversation

Index

About the Contributors
8 .

Isaac Asimov: A One-Man Renaissance, in The Humanist
by Bette Chambers. 3 pgs.

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9 .

The Legacy of Isaac Asimov, in The Humanist
by Pat Duffy Hutcheon. 3 pgs.

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