AG Monday!
When we were youngsters, first exploring science fiction, Isaac Asimov’s robot stories were a must-read. The short story collection I, Robot, anthologized Asimov’s stories that centered on the famous Three Laws Of Robotics, the rules that governed thinking machines in his fictional setting. Now, in the real world, the Three Laws Of Robotics are not just often-quoted among SF fans, but also among people developing robots and artificial intelligences in the real world.
In the history of science fiction, Asimov’s robot stories were Important, with a capital “I.” But how well do they hold up, when our older selves return to the robot series, 40 or 50 years later? And how well did Asimov’s I, Robot anticipate the robot-related and AI-generated problems that would face people in the future? Well, um, that is, er…
Science fiction as a predictive tool! Robots going haywire! Robots going bananas! Robots going nuts! Robots getting poor performance reviews! It’s all here.
Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of popular culture. We were geeks before it was chic!
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This had to happen in double Hell Week….
Some quick thoughts:
1) There are women in Foundation. In book two, Foundation and Empire, the protagonist is Bayta Darell. She drives a lot of the action, and (spoiler alert) eventually saves the day by preventing the Mule from obtaining the whereabouts of the Second Foundation.
In book three, Second Foundation, the protagonist is Arkady Darell, granddaughter of Bayta. She’s smart and driven, and again she drives the plot, and (spoiler alert) figures out where the Second Foundation is. Yes, she was used and deceived by the Speakers of the Second Foundation, but they picked her because she was smart and driven.
2) Asimov’s early fiction is pulpy. This is because a) he was young, and 2) he wrote for the pulp magazines of the day and imitated the style of these. He does improve later on.
3) Asimov was computer illiterate. On latter stories a backup memory on robots would render the stories moot. He never got to that level of sophistication.
4) Not only are there no robots in foundation, there are no computers, either (until the sequels). This is because Asimov regarded Foundation, robots, and computers, to be separate categories of stories.
5) One robot story that foresees real world issues that have manifested themselves by now, is Galley Slave. I think it’s found in the collection The Complete Robot, though it may be in others as well.
6) Stories published after The Complete Robot are found in Robot Dreams, and Robot Visions.
@Kathy: FWIW, I was referring only to the first book, Foundation, regarding the no women observation.