It’s peculiar that they chose “Robot Dreams” for Isaac Asmov’s contribution to the collection: it’s a very uncharacteristic Asimov story.
Asimov’s whole point in writing his robot stories was to fight the “Frankenstein complex,” the irrational sense of doom that people had about technology. He felt that AI would inevitably have safety precautions built in, and that robots would almost inevitably end up to be less dangerous than human beings themselves.
As I said, “Robot Dreams” is unusual for Asimov; it's not abou that at all, except perhaps in the sense that the Frankenstein complex afflicts even the robot-makers. I suppose they picked it because it was one of his last stories, and because it’s undoubtedly very good.
Showing posts with label Asimov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asimov. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Dogs and Robots and Mutants, Oh My!
My room was getting its semiannual cleaning this weekend (blech!) and I happened on a long-lost book that had been buried under my winter clothes: Clifford D. Simak's City.
It's a collection of short stories detailing Simak's future history of the decline of the human race. They're framed as myths that the intelligent dogs of the future tell each other about long-departed humanity- though educated dogs doubt that any such creature ever existed.
Humanity in Simak's future doesn't go out with a bang. It fails quietly, through social isolation and a lack of anything to strive for. It is replaced by dogs, who are made intelligent by means of surgery (today we'd say genetic engineering, but it amounts to the same thing) robots, and mutants- superintelligent, amoral beings whose purposes are never entirely clear.
Simak's writing is wistful: peaceful, sad, and ultimately resigned to the extinction of things. He seems to be an evolutionary writer, in the sense that H.G. Wells was; but where Wells triumphantly wrote of the dawn of new races, Simak writes eulogies for the fall of the old ones.
One surprise, in passing, is how much Isaac Asimov borrowed from Simak. His Solaria, with its agoraphobic isolationists, is directly taken from Simak; and Daneel Olivaw is clearly based on Jenkins, the immortal telepathic robot who discreetly guides humanity (and caninity) through history.
It's a collection of short stories detailing Simak's future history of the decline of the human race. They're framed as myths that the intelligent dogs of the future tell each other about long-departed humanity- though educated dogs doubt that any such creature ever existed.
Humanity in Simak's future doesn't go out with a bang. It fails quietly, through social isolation and a lack of anything to strive for. It is replaced by dogs, who are made intelligent by means of surgery (today we'd say genetic engineering, but it amounts to the same thing) robots, and mutants- superintelligent, amoral beings whose purposes are never entirely clear.
Simak's writing is wistful: peaceful, sad, and ultimately resigned to the extinction of things. He seems to be an evolutionary writer, in the sense that H.G. Wells was; but where Wells triumphantly wrote of the dawn of new races, Simak writes eulogies for the fall of the old ones.
One surprise, in passing, is how much Isaac Asimov borrowed from Simak. His Solaria, with its agoraphobic isolationists, is directly taken from Simak; and Daneel Olivaw is clearly based on Jenkins, the immortal telepathic robot who discreetly guides humanity (and caninity) through history.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Timescales in Science Fiction
Today I finished Robert J. Sawyer's early novel Starplex. It's reminiscent of Star Trek, in that a coalition of aliens and humans has joined together on a starship to explore space, and seek out new life and new civilizations...
(Cue theme music.)
Halfway through the novel, time travel comes up; and we discover that one of the characters will apparently live to be ten billion years old.
Ten billion. Working on this kind of timescale takes a certain kind of bald-faced audacity on the author's part, both because the number itself is staggering and because you can't really do any kind of story over that length of time. All you can do is pick out episodes; or, as in this case, go to the end and see what's there.
Orson Scott Card did this, in his Homecoming series; it's generally understood that the Oversoul has been active for tens of millions of years since the founding of the planet Harmony. Card handles this by confronting it head-on: by having one of the characters talk about the impossibility of any kind of history handling that enormous duration. Even if there were some mega-library with the history all written down, who could live long enough to read it?
On the other hand, you have Isaac Asimov; his Galactic Empire was originally written to be fifty thousand years into the future, but Asimov retconned this into twenty thousand years later on. Why? A feeling that fifty thousand years is too long, somehow?
(Cue theme music.)
Halfway through the novel, time travel comes up; and we discover that one of the characters will apparently live to be ten billion years old.
Ten billion. Working on this kind of timescale takes a certain kind of bald-faced audacity on the author's part, both because the number itself is staggering and because you can't really do any kind of story over that length of time. All you can do is pick out episodes; or, as in this case, go to the end and see what's there.
Orson Scott Card did this, in his Homecoming series; it's generally understood that the Oversoul has been active for tens of millions of years since the founding of the planet Harmony. Card handles this by confronting it head-on: by having one of the characters talk about the impossibility of any kind of history handling that enormous duration. Even if there were some mega-library with the history all written down, who could live long enough to read it?
On the other hand, you have Isaac Asimov; his Galactic Empire was originally written to be fifty thousand years into the future, but Asimov retconned this into twenty thousand years later on. Why? A feeling that fifty thousand years is too long, somehow?
Thursday, June 21, 2007
What I Got From Amazon Recently...
Two things.
Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare- which I read in the library, a long time ago, and only vaguely remembered. I wanted to compare it to Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
Asimov focuses much more on historical background than Bloom does; especially in the history plays, he often neglects the plays themselves to discuss what really happened, and how Shakespeare got it wrong or right. This can get frustrating; but it's very informative, and after all, with Bloom I've already got an in-depth look at the plays from a literary perspective.
That arrived yesterday. Today's arrival was Illegal Alien, an early Robert J. Sawyer novel about a first alien contact turned into a murder mystery.
I'm a big Sawyer fan, so I'm going to have to delve into it.
Embarrassing Non-Arrival of the Day: I misread a banner advertisement for the latest Harry Potter novel, and wandered around for ten minutes looking for copies. So it's due out in July. Hmmph.
Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare- which I read in the library, a long time ago, and only vaguely remembered. I wanted to compare it to Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
Asimov focuses much more on historical background than Bloom does; especially in the history plays, he often neglects the plays themselves to discuss what really happened, and how Shakespeare got it wrong or right. This can get frustrating; but it's very informative, and after all, with Bloom I've already got an in-depth look at the plays from a literary perspective.
That arrived yesterday. Today's arrival was Illegal Alien, an early Robert J. Sawyer novel about a first alien contact turned into a murder mystery.
I'm a big Sawyer fan, so I'm going to have to delve into it.
Embarrassing Non-Arrival of the Day: I misread a banner advertisement for the latest Harry Potter novel, and wandered around for ten minutes looking for copies. So it's due out in July. Hmmph.
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