Over rated Authors-Isaac Asimov

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by taustin

It's not missing so much as punished.

Some might call it turnabout, given how often it has been used as an excuse to punish rationalist thinking.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Really, avoid anything of his that isn't Dune. They're quite 60s & 70s and the best you can call them is schlock, I think.

I have a high tolerance for "schlock" but DUNE MESSIAH is just a mess.
UNDER PRESSURE, on the other hand, I found to be a cut above everything of his but DUNE. (And, being a glutton for punishment, I have a fairly deep Herbert library.) At the time it was highly regarded, too.

Bradbury I just never got into. A matter of style and taste. Most poetry doesn't do much for me either.
I just prefer lean prose (Asimov over Bradbury, Donaldson over Tolkien, etc)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I have a high tolerance for "schlock" but DUNE MESSIAH is just a mess.
UNDER PRESSURE, on the other hand, I found to be a cut above everything of his but DUNE. (And, being a glutton for punishment, I have a fairly deep Herbert library.) At the time it was highly regarded, too.

Bradbury I just never got into. A matter of style and taste. Most poetry doesn't do much for me either.
I just prefer lean prose (Asimov over Bradbury, Donaldson over Tolkien, etc)

And anything over Neil Stephenson

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by taustin

Well, they're noisy, ugly, smelly, and grow up to be teenagers.

Aside from that, nothing. But I do believe that women should aspire to something other than being a plot of dirt to be plowed and planted.

So you don't like babies, and you believe women who find the process of making them mutually enjoyable to be worthy of denigration. Are you a misogynist all the time, or just today?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Phogg

So you don't like babies,

All children, really, but not children in general. It's just that most of the ones I meet, I hate personally and individuall.

Originally Posted by Phogg

and you believe women who find the process of making them mutually enjoyable to be worthy of denigration.

Not what I said.

Originally Posted by Phogg

Are you a misogynist all the time, or just today?

Are you a liar all the time, or just today? (Note: you started the namecalling, not me.)

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And anything over Neil Stephenson

Blasphemy....

[JAcheson]

Asimov was definitely an idea man. His best stuff is probably his robot stories, where he takes an interesting concept (his Three Laws of Robotics) and then turns them into pretty good stories that also serve to show the twists and turns and limits of the basic concept.

They are fairly dated, though. I reread I, Robot after the Will Smith movie came out, and stuff like astronauts on Mercury riding on the shoulders of robots and steering them with the robots' ears was just wacky by that point. Even his Three Laws of Robotics are kind of a charming anachronism in the modern day.

I will also say that I appreciate the economy with which the 50's sci fi guys wrote. I like it when I can read an entire novel within 150 pages.

[Bald Eagle]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And anything over Neil Stephenson

Someone needs to listen to Reason...

REASON version 1.0B7
Gatling-type 3mm
hypervelocity railgun system
Ng Security Industries,Inc.

PRERELEASE VERSION–NOT FOR FIELD USE

DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
- ULTIMA RATIO REGUM -

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JAcheson

They are fairly dated, though. I reread I, Robot after the Will Smith movie came out, and stuff like astronauts on Mercury riding on the shoulders of robots and steering them with the robots' ears was just wacky

You think 50's era robot-back exploration is wacky?
After watching that movie?

I'm thinking future generations will be a *lot* kinder to Asimov than to the producers of that particular bit of Hollywood dreck...
(Bridget Moynihan is a fine actress but way down the list of appropriate casting choices for Susan Calvin. And that is the least of brickbats headed their way.)

I will grant that as attrocious as I ROBOT was, it pales before the abomination that was Nightfall (1988).

[QuantumIguana]

Asimov's three laws are well beyond our ability to implement. To obey the first or third laws requires that the robot be able to recognize when harm is taking place or is about to take place. It then requires the robot to recognize what steps to take to correct or prevent the harm.

The second law, getting the robot to understand what you want when you give it an order is tricky enough as it is.

I didn't think I, Robot was a great movie, but it did seem a possible outcome of the Zeroth Law of Robotics, "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." Once you allow the robots to violate the First Law, pretty much anything goes. The robot would free to do anything that it thinks will prevent harm to humanity.

Nightfall, that was a couple hours I wish I could surgically remove from my brain.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Asimov's three laws are well beyond our ability to implement. To obey the first or third laws requires that the robot be able to recognize when harm is taking place or is about to take place. It then requires the robot to recognize what steps to take to correct or prevent the harm.

And that doesn't even begin to address the issue of who gets to define hard in the first place. And, to put a Star Trek/Kirk hates computers spin on it, how does a robot deal with a masochist? "Not harming me is harmful to me."

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The second law, getting the robot to understand what you want when you give it an order is tricky enough as it is.

Lesson #1 in any programming class is the difference between the computer doing what you told it to, and doing what you want it to.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by taustin

how does a robot deal with a masochist? "Not harming me is harmful to me."

Infliction of pain is not equal to structural damage. Just a matter of adjustment and methods.
And as it is not unpleasant for the masochist, therefore there is no psychic damage inflicted too.
Easy enough isn't it?

[gojisube]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Interesting that you bring up Tom Corbett Vis-a-vis Lucky Starr. The Lucky Starr books were conceived as companions to a proposed TV show Asimov was consulting on (Intended to compete with Tom Corbett) and they were intended for what 50's editors viewed as Young Adults. That the science was as "accurate" as it is (for the time) was Asimov going above and beyond the requirements of the effort.

Pulpishness and dated science aside, the books are still quite readable; especially the latter ones where Asimov folded them into his 50 worlds millieau.

Now I didn't know that Lucky Starr was intended to be a TV show. I've been reading the Lucky Starr books for the first time over the past couple of months, and have been finding them enjoyable.

Just thought I should clarify that I didn't mean to imply they weren't worth readin. Just that if a person didn't like Asimov writing for adults, I can't imagine what they would think of him writing for young adults.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Anabran

Yes but it was supposed to set in the Distant future and the most advance future tech this so called" visionary" he could imagine was nuclear power.

A Truly Talented Sci fiWriter Like Frank Herbert Wrote Dune in the 1960's its Future tech was way more imaginative as well as his Characters but.... Oh no!!I just mentioned Asimov and Frank Herbert in the same forum post about Sci fi writers
My deepest Apologies to Fellow Frank Herbert Fans.

I loved Dune, but it's maybe not the best example of imaginative science fiction, since it's jihad in space with magical powers. The characters even use the Arabic word for 'dune.' The "future tech" in that book was about on the same level as Star Wars.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by gojisube

Now I didn't know that Lucky Starr was intended to be a TV show. I've been reading the Lucky Starr books for the first time over the past couple of months, and have been finding them enjoyable.

I thought most editions had the story explaining why he used a pseudonym on the series. Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Starr_series

On 23 March 1951, Asimov met with his agent, Frederik Pohl, and Walter I. Bradbury, then the science fiction editor at Doubleday & Co., who had a proposal for him. Pohl and Bradbury wanted Asimov to write a juvenile science fiction novel that would serve as the basis for a television series. Fearing that the novel would be adapted into the "uniformly awful" programming he saw flooding the television channels,[1] he decided to publish it under the pseudonym "Paul French". Asimov began work on the novel, David Starr: Space Ranger, on 10 June. He completed it on 29 July, and it was published by Doubleday in January 1952. Although plans for the television series fell through, Asimov continued to write novels in the series, eventually producing six. A seventh, Lucky Starr and the Snows of Pluto, was planned, but abandoned when Asimov elected to devote himself to writing non-fiction almost exclusively. With no worries about being associated with an embarrassing televised version, Asimov decided to abandon the pretense that he was not the author (although the books continued to be published under the Paul French pseudonym). He brought the Three Laws of Robotics into Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, which he wrote in his autobiography "was a dead giveaway to Paul French's identity for even the most casual reader".[2]

Even at his worst, Asimov was always readable, from MAROONED OFF VESTA to his posthumous works.