It all started when I saw an ad for The Prelude to Foundation on sale for the Kindle. I had read the Foundation trilogy back when I was a kid and I wondered if I read the Foundation series now should I read them in publication order or internal chronological order. I did some research and found these recommendations. Then a guy in my book club recommended a variation of those recommendations which included books not written by Asimov:

1. The Complete Robot (no audiobook)
2. Caves of Steel
3. Naked Sun
4. Robots of Dawn
5. Robots and Empire
6. The Stars, Like Dust
7. Currents of Space
8. Pebble in the Sky
9. Prelude to Foundation
10. Forward the Foundation
11. Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford (no audiobook)
12. Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear (no audiobook)
13. Foundation’s Triumph by David Brin (no audiobook)
14. Foundation
15. Foundation and Empire
16. Second Foundation
17. Foundation’s Edge
18. Foundation and Earth

I love to listen to science fiction, so I was disappointed that the first book wasn’t on audio. However, there are three audiobooks available of Asimov’s short stories, I, Robot, Robot Dreams, and Robot Visions. I’m still going to have to read twelve short stories and the essays out of The Complete Robot, but it’s nice to know I can listen to 18 of them. Plus, Robot Dreams (1986) and Robot Visions (1990) have a handful of robot stories not in The Complete Robot (1982). Robot Dreams and Robot Visions have misleading titles. You’d think they’d be two collections all about robots, but they’re really collections of some of Asimov’s more popular stories and essays that feature a handful of robot stories.

According to Wikipedia, these six robot stories were not in The Complete Robot:

• “Robot Dreams” (found in Robot Dreams)
• “Robot Visions” (found in Robot Visions)
• “Too Bad!” (found in Robot Visions)
• “Christmas Without Rodney” (found in Robot Visions)
• “Cal” (found in Gold)
• “Kid Brother” (found in Gold)

What has started as an idle whim thinking about reading Foundation series, has turned into a project to read all the Robot series. I really wish I could get The Complete Robot with all the stories and essays in an audiobook. Who makes the decisions about which older books get put on audio — do they have a suggestion box? Evidently, short story collections aren’t big sellers. I’ve been hoping for years to see the shorter works of Samuel R. Delany, but no luck so far. If I think about it, I can rattle off a whole list of SF authors whose short stories I’d like to listen to. The first three to come to mind are William Tenn, Zenna Henderson, and Robert F. Young.

It’s rather fascinating that Isaac Asimov’s science fiction career focuses so much on these two series. I’ve always thought space travel, aliens, and robots were the core of science fiction, so it’s odd that Asimov pretty much ignores aliens, although not completely. He said he did this earlier in his career so as not to conflict with John W. Campbell’s editorial belief in human superiority. And this is especially ironic since Asimov was a professor of biochemistry and probably could have produced some great hard science fiction about alien lifeforms.

My gut tells me the new Anthropocene will quickly be supplanted by an age of robots. I’d bet sometimes before the end of this century we will have self-aware robots that are much smarter than us. For many years Asimov’s stories about robots dominated the sub-genre. So I think it’s a good time to read and think about them. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing Asimov will be completely wrong in his speculations about intelligent machines. Asimov is famous for formulating his Three Laws of Robotics, but I doubt we will ever be able to implement them into sentient AI. The three laws made a great structure for fiction though.

Asimov along with Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H. Greenberg also edited Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots & Computers. I wish that anthology was also on audiobook, but alas such classic anthologies seldom get produced with professional narration.

It’s odd. I opened my email this morning, found an ad for The Prelude to Foundation, and by the end of the day, have been sidetracked into a reading plan that might take a year to finish.

By the way, there’s a new edition of The Complete Robot that came out in 2018. Unfortunately, it’s only available in paper, no ebook or audio.

Asimov’s Robot Stories in order of publication:

1. (1940) “Robbie”
2. (1941) “Liar!”
3. (1941) “Reason”
4. (1942) “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”
5. (1942) “Runaround”
6. (1942) “Victory Unintentional”
7. (1944) “Catch That Rabbit!”
8. (1945) “Escape!”
9. (1946) “Evidence”
10. (1947) “Little Lost Robot”
11. (1950) “The Evitable Conflict”
12. (1951) “Satisfaction Guaranteed”
13. (1953) “Sally”
14. (1954) The Caves of Steel
15. (1955) “Risk”
16. (1956) “First Law”
17. (1956) “Someday”
18. (1957) “Galley Slave”
19. (1957) “Let’s Get Together”
20. (1957) The Naked Sun
21. (1958) “Lenny”
22. (1967) “Segregationist”
23. (1969) “Feminine Intuition”
24. (1972) “Mirror Image”
25. (1973) “Light Verse”
26. (1974) “Stranger in Paradise”
27. (1974) “. . . That Thou Art Mindful of Him”
28. (1975) “A Boy’s Best Friend”
29. (1975) “Point of View”
30. (1976) “The Bicentennial Man”
31. (1976) “The Tercentenary Incident”
32. (1977) “Think!”
33. (1977) “True Love”
34. (1983) The Robots of Dawn
35. (1985) Robots and Empire
36. (1986) “Robot Dreams”
37. (1988) “Christmas Without Rodney”
38. (1989) “Too Bad!”
39. (1990) “Kid Brother”
40. (1990) “Robot Visions”
41. (1991) “Cal”

This shows Isaac Asimov never stopped thinking about robots. Asimov died in 1992.

James Wallace Harris