Is anyone here familiar with his work? They say that he was an idea writer, meaning that it was mainly his ideas he wanted to drive across rather than create a well-rounded story. If this is true, could anyone give me any examples (or provide any links) to how he showcased his ideas? Did he, for instance, often re-hash plot points or did he borrow heavily from other stories, characters, themes, or plot? I'm asking because I don't think I'm going to read any of his work in the near future as I have a rather large list to go through already.
I have read quite a few of his works. He didn't come across as a pusher for his beliefs - ignoring aliens and science of course. Michael Crichton on the other hand heavily forced his opinions on the reader. Just like claiming global warming wasn't made worse by humans (first example of his that comes to mind) What Asimov did was generate scientific ideas about space, exploration and the physical sciences. A bit like Clarke, with his idea of geostationary satellites - which eventually became true. Rgds
Yes, that's what I meant. He introduced, for instance the concept of Space Empires and medieval rulers in the far flung future. Could you help in regards to this question?
I think he's classed as an "idea writer" because the ideas are what's really original about his work - they're what makes him stand out. I don't know that he deliberately sat down and said "I'm going to focus on ideas" or anything... But when you read him (and, honestly, he wrote a lot of short stories, so you really should find time to read at least a few if you're trying to learn from him) probably what you take away won't be something like "Oh, I just LOVED Captain Black! He's so cool, but underneath it all he's scared and he can't show it but he manages to pull it all together for Tobi...". That'd be a sign of a character-based author. And you probably won't take away "Damn, I loved the way all the threads that seemed so unconnected and random all tied together at the end with just the right twist...". That'd be a sign of a plot-based author. With Asimov, you're more likely to get something like "Wow. Yeah. If I'd never experienced darkness before and then suddenly it was dark... maybe that is what it'd be like..."
The best Science Fiction can always answer to your description, though I find the description - the way you've posed it - presumes within its thesis that this engagement is flawed somehow and will thus lead to a flawed outcome. In his robot novels, Asimov was one of the earliest writers to make use of the trope of artificial intelligence to talk in detail about human intelligence and the human soul. But to accept this as true you have to accept that his robot novels are not about robots, they're about us. The robots are only a foil, a lens, a way of simplifying an immensely complex idea in order to begin at a primordial beginning and work from there. Not all readers of Science Fiction, especially early Science Fiction, are willing to take that route, to view through that filter. For them it's about the actual technology and advancements, which, in my opinion, is a soulless approach to the genre. Science Fiction is no different to any other genre in that, at its best, it is always about the human condition.
I agree with most of what Wreybies said. (And, curiously, when I typed "Wreybies" just now, that little red squiggle that underlines misspellings popped up. Is there any way you can hack into the dictionary on your own site, for Chrissakes ((which word didn't rate a squiggle)) and enter your name as a valid word?) Artificial intelligence people pooh-pooh Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics," which was an attempt to program an ethical system into the robot's hardware. But as Wreybies pointed out, Asimov was using that device to explore the complexities of human ethics, and asking the reader to approach the subject with the same analytical frame of mind that he or she would apply to an engineering problem. Asimov was also one of the first people to write multiple books that followed a single story arc. In his last years, his books tied all these story arcs together into one big arc (with a few novels like Nemesis that fell outside that category). In those books, he explored concepts like "If parapsychological skills could be developed, what would they look like? What could they do? How could they be misused?" To the readers of the time, who were accustomed to stories where the main plots revolved around spacemen riding rocket ships to fire on menacing alien species with blasters, this was utterly novel. But Asimov stands out among "idea writers" in his ability to get the reader to exercise a few brain cells. This is most apparent in the mystery stories he wrote. Some worked better than others, but all of them encouraged you to think outside the box.
I couldn't agree more. My first books by Azimov were from the Foundation series and then I just couldn't stop. In my opinion his science fiction books are one of the most thought-out and complete.
