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Asimov Estate Authorizes New I, Robot Books
daria42 writes "In a move guaranteed to annoy long-term science fiction fans, the estate of legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov, who passed away in 1992, has authorized a trilogy of sequels to his beloved I, Robot short story series, to be written by relatively unknown fantasy author Mickey Zucker Reichert. The move is already garnering opposition online. 'Isaac Asimov died forty years after they were first written. If he had wanted to follow them up, he would have. The author's intentions need to be respected here,' writes sci-fi/fantasy book site Keeping the Door."
Probably too late for that. Sigh :(
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
The 0th law is thou shalt sell out and cash in big.
It overrides the other 3 laws ;-)
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... this is just _wrong_!
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Especially, hope that they are not as spotty in quality as the post Frank Herbert Dune sequels.
What kind of elitist crap is that? I love Asimov's books, I have read most of them and they probably helped shape me in a way. I say that if someone wants to have a go at some sequels the go right a head. I don't think that they will be even comparable but I might enjoy them anyway. The worst thing that can happen is that they are not worth reading.
The author's intentions need to be respected here.
The author no longer exists, and therefore cannot possibly have intentions.
That said, this kind of posthumous sequel is almost always a disaster, but that's only a problem for the people who read them. If the idea bugs you at all, rest assured that you are bothered infinitely more than the original author is.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
No, that would be the same if Asimov rose from the dead and decided to write three more books.
eclecti.cc
At this point, I'll bet that there have been more Sherlock Holmes stories written by "Holmesians" than were ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. And hardly anyone outside of a tiny circle of fandom knows any of them, and none of them have tarnished the reputation of the originals.
I suspect there are many people reading this who haven't even heard of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a 1974 ersatz "Sherlock Holmes" novel. It was a bestseller at the time, was adapted into a movie--and, I'm pretty sure, is well on the way to being forgotten.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No-one knows jack about AI.. most can't even define it.
And if you thought his books were about AI, you completely missed the point.
How we know is more important than what we know.
was that if he could do anything to help new writers along, he looked at it as fair payback for his own good fortune. He believed in the ideas. This doesn't mean he wouldn't protect his own turf copyright wise, but don't forget the Robot City books which had this exact purpose. He was a good and generous person and so quickly judging this as a money grab isn't fair to his memory.
The travesty here isn't that someone is writing sequels to the original series. The travesty is that his heirs still have a monopoly on the series, 57 years later.
People writing sequels to books is the right for society to continue to enrichen our culture. Regardless of the quality of the works that will be produced, society grows by garnering inspiration and aid from past works. I'm sure Shakespeare has inspired and helped many a person in learning the trade of creating stories. The tragedy here is that companies like Disney reap all of the benefits of the public domain, while ensuring very little will ever be added back to it.
Before I get attacked by those who believe you have a right for all time to your ideas, this is a modern construct. Society managed to survive millenia without the damn thing. And as someone who seeks to earn their living in the software industry, I would quite happily place my work in the public domain voluntarily after a period of 25 years.
I, Robot
You, Robot
Him, Robot
They, Robot.
In other languages there's even more conjugations possible!
It's always been fascinating to me that most fiction is repeating the same stories (see Joseph Campbell), but that certain writers can make the tale shine in a new way. It's what she can do with these "generic fantasy" stories that makes her either a good or bad author. Whether she can take the "I, Robot" series and make them memorable and entertaining remains to be seen.
Besides, IMHO, the "I, Robot" stories were to some extent just detective stories, with robots and some interesting speculation about robot "morality", with Asimov exploring how that morality could be circumvented. It is up to the discerning to recognize that he was really talking about human morality...as well as making a living as an author. ;)
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? --Abraham Lincoln
My AI course teacher said that AI was whatever we hadn't figured out to do with computers yet.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? --Abraham Lincoln
A few select pieces of timeline:
_I, Robot_, 1950.
_Foundation_, 1951.
_Foundation's Edge_, 1982.
_Robots and Empire_, 1985.
_Foundation and Earth_, 1986.
Author's death, 1992.
It seems obvious he felt it entirely possible to follow up with a book 30 years after beginning, and it is certainly true that he didn't feel Robots were finished off as a body of story 35-36 years after beginning (Foundation and Earth is arguably a Robots novel). If he had lived another 40 years beyond 1986 and not touched the universe, then I think we could have argued about original intentions. Passing a mere 6 years after the last entries, however, tells us nothing about his true intent, or how it would change after decades of pondering his creations.
Of course, being revisionist in assessing his intent is a bit clever, isn't it? Seeing as how many times he revised his own plans, thoughts and plot/ story/ time lines.
Thinking about what has changed in the intervening 60 years, I don't think a contemporary author can claim to pen an extension that is serious and respectful of the original work.
20 years ago it wouldn't have surprised me to see anthropomorphic, autonomous robots as an everyday part of life in 20 years. Asimov saw them on the horizon 60 years ago.
But 20 years later, despite all our advances in technology, I don't even see this on the horizon, much less in another 20 years.
I think in our optimism we overlooked two important realities:
1) Human life is cheap, economically and ethically.
2) The full range of human psychology and intelligence is not beneficial to the performance of most human labor.
To complain about this. Asimov himself had begun the work of integrating the Robot stories with his Foundation/Galactic Empire stories. All kinds of prequels and sequels were written by the master himself and by other authors and this is just more of the same. Details here.
Now, here is my question. In the original I Robot stories, the robot's positronic brains were made out of something referred to as Platinum-Iridium sponge. As this is written, Platinum is $1325/troy oz. and Iridium
is $425. Aren't you grateful that real computers are made out of silicon. Was any adjustment of technology made in the subsequent Robot stories?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
It's true that there's more to these stories than "AI". (Notice the similarity between the social role of robots in some stories and the humiliations inflicted at that time on African-Americans.) But the AI part is important. Asimov was a "hard" SF writer — he didn't pull the science out of his ass, not even the imaginary science.
Here are some examples: there's "Runaround," where a robot behaves strangely because of a conflict between the second and third law. Then there's "Little Lost Robot" where the robot behaves strangely because of a modified first law. Then there's "Reason" where a robot behaves strangely after inventing its own cosmology. Then there's "Liar!" where a psychic robot behaves strangly because of a conflict between normal honesty and the first law.
Do you see a common thread here? Oh yes, and Susan Calvin, the most important character in these stories, is an expert on robot behavior.
Defining "artificial intelligence" isn't hard: it's about intelligence (and thus behavior) in artificial systems — such as robots. It is true that AI has made very little progress towards understanding how intelligence works and actually creating an artificial equivalent of natural intelligence. But that's precisely why Asimov's stories are dated. Because we now know that creating a machine that can hold a conversation with humans, make moral judgments, and act rationally in complicated situations is a lot harder than he assumed it was.
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
4) ???
5) A robot collects profit.
6) WTF???
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention
Oh grow up. If you can't disagree with somebody without being an asshole, don't expect anybody to care about your opinions.
And believe it or not, there's an attitude towards Asimov that's somewhere between hero worship and total contempt.
While all of the stories in I Robot were first written 40 years before his death, Issac's positronic robots, and the three laws were something that he kept coming back to, time and again, throughout his career writing SF. His last works of fiction tied his earlier robot and Foundation stories together into one shared continuity. He clearly did not believe that he had written the last definitive word on the subject.
I am willing to give the new stories the benefit of the doubt. I won't declare them awful, until I've actually had the opportunity to read them.
I read a trilogy of robot novels, authorized by the Asimov estate presumably, by Roger MacBride Allen. I got the first one figuring any port in a storm, I was bored, etcetera. I got the other two because I really enjoyed the first one, and I thought they were a thoughtful and well-considered exploration of part of that universe.
I've read a few of Mickey Zucker Reichert's books. The Nightfall book (and its sequel) were a little heavy on the Mary Sue for my tastes, but nonetheless had some interesting and/or well-done parts. She did a pair of "Renshai" trilogies set in a Norse setting which I really enjoyed reading, and which had some very interesting characters and plots.
She's no Asimov, but:
* The last time I read a new story set in Asimov's setting, it was rewarding and I enjoyed it.
* I have liked Reichert's work in the past.
In short, I'll probably buy them, and I'll probably enjoy them. I'm a lot happier with that than I would be with not having the option. I'd prefer if they opened things up further, but since I can't have this, I'll settle.
And seriously, quit yer whining. Mickey Zucker Reichert is a decent author with a track record. In particular, the key to that Norse series is that she managed to write stories which were convincingly and unmistakably set in an existing setting, and yet, which told new stories and developed characters in interesting ways. This is not some horrible tragedy. If they'd picked Stephanie Meyer, yeah, there'd be torches and pitchforks. But MZR will do fine if there's not too much executive meddling.
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The Foundation series is reportedly incredibly popular in the Arab world, the title is usually translated as "Al Qaeda". Usually rendered into English as The Base, this also means The Foundation. A website quote says "Also, the book centers on a small group led by someone who has predicted the downfall of a powerful, yet decadent empire... which, some point out, could seem similar to the idea of religious terrorists vs. the decadent West"
Neal Asher and Richard Morgan, two relatively new British SF authors of hard SciFi, both just as bloody and violent as Alastair Reynolds yet with much better characterisation, and less waste ; they get to the point very fast and keep the pace through much of the book. Seriously, give them both a try, starting with Asher's Grid-Linked and Morgan's Altered Carbon.
But using the same names and situations pretending that the author would have so wished is unethical and immoral.
This would be the case regardless of how long copyright was, what makes it worst is that current copyright terms mean that is money not talent, what decides which new vision gets done.
Wanting to have saner, much shorter copyright terms is not opposed (and I for one frankly fail to see where you are finding the irony) to call a cynic money grab for what it really is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
He died forty years after they were written. If copyright law were at all sane, there would be no need for "authorization", and there would already be 500 sequels, some of which might be good. A dead guy's intentions regarding old books should not be the concern of anyone other than someone studying literature.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Come on, it's the same thing every time a book (or anything) is adapted into a movie or has sequels or whatever! Everybody is making a scene of it! (I remember giant trolls about P. Jackson's LoTR...) The *original* books of Asimov won't disappear anyway! The additional fiction won't make it change. The upcoming book might be enjoyable, faithful to Asimov, or not. And what if they don't? Will that change the face of the earth? Will that change the vision of Asimov's work in you heart? Nobody force you to read them, and nobody says "now, that's the official truth, robots are made of cheese and actually work for R. What Ismyname, the super demonic robot from oblivion. Just discard everything you knew about robots" If you're not happy with what is added to the original work that you enjoy, just ignore it! Last week I was at the Surrogates movie premiere in Paris, and the two authors of the graphic novel where there to answer questions from the audience. When asked if they were happy about the adaptation, they answered that they did enjoy it (well, that's what they say in public :P but that's not the matter here) and they said that whatever could happen with the movie, their own work wouldn't be altered, since it follows its own path, it was there before the movie.
Asimov did not write hard sci-fi in any definition of the word. It was soft sci-fi, focusing mainly on social sciences, like psychology. Any proper scientific discipline lacks technical detail, infact he *Made Up* the science of robotics, from scratch. That's not what Hard Sci-fi writers (like Clarke) do. The Foundation series is definitly soft-sci fi, and more of a space opera than anything else. (Note the difference between Hard, Soft and Pulp sci-fi. Hard and Soft are equally valid as science fiction, its all a matter of taste. Pulp Sci-fi is the likes of Planet of the Apes, Forbidden Planet, Flash Gordon or hell, even Star Wars, that use Science Fiction as a thin veneer for action orientated stories)
Asimovs ideas are what drives the story in I, Robot, not the science. His ideas stand the test of time, if not the technology (His earliest stories pre-date the invention of the transistor, so futuristic computers still take up warehouses and use vacuum tubes and punch cards)
I have almost all of Asmiov's Sci-fi output in my library, I absoloutely adore it for it's unfaltering charm and idealism, as well as it's interesting, twisting plots (Particularly Caves of Steel)
The only licensed sequel I've enjoyed was Mirage by Mark W Tiedelman, admitedly I've not read many of them but there are quite a few. The second Foundation Trilogy, Caliban and Robot City. From what I've heard, both Caliban and Robot City were decent attempts and stand on their own, but the Second Foundation Trilogy was all but trash.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Asimov created an interesting concept, and he didn't fully explore it - so why shouldn't others write stories in the same universe? I see lots of stories around about orcs and elves, clearly based on Tolkien's universe; most are crap, but some aren't, and I think it is a good thing if people are inspired by an author.
What I find distasteful is that somebody is supposed to sort of write in the same style as the original author; it just doesn't work, and apart from that, I don't really think Asimov was a greatwriter from a literary point of view. His style seems stiff and awkward to me, where to me, good literature should be a joy read even after decades or centuries.