Our first Talks in Time features a 1974 lecture by SF Grand Master, Isaac Asimov. This nearly hour long speech has a lively Q A and is still relevant today. Special thanks to the Science Fiction Oral History Association.
The first novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series
THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.
First published in November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly. Asimov thought that The Last Question was his best short story ever. The story deals with the development of computers called Multivacs and their relationships with humanity through the courses of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061. In each of the first six scenes a different character presents the computer with the same question; namely, how the threat to human existence posed by the heat death of the universe can be averted. The question was: “How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?” This is equivalent to asking: “Can the workings of the second law of thermodynamics (used in the story as the increase of the entropy of the universe), be reversed?” Multivac’s only response after much “thinking” is: “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think†rather than “shoot†their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)
“Nightfall – “”Nightfall”” is an influential science fiction short, about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated at all times on all sides. It was subsequently adapted to become a novel.
Considered a classic of the genre, Nightfall has been anthologized no fewer than four dozen times, and has appeared in at least another half-dozen collections of Asimov’s older stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall the best science fiction short story ever written prior to the establishment of the Nebula Awards in 1965 and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964.”