Recently I catalogued the short-story bibliographies of some of my favorite fiction writers on this site. I wanted a way to track my own reading progress, and the more I researched authors like Jack London and Roald Dahl, the more I wanted get back into reading their stories. The same has been true for Isaac Asimov.

I selected this book of his many collections and anthologies because it’s the only one I currently own—though admittedly, I’d much rather have gone back to his earlier works. Still, this book of stories + essays appealed to me for the editorial about “Book Reviews’ he includes, something I obviously had to read.

Every story in this collection was published between 1987-1995, though Asimov himself died in 1992. Thus, Gold is more a collection of his final sci-fi stories and thoughts on the genre selected and organized by his editors than it is a how-to manual that he intended to create.

I for one loved this book especially for is essay sections. How sad if these editorials were left only inside those bundles of old sci-fi magazines! Asimov fans and aspiring Science-Fiction authors now needn’t dredge their way through decades of crumbling magazines for snippets of wisdom, but can instead enjoy what’s essentially a Master’s Class in the sci-fi genre with Isaac Asimov as their professor. What a deal!

The Short Stories

Before recording the titles of his wonderful editorials, I share some notes on Asimov’s 15 modern short stories included in the book.

1. “Cal” (1990) – This first story was long but interesting. It’s all about a writer (perhaps Asimov himself) who tries to reprogram his robot to become a writer. With each draft of a story, the robot improves—from complete unbelievability to a sophistication that scares even the writer himself. It’s the advent of Chat GPT, I suppose, long before anyone ever thought it possible.
   
2. “Left to Right” (1987) – This short story is just a longish joke. Unexpected to say the least.
   
3. “Frustration” (1991) – This satirical piece (not “ironic,” if you trust his editorial on “Irony”) describes why computers should never be used to practice wargames.
   
4. “Hallucination” (1995) – This might be the longest story in the collection. As Sam explores the planet where he’s suddenly been stationed, he learns that the place has a history of giving humans hallucinations. When he too starts seeing things, he has a different take on the ordeal than the rest of the sufferers, because he’s a bit different.
   
5. “The Instability” (1989) – Scientists in this story attempt time-travel by nailing themselves to the fabric of the universe. It’s short and abrupt, but I liked it.
   
6. “Alexander the God” (1995) – A genius at computers creates Bucephalus, the taking computer which promises to give him all power by providing him all computing knowledge—at the stock market and beyond. Young Alexander wants to be as successful as Alexander the Great had become by the age 30. As I read it, I thought this might be an early look at the internet, but I feel like computers and the internet in 1995 could already do the sort of things Alexander dreams—but then I remembered that Asimov wrote this story long before it was published, so it might have been more prophetic than I at first thought. Alexander’s bid on immortality is stunted only by the fact that the thing capable of making him the most powerful being must itself be slightly more powerful than he.
   
7. “In the Canyon” (1995) – This entire story is merely a letter home from one lady to another about her team’s progress in terraforming Mars. An interesting set of plans, though I wonder if Asimov saw this an important story less because of the canyon idea and more because of the advancement of females (his views on which he describes in his editorial, “Women and Science Fiction”).
   
8. “Good-Bye to Earth” (1989) – Someone sends warnings that the settlements of humans outside our atmosphere are growing discontent and may flee the solar system. Such an event would be sad for Earth, left alone as she’d be, yet consoling in a way, with our progeny populating the void.
   
9. “Battle-Hymn” (1995) – This was a pretty dumb story about using subliminal messages in music to sway the Martians. Probably my least favorite of the bunch.
   
10. “Feghoot and the Courts” (1995) – This was another dumb story based on a pun. Another long, not very good joke for which he created an entire world. Too much work, too little payoff.
    
11. “Fault-Intolerant” (1990) – Perhaps long before spell-check was a thing, Asimov thought up this story. If the computer can correct grammar, it must be able to understand intent; if it understand that, it can predict it; if it can predict what a person would write, it would no longer need the person. What if?
    
12. “Kid Brother” (1990) – This story was definitely my favorite story of the lot. It’s a story worth looking up and hanging onto.
    
13. “The Nations in Space” (1995) – Here Asimov provides us with a fable, moral and all, promoting self-love for the good for all.
    
14. “The Smile of the Chipper” (1989) – Ok, hold up. This one’s the worst story of the lot. Asimov even lived long enough to see it get published, and I get you he was even surprised. There’s a slight chance it was too smart for me to figure out, but I’m putting my money on the opposite.
    
15. “Gold” (1991) – This titular story requires a bit of knowledge about Shakespeare, which I don’t have. I know nothing of King Lear. Still, as I read about the compu-drama, all I could imagine was the advancement of CGI technology. The main character, a popular director, earns the right to make a poor sci-fi story, “Three in One,” into a compu-drama hit. He must re-imagine the look and feel of the book’s three ill-defined characters (the parental, the emotional, and the rational). Ultimately he pulls off the impossible, simply because he was motivated by promised gold. I suppose it’s a comment on what a person can accomplish when properly motivated.

The Editorials

The final two Parts of this book covering the history, quirks, stylizations, etc. of the Science Fiction genre. Asimov organizes his 38 topics under two main headings: “On Science Fiction” and “On Writing Science Fiction.” I just give you the titles of these essays here, though I highly recommended interested readers get a copy of this book for themselves. It’s well worth the education.

Overall, this was a fascinating book, more so for the writer’s education available in the sci-fi genre than for the stories themselves. I plant to share it with a sci-fi-buff buddy of mine, and maybe you can as well.

©2024 E.T.

Read More from Isaac Asimov:

• The Extended Foundation Series:
  1. The Complete Robot (1982) [A.D. 1995]
  2. The Caves of Steel (1954) [A.D. 3421]
  3. The Naked Sun (1957) [A.D. 3422]
  4. The Robots of Dawn (1983) [A.D. 3424]
  5. Robots and Empire (1985) [A.D. 3630]
  6. The Stars Like Dust (1951) [A.D. 4850]
  7. The Currents of Space (1952) [A.D. 11129]
  8. Pebble in the Sky (1955) [A.D. 12411 or 827 G.E.]
  9. Prelude to Foundation (1988) [12020 G.E.]
  10. Forward the Foundation (1993) [12038 G.E.]
  11. Foundation (1951) [12067 G.E.]
  12. Foundation and Empire (1952) [13800 G.E.]
  13. Second Foundation (1953) [13850 G.E.]
  14. Foundation’s Edge (1982) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
  15. Foundation and Earth (1986) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
• Short Story Collections:
  I, Robot (1950)
  Buy Jupiter (1975)
  Gold (1995)
  Eight Stories from the Rest of the Robots (1964)
• Other Novels:
  Fantastic Voyage (1966)