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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 03:58 PM
Original message
Any other fans of Issac Asimov here?
I just watched Bicentennial Man again... probably my favorite sci-fi movie. I haven't read all his books, but the ones I have, have all been terrific.

If you like his stuff too I would be interested in hearing what other sci-fi books or movies you like.
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Neoma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:05 PM
Response to Original message
1. HUGE FAN COMING THROUGH.
I haven't read Bicentennial Man or seen the movie though.
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Orsino Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:14 PM
Response to Original message
2. I haven't grown mutton chops or anything...
...but I dig the Professor. He seemed to have been able to write on nearly any subject, and to be illuminating. Some of his fiction is magnificent, even if he never learned to write great dialogue.
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Neoma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Lies!
His dialogs are great, no lying!
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China_cat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:23 PM
Response to Original message
4. You'd spend a lot of time reading if you just
read Asimov. 399 books before he died.

Bicentennial Man was actually a short story. The movie was nice, and cute, but the story was better. His books on science for the non-scientist are great, as are his collections of essays. I cried when he died.

What they did to I, Robot should get the movie makers shot. Come to think about it, I don't think there's been any SF movies made from books that are worth watching. SF is the literature of the imagination. Movies substitute someone else's imagination for yours.



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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:53 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. I don't find enough
time for enough imagination anymore. /humor


I agree partly, however, you can still imagine your own twists to movies as well.

The movie I, Robot is pieces of Asimov here and there, not enough though. I haven't read the story for Bicentennial but the movie seems to follow what I know of his writing.

Thanks for chiming in... I didn't know the number of books was that high, lol.
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av8rdave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 04:59 PM
Response to Original message
6. I'm a fan....love the Foundation Series and his short stories
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Orrex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:08 PM
Response to Original message
7. Wow
For years, Bicentennial Man was my favorite s/f short story, but I was profoundly disappointed in the film. I posted a lengthy review somewhere at the time; I'll try to find it if you want to hate me!
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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. please post it if you find it. :-)
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Orrex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #8
21. Found it
Here's a chunk:
I loved the film up until the father's death, after which the pace sort of fell apart on me. That is, the first 20(?) years of Andrew's life took the first half of the film, while the last 180 years took the second half. As a result, some of the more interesting potential character developments were missed, while others simply vanished.

What happened to the mother, for instance? The film established tension between Andrew and her and seemed (during the "laughter" scenes) to imply a forthcoming resolution, which never occurred. The older daughter likewise disappeared after making a stereotypical older-rebellious-daughter appearance on the motorcycle and at the wedding, returning only for Sam's deathbed without any mention made of if, how, when, or why a reconciliation took place. Obviously, Andrew doesn't need to have witnessed her transformation, but to throw her back into the family without a word said about it simply begs the question of how it happened, especially when all indications suggested she was accelerating away from the family.

From there, I'm afraid, the film just worsened for me. Rhetorically, and in terms of narrative, I thought Andrew's quest for others like him was interesting, even if only as a device to demonstrate his uniqueness and for getting him to Platt's character. Thereafter, though, I was less convinced.

Each further step in his evolution, it seemed, was as easily executed as conceived. "I want skin," Andrew decides, and so he gets it. "I want organs," he decides, and so he gets them. "I want a nervous system," he decides, "I want functional genitalia," and so on. Never did it seem to me that there was any difficulty in achieving these fundamentally transformative goals, even with the weakly-implied groundbreaking research required for each new step. Worse, I had no sense that Andrew was passing points of no return, or that he was risking anything in making the transformation. It's one of those nothing-ventured-nothing-gained deals, where his gain is cheapened by the fact that he (seemingly) risked nothing.

What happened to the dog? As Andrew's only friend for a presumably considerable length of time, I was surprised that it only appeared for about 10 seconds and than vanished (like so much else in the film) without a trace. Especially considering that Wolfie implied a direct link to Lil' Miss v1.0, it's strange that it wouldn't serve a more important role, or at least something more than an afterthought. I would rather Andrew had held onto the stuffed animal than a flesh-and-blood dog whose only function was to provide a single one-liner. The stuffed dog, moreover, could have been a more subtle and interesting indicator of time's passage than whiz-bang CGI shots of San Francisco and its nifty hovercars.

I flatly didn't believe the romance between Andrew and Lil' Miss v2.0, much less the implied several decades they spent together. Did nothing noteworthy happen during this time, so that nothing had to be represented except a single chess game and a wistful gazing out the window while discussing their aging? What's the deal with the offhand mention of a "DNA elixir?" That's probably the most stupendous invention Andrew had come up with thus far in the film, but it occupied _no_ screen time, or at any rate far less time than clever, attention-grabbing surgical scenes.
I posted that on another forum back in December of 99, and I haven't seen the film since then, so I can't really elaborate on any of the criticisms at this point!

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Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:25 PM
Response to Original message
9. I love Asimov! Excellent writer, and thoroughly great mind.
His Shakespeare book is quite good.

And of course, like most of us, I'm a huge fan of all 15 or 18 books in the Foundation trilogy. Bloody fantastic series of books.

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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. I have only read maybe 5 of the
Foundation books, and its been awhile. I'll have to try and catch up.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:27 PM
Response to Original message
10. I haven't read his work in years, but I always enjoyed it. I read a lot of
Edited on Tue Jan-01-08 05:28 PM by GreenPartyVoter
Asimov magazines (at least I think that is what they were) early on in high school.
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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. I have this one very old paperback
called Adding a Dimension. Its falling to pieces. But its about number systems. He can make a subject like math quite fascinating.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:35 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. I can't understand higher math or science but still I prefer the hard sci-fis over
the soft ones. As you say, it really is all about telling a great story.
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Breeze54 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:31 PM
Response to Original message
12. He always fascinated Me!
Just gis name was 'heds up"

:(

We lost a great man. :(

fascinated
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EstimatedProphet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:38 PM
Response to Original message
15. Yes, but I like Philip K. Dick better
Asimov wrote some wonderful stories - Nightfall comes to mind - but I find his writing to be on the dry side, perhaps a little stiff. I think it came from the fact that he wrote science manuscripts.
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 06:06 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Hard to beat PKD.
I always thought Asimov had some interesting ideas, but the writing was semi-mediocre.
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Blarch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 05:40 PM
Response to Original message
16. The last question, by Asimov...
Edited on Tue Jan-01-08 06:09 PM by Blarch
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 06:09 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. I remember that story from my Sci Fi class in college!
:thumbsup:
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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 09:27 PM
Response to Reply #16
19. Cool, thanks. nt
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DarkTirade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 09:41 PM
Response to Original message
20. I was just thinking I need to get ahold of a copy of some of his stuff
because it's been so long since I read it that I'm starting to forget details and plotlines. :(
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mzteris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-01-08 11:20 PM
Response to Original message
22. me! me! me!
I love his stuff.

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pokerfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-02-08 01:38 AM
Response to Original message
23. Big fan for forty years
His science fact books got me interested in science. His three volume Physics book is a classic. By the time I was taking physics in HS, I discovered that I pretty much understood it all.

I discovered his fiction later but was more of a Heinlein and Clarke fan. And especially Larry Niven.

But a Foundation movie would be pretty sweet, if they could get someone like Peter Jackson to produce/direct. No more I Robot's please.

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chknltl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-02-08 01:54 AM
Response to Original message
24. Yes, used to like him as a kid.
between the ages of 14-40 I was a voracious reader of all things fantasy and sci-fi. I can not say I had any particular faves but Arther C Clark's "The City and The Stars" stands out. I remember reading a lot of Heinlein and Andre Norten when I was young, and I have a soft spot for Greg Bear. Julian May's the Pleistocene exile was great as was Jean Aul's Clan of the Cave Bear. There have been some great Sci-Fi arcs on TV: Babylon 5 was as good a series as anything I had ever read, Serenity was another worth watching and I love the new Battlestar Galactica.
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murielm99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-02-08 02:24 AM
Response to Original message
25. I love Asimov.
I especially liked the Foundation series and his robot books.

I used to read Asimov's science fiction magazine when he was still alive. He seemed to know how to find the best new writers.

I got interested in science fiction when I was a child. I read a short story in Child Life Magazine when I was about eight. The story was called "The Fun They Had." I was hooked on science fiction after reading that story. I didn't catch the name of the author at that time. Years later, I discovered that Asimov had written that story.

There are many good authors out there. Dick is good. So is Zelazny, Arthur C. Clark and Frederic Brown. I liked Dune, by Herbert, but only the first one. I think the rest of them detract from the first book and were unnecessary. I liked early Ray Bradbury, but not some of his later stuff. And Orson Scott Card turns me off these days. His early short stories were good. Now his Mormonism and his politics bleed through too much in his work. And he is a vicious homophobe.

See if you can find some Theodore Sturgeon short stories. He also wrote some Star Trek episodes. You might also enjoy Harlan Ellison.
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