The Alternate Asimovs ( 1986 ) is a collection of early science fiction drafts by American writer Isaac Asimov . Asimov mostly threw away early drafts. Just a few survived and were included in this anthology.
61-601: It consists of three items: This is a shorter and less refined version of the book Pebble in the Sky ; set in the very early days of the Trantorian Empire whose eventual decline had been described in the Foundation novels. The plot is largely the same, though the chief villain is less developed. Asimov also explained how he began with the idea that Earth was radioactive from an atomic war. As he learned more, he became unhappy with
122-589: A starship , Gladia, Daneel, and Giskard visit the planets Solaria and Baleyworld before reaching the Earth, where this novel's climax takes place. Asimov used a planet-hopping itinerary in most of the volumes of the Foundation series from Foundation and Empire onward. Unlike the detective fiction methods of the previous Robot novels, where Baley assembles the clues to a crime that had been committed, in Robots and Empire
183-516: A "null field" that disorients humans, preventing anyone from approaching until the Vault itself allows them to. The exception is Salvor Hardin , the Warden and protector of Terminus, who possesses an inexplicable immunity to the field. The Star Bridge is a massive structure on Trantor that serves as a space elevator connecting the surface of the planet to a starship platform in geosynchronous orbit. Known as
244-511: A bad experience – the unhappy liaison that is transferred to Twissell in the book version. But he stays loyal to Eternity, completing his mission to the past. The history that Manfield's Eternity grew out of matches our own history, with an atomic bomb in 1945. It is also a different future from that of the Galactic Empire, with humans remaining on Earth until the 'two hundred thousandth century' – 20 million years. The eventual fate of humans
305-596: A bridge to the later volumes of his future history. About this second aim, Asimov said that he was dissuaded by Lester del Rey and Judy-Lynn del Rey , his long-time friends and the editors of Del Rey Books , who thought that the fans of Asimov's series of novels would rather that Asimov kept the Robot and Empire / Foundation universes separate. On the other hand, his editors at Doubleday , his hardcover book publisher, encouraged Asimov to do what deep down he wanted to do. From then on, Asimov proceeded with his plans for unifying
366-488: A device designed by Seldon, stores psychohistorical equations showing the future development of humanity. The Prime Radiant projects the equations onto walls in some unexplained manner, but it does not cast shadows, thus allowing workers easy interaction. As a tool of the Second Foundation, control operates through the power of the mind, allowing the user to zoom in to details of the equations, and to change them. The plan
427-500: A discussion posted on Gizmodo, "Asimov absolutely loves weird, elliptical structures. All three of his non-robot/Foundation science fiction novels – The End of Eternity , The Gods Themselves , and Nemesis – leaned heavily on non-chronological narratives, and he does it with gusto in The Gods Themselves ." In The Robots of Dawn , Dr. Han Fastolfe briefly summarizes the story from " The Bicentennial Man " (1976), which
488-509: A kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency, to begin with." Asimov also noted that the books in his list "were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read". In the Author's Note , Asimov noted that there is room for a book between Robots and Empire and The Currents of Space , and that he could follow Foundation and Earth with additional volumes. Forward
549-420: A murderous conspiracy developing against the Earth, and its discovery by the robots, keep pace with each other right up through the final confrontation with Amadiro on the Earth. Then, the robots have only moments to spare in terminating Amadiro's plan for a quick death to all Earthlings. As well as linking the two series into a single future history, the present book served to address a criticism levelled against
610-411: A single future history : his Robot series, his Galactic Empire series and his Foundation series . (Asimov also carried out this unification in Foundation's Edge and its sequel .) In the novel, Asimov depicts the transition from his earlier Milky Way Galaxy , inhabited by both human beings and positronic robots , to his Galactic Empire . The galaxy of his earlier trilogy of Robot novels
671-420: A soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain, but manages to confer his telepathic ability upon R Daneel. In his memoir I. Asimov (1994), Asimov explained that following his commercial and critical success with The Robots of Dawn , he decided to write Robots and Empire with the intentions of making Daneel, "the real hero of the series", the novel's protagonist , and that Robots and Empire would create
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#1732875710655732-558: Is Seldon's great work intended to achieve this goal, a huge work of mathematics that describes the pattern of events set in motion by Seldon's intervention and those of his successors; a plan that centres on the Foundation, but is far from Seldon's ostensible goal of setting up a repository of knowledge. The Time Vault , created and programmed by Seldon, is designed to open "at defining moments in galactic history", known as "Seldon Crises", and impart crucial knowledge through holographically recorded messages from Seldon. The Prime Radiant ,
793-495: Is described in Foundation's Edge as containing acres of equations, starting with Seldon's own work and extended in colour-coded addenda by Seldon's successors. A Visi-Sonor is a multi-keyed musical instrument that produces holographic visual effects as well as music. By incorporating his own mental ability to manipulate emotions, The Mule is able to use the instrument to brainwash others in Foundation and Empire (1952). In
854-560: Is dominated by the blended human/robotic societies of the fifty "Spacer" planets, dispersed through the near-Earth part of the Galaxy. While the Earth is much more populous than all of the Spacer planets combined, its people are looked down upon and treated almost as sub-human by the Spacers. For a long time, the Spacers have forbidden immigration of people from the Earth. But Asimov's later Galactic Empire
915-457: Is initially possessed only by the Empire, the Foundation is able to reverse-engineer their own version using the captured warship Invictus . Called whisper-ships , these starships are able to jump without requiring a Spacer to navigate. In the series, The Vault has been sent to Terminus ahead of the colonists who establish the Foundation. The object, which hovers above the ground, is surrounded by
976-462: Is left uncertain. Dave Langford reviewed The Alternate Asimovs for White Dwarf #93, and stated that "Keep your dreadful unsaleable manuscripts for 40 years, goes the encouraging message, and Grafton will give you big money for them..." Robots and Empire Robots and Empire is a science fiction novel by the American author Isaac Asimov , published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It
1037-504: Is part of Asimov's Robot series , which consists of many short stories (collected in I, Robot , The Rest of the Robots , The Complete Robot , Robot Dreams , Robot Visions , and Gold ) and five novels (including The Positronic Man , The Caves of Steel , The Naked Sun , and The Robots of Dawn ). Robots and Empire is part of Asimov's consolidation of his three major series of science fiction stories and novels into
1098-462: Is played by the clown Magnifico in Foundation and Empire . Asimov integrated the Robot series into his all-encompassing Foundation series , making the robot R. Daneel Olivaw appear again twenty thousand years later in the age of the Galactic Empire, in sequels and prequels to the original Foundation trilogy; and in the final book of the Robots series, Robots and Empire , Asimov describes how
1159-428: Is populated by many quadrillions of human beings on hundreds of thousands of habitable planets and by very few robots (such as R. Daneel Olivaw ). Even the technology to maintain and upgrade robots exists on only a few out-of-the-way planets. Therefore, this novel attempts to describe how his earlier Robot series ultimately connects to his Galactic Empire series. The Earthman Elijah Baley (the detective hero of
1220-453: Is vaguely referenced in Foundation's Edge , where a Gaian character in Foundation and Earth mentions the Eternals, whose "task it was to choose a reality that would be most suitable to Humanity". ( The End of Eternity also refers to a "Galactic Empire" within its story.) Asimov himself did not mention The End of Eternity in the series listing from Prelude to Foundation . As for Nemesis , it
1281-405: The Foundation / Galactic Empire series with his Robot series . Thus, all three series are set in the same universe, giving them a combined length of 18 novels, and a total of about 1,500,000 words. The merge also created a time-span of the series of around 20,000 years. The Stars, Like Dust states explicitly that the Earth is radioactive because of a nuclear war. Asimov later explained that
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#17328757106551342-517: The "tether" or the "stalk", transit from the platform to the surface of the planet takes 14 hours. When the Star Bridge is severed by a terrorist attack in " The Emperor's Peace ", the bulk of it crashes to the surface and kills 100 million citizens. Trader and con man Hober Mallow possesses a castling device which allows two people of similar mass to switch places via a form of teleportation . Imperial General Bel Riose uses it to switch places with
1403-648: The Asimov estate announced the publication of a prequel to I, Robot under the working title Robots and Chaos , the first volume in a prequel trilogy featuring Susan Calvin by fantasy author Mickey Zucker Reichert . The first book was published in November 2011 under the title I, Robot: To Protect , followed by I, Robot: To Obey in 2013 and I, Robot: To Preserve in 2016. The following works are listed in chronological order by narrative: In Foundation (1951), famed mathematician and psychologist Hari Seldon has developed
1464-483: The Empire series. The Caliban trilogy describes the terraforming of the Spacer world Inferno, a planet where an ecological crisis forces the Spacers to abandon many long-cherished parts of their culture. Allen's novels echo the uncertainties that Asimov's later books express about the Three Laws of Robotics , and in particular the way a thoroughly roboticized culture can degrade human initiative. After Asimov's death and at
1525-401: The Foundation , Nemesis , and The Positronic Man do not appear in Asimov's list, as they were not yet published at the time, and the order of the Empire novels in Asimov's list is not entirely consistent with other lists. For example, the 1983 Ballantine Books printing of The Robots of Dawn lists the Empire novels as: The Stars, Like Dust , The Currents of Space , and Pebble in
1586-452: The Foundation ; Foundation and Chaos (1998) is set at the same time as the first chapter of Foundation , filling in the background; Foundation's Triumph (1999) covers ground following the recording of the holographic messages to the Foundation, and ties together a number of loose ends. These books are now claimed by some to collectively be a " Second Foundation trilogy", although they are inserts into pre-existing prequels and some of
1647-408: The Second Foundation, using their mentalic powers against them. The 2021 Apple TV+ television series adaptation Foundation deviates substantially from Asimov's source work, and includes technological elements not featured by Asimov in the novels. Though cloning does not factor in Asimov's novels, the television series introduces a "Genetic Dynasty", surreptitiously administered for centuries by
1708-446: The Sky . Given that The Currents of Space includes Trantor and that The Stars, Like Dust does not, these two books possibly were accidentally reversed in Asimov's list. While not mentioned in the "Author's Note" of Prelude to Foundation , the novels The End of Eternity (1955), Nemesis (1989), and The Positronic Man (1992) (written by Robert Silverberg) are related to the greater Foundation series. The End of Eternity
1769-402: The Spacers and their calendar system, the Galactic Empire, and even to Hari Seldon which seem to have been deliberately placed for the purpose of later integration into the Foundation universe. The foreword to Prelude to Foundation contains the chronological ordering of Asimov's science fiction books. Asimov stated that the books of his Robot , Empire , and Foundation series "offer
1830-470: The Three Laws of Robotics, and here his robots come up with a Fourth, or rather Zeroth, Law. This works out approximately as 'the end justifies the means'. For some reason the author doesn't even seem mildly worried by the implications..." Galactic Empire (Asimov) The Foundation universe is the future history of humanity's colonization of the galaxy, spanning nearly 25,000 years, created through
1891-402: The books in his list "were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read." The following works are listed in chronological order by narrative: Asimov's novels covered only 500 of the expected 1,000 years it would take for the Foundation to become a galactic empire. The novels that were written after Asimov did not continue the timeline but rather sought to fill in gaps in
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1952-400: The destruction of several "Settler" spaceships that made landings there and to capture the presumably unsupervised robots. Gladia is accompanied by the positronic robots R Daneel Olivaw and R Giskard Reventlov , both the former property of their creator, Dr Han Fastolfe , who bequeathed them to Gladia in his will . R Giskard has secret telepathic powers of which only R Daneel knows. At
2013-420: The earlier Foundation storylines and not generally recognized as a new Trilogy. In an epilogue to Foundation's Triumph , Brin noted he could imagine himself or a different author writing another sequel to add to Foundation's Triumph , feeling that Hari Seldon's story was not yet necessarily finished. He later published a possible start of such a book on his website. More recently, the Asimov estate authorized
2074-419: The earlier stories. The Foundation universe was once again revisited in 1989's Foundation's Friends , a collection of short stories written by many prominent science fiction authors of that time. Orson Scott Card 's " The Originist " clarifies the founding of the Second Foundation shortly after Seldon's death; Harry Turtledove 's "Trantor Falls" tells of the efforts by the Second Foundation to survive during
2135-522: The gradual fusion of the Robot , Galactic Empire , and Foundation book series written by American author Isaac Asimov . The Foundation series is set in the same universe as Asimov's first published novel, Pebble in the Sky , although Foundation takes place about 10,000 years later. Pebble in the Sky became the basis for the Galactic Empire series . Then, at some unknown date (prior to writing Foundation's Edge ) Asimov decided to merge
2196-460: The in-universe reason for this perception was that it was formulated by Earthmen many centuries after the event, and which had become distorted, due to the loss of much of their planetary history. This work is generally regarded as part of the Empire series, but does not directly mention either Trantor or the other Spacer worlds. One character is said to have a Visi-Sonor, the same musical instrument that
2257-457: The inhibitions of the first law. When Vasilia accuses Giskard of telepathy (earlier created by herself), Giskard is compelled to manipulate her mind to make her forget about his telepathic powers. The two robots locate Amadiro and Mandamus on Earth, at the site of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania . After Amadiro admits their plans, Giskard alters Amadiro's brain (using
2318-462: The largely radioactive Earth depicted in Pebble in the Sky and mentioned in several other books. Though not explicitly stated, there was the clear implication that the world's being mostly radioactive with humans precariously surviving in limited uncontaminated areas was the result of a nuclear war hundreds or thousands of years before the time of the plot. This would have made Pebble in the Sky part of
2379-459: The later novel are there. But 'Andrew Harlan' was a merger of two different characters from the short story. The ending is quite different, and Asimov himself called it weak. The biggest difference with the novel is that Eternity does not end; it is heroically saved. The original story has Anders Horemm the technician who does the damage, and then Genro Manfield the historian who sets things right again. These were combined into 'Andrew Harlan' for
2440-573: The main colony is one of the Fifty Settlements, a collection of orbital colonies that form a state. The Fifty Settlements possibly were the basis for the fifty Spacer worlds in the Robot stories. The implication at the end of Nemesis that the inhabitants of the off-Earth colonies are splitting off from Earthbound humans could also be connected to a similar implication about the Spacers in Mark W. Tiedemann 's Robot books. According to Alasdair Wilkins, in
2501-543: The memory of doing so. Giskard predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity into leaving the Earth, vigor will be reintroduced into humankind and the new Settlers will populate space until all the governments of the interstellar colonies form a "Galactic Empire". Under the stress of having violated the First Law (in accordance with the Zeroth Law, but with the predicted benefit to humanity being uncertain), R Giskard himself suffers
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2562-448: The mind of his former lover, Gladia Delmarre , a long-lived "Spacer" who uncharacteristically relocated from the spacer world of Solaria to Aurora . Gladia's homeworld and the 50th-established of the Spacer planets, Solaria, has become empty of all human inhabitants, although millions of robot servants remain. A seventh-generation descendant of Baley's, Daneel Giskard ('D.G.') Baley, gains Gladia's help in visiting Solaria, to investigate
2623-733: The natural radioactive decay in the upper crust of the Earth, thereby making the surface of the Earth radioactive. R Daneel and R Giskard discover the roboticists' plan and attempt to stop Amadiro; but are hampered by the First Law of Robotics , A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. which prevents them from a direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel and Giskard, meanwhile, have inferred an additional Zeroth Law of Robotics : A robot may not injure humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. It might enable them to overcome Amadiro, if they can use their telepathic perception of humanity to quell
2684-425: The newly created Zeroth Law); but in so doing, threatens his own. Now alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions were to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amadiro wanted, and Giskard, believing it best for humanity to abandon the Earth, allows Mandamus to do this (resulting in the situation depicted in Pebble in the Sky ), and deprives Mandamus of
2745-484: The notion, reckoning that a war would not make the crust radioactive without also wiping out all life, hence the revised notion in Robots and Empire . A 25,000 word novella that was extensively changed for the book-length The End of Eternity , it tells of an organisation of time travellers dedicated to the betterment of humanity by tampering with history. However, control brings problems, sometimes tragedies. Elements of
2806-508: The novel Psychohistorical Crisis , set in the Foundation universe after the start of the Second Empire. Novels by various authors ( Isaac Asimov's Robot City , Robots and Aliens and Robots in Time series) are loosely connected to the Robot series, but contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered part of the Foundation series. In November 2009,
2867-410: The novel. Anders Horemm has much the same relationship with Nöys Lambent, but she is no more than she seems. The reality-change removes the belief that 'Eternals' can grant eternal life. As a regrettable side-effect, Nöys Lambent vanishes. Horemm has a breakdown, comes back as Twissell's technician. Like Harlan, he sabotages the trip into the past, but that is the end of his role. Manfield also has
2928-530: The post-nuclear war subgenre common in the 1950s. It was, however, pointed out by critics that such an extensive use of nuclear weapons as to leave persistent and widespread radiation even after centuries would have completely destroyed all life on Earth at the moment when it took place. Therefore, in the present book Asimov provided a different origin for the future Earth's radioactivity. Dave Langford reviewed Robots and Empire for White Dwarf #85, and stated that "Asimov always perks up when chopping logic with
2989-521: The prequel novel Prelude to Foundation (1988), Eto Demerzel , the First Minister and chief advisor to Emperor Cleon I , is revealed to be the ancient sentient robot R. Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's Robot series , one of the last of his kind. The Mind Static device is introduced in Second Foundation . It is a tool developed by a group within the Foundation for use against the members of
3050-402: The previous Robot books) has died nearly two centuries earlier. During these two centuries, Earth-people have overcome their agoraphobia and resumed space colonization , using faster-than-light drive to reach distant planets beyond the earlier "Spacer" worlds. Their inhabitants, calling themselves "Settlers" rather than "Spacers", revere Earth as their mother-world. Baley's memory remains in
3111-461: The publication of another trilogy of robot mysteries by Mark W. Tiedemann . These novels, which take place several years before Asimov's Robots and Empire , are Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001), and Aurora (2002). These were followed by yet another robot mystery, Alexander C. Irvine 's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), set five years after the Tiedemann trilogy. In 2001, Donald Kingsbury published
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#17328757106553172-439: The regal Lady Demerzel , an expanded and gender-swapped version of the character from Prelude to Foundation and its sequel, Forward the Foundation (1993). In the series, the 12,000-year-old Empire is ruled by a revolving trio of Cleon I clones: Brother Day, a Cleon in his prime; Brother Dawn, a young Cleon being trained to succeed Brother Day; and Brother Dusk, a retired and aging Cleon who serves in an advisory role. In
3233-550: The request of Janet Asimov and the Asimov estate's representative, Ralph Vicinanza approached Gregory Benford and asked him to write another Foundation story. He eventually agreed, and with Vicinanza and after speaking "to several authors about [the] project", formed a plan for a trilogy with "two hard SF writers broadly influenced by Asimov and of unchallenged technical ability: Greg Bear and David Brin ." Foundation's Fear (1997) takes place chronologically between part one and part two of Asimov's second prequel novel, Forward
3294-533: The sacking of Trantor, the imperial capital and Second Foundation's home; and George Zebrowski 's "Foundation's Conscience" is about the efforts of a historian to document Seldon's work following the rise of the Second Galactic Empire. Also, shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels by Roger MacBride Allen , known as the Caliban trilogy, set between Robots and Empire and
3355-421: The same time, Daneel and Giskard are engaged in a struggle of wits with Fastolfe's rivals: The roboticists Kelden Amadiro and Vasilia Aliena , Fastolfe's estranged daughter. Frustrated by his series of failures, Amadiro accepts an ambitious and unscrupulous apprentice, Levular Mandamus, who plans to destroy the population of the Earth by a newly developed weapon, the "nuclear intensifier", with which to accelerate
3416-419: The science of psychohistory , which uses sophisticated mathematics and statistical analysis to predict future trends on a galactic scale. He has predicted the unavoidable and relatively imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, and intends to establish the Foundation, "a repository of crucial, civilization-preserving knowledge" that will enable society to revive itself more quickly and efficiently. The Seldon Plan
3477-537: The television series, an aura is depicted as a protective force shield technology forbidden to everyone except the Emperors, but in season two it is revealed that the Foundation also possesses the technology and has distributed it to their envoys. Jumpships are starships capable of faster-than-light travel, operated by Spacers , genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced humans made capable of remaining conscious and functional during jumps. Though jump technology
3538-414: The two series. Asimov organized Robots and Empire nonlinearly . (Other examples of nonlinear plotting in Asimov's novels can be found in The Gods Themselves and Nemesis .) Flashbacks by the major characters alternate with the present-time storyline. The story starts on the Spacer planet Aurora, where the heart of Amadiro's conspiracy against Settler civilization is developing. Meanwhile, aboard
3599-539: The worlds that later formed the Empire were settled, and how Earth became radioactive (which was first mentioned in Pebble in the Sky ). The stand-alone novel Nemesis is also in the same continuity; being referenced in Forward the Foundation , where Hari Seldon refers to a twenty-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis". Commentators noted that Nemesis contains barely disguised references to
3660-454: Was later expanded by Robert Silverberg into the novel The Positronic Man (1992). The foreword to Prelude to Foundation contains the chronological ordering of Asimov's science fiction books. Asimov stated that the books of his Robot , Galactic Empire , and Foundation series "offer a kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency to begin with." Asimov also noted that
3721-426: Was written after Prelude to Foundation , but in the author's note Asimov explicitly states that the book is not part of the Foundation or Empire series, but that someday he might tie it to the others. In Forward the Foundation , Hari Seldon refers to a 20-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis", a reference to Nemesis . In Nemesis ,
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