Golden Age Sci-Fi 75 (9)
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June 19, 2016
One in a series of 75 posts about the best science fiction novels published during the genre’s so-called Golden Age (from 1934–63, according to HILOBROW’s Josh Glenn’s periodization schema). For the complete Golden Age Sci-Fi 75 list, click here.
Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (1940–1950; as a book, 1950).
In this collection of nine stories, written while the author was working on his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard’s Naval Air Experimental Station during WWII, then teaching at Boston University, a future history of robotics — the manufacture and programming of robots, their interaction with humans — is traced. “Robbie” (1940), for example, makes the case that robots have more to fear from us than vice versa; despite being exiled to a factory, a nursemaid robot proves its devotion to a child. In “Reason” (1941), the recurring roboticist characters Powell and Donovan are trapped on a space station with a robot whose efforts to protect them involves the invention of a new religion. “Evidence” (1946) is about a politician who may or may not be a robot — but how to know for sure? Overall, Asimov plays with the logical possibilities and paradoxes inherent in his Three Laws of Robotics, which are first codified in the 1942 story “Runaround,” and which became famous.
Fun fact: Isaac Asimov published a 1974 anthology of (mostly) Radium Age-era sci-fi stories called Before the Golden Age. He was well-qualified to do so; by my reckoning, I, Robot is a landmark work of science fiction — one marking the end of the genre’s Radium Age/Golden Age interregnum period and the beginning of the so-called Golden Age.
GOLDEN AGE SCIENCE FICTION at HILOBROW: Golden Age Sci-Fi: 75 Best Novels of 1934–1963 | Robert Heinlein | Karel Capek | William Burroughs | E.E. “Doc” Smith | Clifford D. Simak | H.P. Lovecraft | Olaf Stapledon | Philip K. Dick | Jack Williamson | George Orwell | Boris Vian | Bernard Wolfe | J.G. Ballard | Jorge Luis Borges |Poul Anderson | Walter M. Miller, Jr. | Murray Leinster | Kurt Vonnegut | Stanislaw Lem | Alfred Bester | Isaac Asimov | Ray Bradbury | Madeleine L’Engle | Arthur C. Clarke | PLUS: Jack Kirby’s Golden Age and New Wave science fiction comics.
JOSH GLENN’S *BEST ADVENTURES* LISTS: BEST 250 ADVENTURES OF THE 20TH CENTURY | 100 BEST OUGHTS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST RADIUM AGE (PROTO-)SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TEENS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TWENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST THIRTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST GOLDEN AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FORTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FIFTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SIXTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST NEW WAVE SCI FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SEVENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST EIGHTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST DIAMOND AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST NINETIES ADVENTURES (in progress) | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | NOTES ON 21st-CENTURY ADVENTURES.