(Drivebycuriosity) - Isaac Asimov belonged to the authors who defined science fiction in the 20th century. Recently I read his novel "Even the Gods" (my review). The anthology "Nightfall and other stories" contains 20 stories selected by the master himself (amazon ). I have five favorites:
"What a wonderful day": In a far future people commute with the help of an advanced technology, called "Doors". One who walks through one of these "Doors" can immediately reach any place on earth if there is a "Door". The easiness of commuting changed human behavior fundamentally, but with a price.
"Green Patches": The crew of a space ship is on the way home, after exploring a far away planet which is populated by a very different life form. Did the visit have consequences?
In "What if" (first published 1952) Asimov imagined AI and self-driving cars: "It could choose an ideal course, avoid cars, stop at red lights, pick the optimum speed for the terrain. Everybody could sit in the back seat and automobile accidents would vanish". Shout it from the roof top!
"What is this thing called love?": Very powerful aliens, who had parked their spaceship in earth´s orbit, abducted a man and woman, both randomly chosen and unknown to each other, to find out if humanity could rapidly evolve into a danger for the whole cosmos and has to be destroyed or not. A hilarious take on how scifi & sex was represented in the 50`s magazines.
"The machine that won the war" is about a huge super computer that helped to defeat dangerous aliens - or did it?
Asimov is still ahead most of the contemporary scifi writers.
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