Wiki Fiction: Isaac Asimov

Apr 5, 2015

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is one of my favorite science fiction authors. This blog is full of my comments on Asimov's stories such as The End of Eternity and his Foundation Saga.

More importantly, my own current writing obsession, the Exode Trilogy, began as a fan fiction sequel to The End of Eternity and Asimov's Foundation and Earth.

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Not satisfied to simply write Asimov-inspired fan fiction, I had to go one step farther. I made Asimov a character in the Exode Trilogy.

So, it should be no surprise that "Asimov" is my most used label for blog posts, even beating out "science fiction".

In the Beginning

Asimov travels through time
and meets himself.

I was introduced to Isaac Asimov through his novel The Gods Themselves, but that is a rather challenging hard science fiction romp. If there is anyone on the planet who has not yet read Asimov's science fiction, my advice is to start with either The End of Eternity or I, Robot. Then read his robot novels and then you will be ready to read his Foundation Saga.

If you are a fan of fantasy, you might enjoy Asimov's Azazel stories, although you should approach Asimov's writing with full realization that his first love was the science fiction pulp magazines of the 1930s. Also, for a period Asimov wrote mostly non-fiction. He had a Ph.D. in biochemistry and was for many years a professor at Boston University.

Asimov mentors himself as a writer.

Asimov in the Foundation Reality
In The End of Eternity, Asimov explained Reality and the mechanics of time travel. Asimov himself became a time traveler in the Foundation Reality. He was sent back into his own past in order to help capture a positronic robot.

Asimov in the Ekcolir Reality
In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov became well known during the 1950s because of a television program that was based on his Lucky Starr books. In the Ekcolir Reality, the pace of technological progress was slightly ahead of what we experience here in the universe as we know it (what I call the Buld Reality). In particular, space exploration began in the 1950s and Lucky Starr became a highly influential television program among children who grew up during the "space race".

The Foundation Saga as Written in the Ekcolir Reality

Image credit: see "Dors Venabili" by Anastasia

R. Daneel Olivaw

In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov lived long enough to write 9 novels in the Foundation Saga. His novel Vision of Foundation is set immediately after the end of Robots and Empire. Daneel constructs a new robot that is similar in design to Giskard.

The new robot (R. Dexar Venabili) is sent to the planet Erythro to begin a terraforming project that will eventually lead to the creation of Gaia and, later, Galaxia. Daneel takes on the challenge of helping the Settlers spread among the stars. Daneel takes pains to hide all evidence of the Gaia project from the Settlers. Grean the Kac'hin is able to follow progress on Daneel's Gaia project by assigning Delpha to establish a monitoring post in the Hierion Domain from which development of the group mind of Gaia could be monitored. Daneel receives mysterious "visions" revealing that the Foundation will have to go through a brief period of technological advancement in order to discover the last critical technology that will make Galaxia possible.

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In the Ekcolir Reality, Asimov lived long enough to write a sequel to Foundation and Earth. In his novel Foundation and Aliens, Daneel must do battle against aliens from beyond our galaxy. More on Asimov in Deep Time.

Asimov in the Buld Reality
In the Buld Reality, the universe as we know it, a copy of Asimov was made after he was infected with HIV. That "copy of Asimov" became a member of the Dead Widowers and came into communication with "the Editor" of the Exode Trilogy. The copy of Asimov became aware of Foundation and Aliens and that novel, written in the Ekcolir Reality, became inspiration for The Foundations of Eternity.