here's the specific write-ups:
- nightfall: this is the classic story, which is an application of mesopotamian astrological theory to an imaginary planet. it is not widely realized that the ancient mesopotamians (sumerians and the semites that followed them) kept exceedingly detailed celestial records over a period of time that was roughly three times as long as our post-roman civilization, so they were able to predict events that they didn't fully understand by realizing that the movement of the stars appeared to be cyclical, just due to observing it over a long period. this system comes down to us in the form of the zodiac and what we call astrology. now, to maintain a concept of skepticism, it should be pointed out that the ancients of the region got the procession of the constellations wrong, so their theory was fundamentally flawed (if you feel the need to disprove astrology). as a story, though, this has received a lot of praise, mostly for the discourse between religion and science, which i think is mostly misunderstood. the story is fundamentally about a fear of the unknown, and explores that fear from these dueling perspectives of rational empiricism and faith-driven ignorance. what is real here is the unknown, which is beyond the realm of experiment or of faith. what comes out is a warning to science that it shouldn't acknowledge the historical follies of faith as we move together into the unknown, as science can be easily mislead by religion via the insistence on leaps of faith and the reliance on magical thinking, if we do not think carefully enough in discarding faith and magic as what they are, even if it seems like the science is upholding the myth, on first glance. in the end, the skeptics were right: civilization did not end when the sun passed out of the sky, people's souls did not leave them, the universe did not collapse in on itself, chaos did not erupt - the planet merely experienced a night-time that would appear to be lengthy, in forecast, a dark age as it may be, and that may have produced irrational behaviour in more primitive peoples that didn't understand what was happening. it's important that we don't allow that kind of religious ignorance to become self-fulfilling prophecy, that we're able to deconstruct it for what it is and understand the naturalistic phenomenon as it occurs in front of us without falling into fear and panic. after all, if the cult was in total control then their prophecies would have come true. the lesson is thus that while religion may lead us into a dark age, it may be overcome by holding to the science, if we can. note that the discussion of newtonian gravitation (and the n-body problem) is a sort of parody of what happened in our own solar system, which gave rise to theories of a planet x, as well as early theories of an antichthon or counter-earth, and was eventually resolved via einstein's correction for space-time. the historical demonstration of relativity relied on measuring an eclipse in africa (the eddington experiment); the story is similar, if less dramatic.
- green patches: so, would you save the earth from the introduction of an alien bacteria, if you could? there are some - i am not one of them - that think we came from alien bacteria in the first place. do we have a right to interfere in the competition? i'm going to provide a different response - the earth isn't much worth saving. good riddance to it. let the bacteria come, and clean us out.
- hostess: another hidden murder-mystery thing with no real point. i'm going to save it, though, because it's relatively well written.
- breeds there a man: boring mystery text that asimov uses to work through some (i think tired) debates about the theory of historical materialism (and some competing theories of it). i didn't initially spent much time on what struck me as the lunatic ravings of a character that was purposefully presented as being of unsound mind, and i don't think asimov really intended for the ideas presented by ralson to be taken seriously. the views of the historian seem to be sound enough, and asimov actually does a relatively good job of explaining why through the course of the text, even if he amuses ralson's delusions in carrying through with the plot. the psychologist seems to dismantle him rather thoroughly, as well. i've read some toynbee, and i don't think asimov is intending to express an admiring opinion of him, so much as he's intending to mock him - and i think that's the right way to approach him, too. some people seem to have differing views on the topic, but i think asimov is just building the guy up to tear him down, and eventually put him out of his misery. in another insightful bit of foresight, asimov may be predicting the tendency of the internet to tell losers to kill themselves. don't underestimate asimov's tendency to implement absurdity to carry through with sardonic ridicule.
- in a good cause: in some ways similar to the previous text, this seems to be more empty plot utilized as a mechanism to discuss some tendencies in history that are interesting to asimov.
- c-chute: pointless plot. set in arcturian universe, though.
- the fun they had: this isn't a story, it's just meant to get the idea across that we always interpret things that are different as unbelievable. while actual robot teachers are less likely than ai systems, we're learning in the pandemic that we're not that far from this. and, i'd certainly support learning systems based on the strengths and needs of the individual, rather than the existing broken model of socialized group learning.
- what if: pointless plot
- nobody here but-: pointless plot
- flies: - probably only meaningful to asimov
- kid stuff: he may be referring more to the academization of folk lore more than anything else. i remember a few years ago when some syrian migrants moved in next door to me that seemed to legitimately think i was a "genie", as that's the only way they could understand a transgendered person. to them, genies were real things. to the germans and celts of a far less distant history than would be generally realized, elves and fairies and skraelings were not the imaginary things of children's stories, but real beings that affected people's lives. the gods of the greco-roman world were not literary devices, but entities with free will that would help or hinder the existence of humans. this all passed into the realm of myth, and consequently became juvenilized in an act of christian imperialism, before being reclaimed by academic historians trying to understand the mindsets of their ancestors. and, so these were never intended to be stories for children. that said, the main point asimov may be making may be a characteristically sardonic smear of the fantasy genre and it's overlap into science fiction, which is just another reason to assert the point that asimov is not and was not l ron hubbard.
- the immortal bard: an amusing, but pointless, attack on annoying, pretentious english majors.
- foundation of sf success: self-congratulatory nonsense.
- its such a beautiful day: he's making a valid, excellent point about the alienation between humanity and nature brought on by the imposition of virtual reality. i would rather go outside sometimes, too. there's nothing wrong with the kid - there's something wrong with the society.
- the last trump: i didn't read this one, as i got turned off by the mention of an angel in the opening paragraph.
- franchise: well, does your vote count? do you have a responsibility to vote? will it come down to you? asimov frequently writes these sardonic, tongue-in-cheek explorations of frequently stated turns of phrase, whether thought through or not. but, i think his older character gets the right idea: you can't determine voting patterns strictly via demographics, there's a level of uncertainty - indeed a level of irrationality - inherent to democracy that cannot and should not be disturbed.
- dreaming is a private thing: the government has no place in the virtual reality helmets of the nation. but, this is an interesting projection of what might be coming.
- the message: this is similar to the story that was published right after, the dead past, in that it examines the question of using time travel to write history papers. asimov started off in chemistry, but wrote widely on history. there is no actual story here, though - it's just the articulation of an idea.
- the dead past - this is mostly a parody of the division of labour in academia, using a parable of exploring specific questions of carthaginian identity through the filter of a device that allows researchers to peer backwards into time by retrieving data embedded into tachyon neutrinos, which it turns out have a limited ability to reconstruct the past. the science is a bit far-fetched (you would have to find neutrinos present in the moment being searched for, which are probably mostly out in outer space), but the parody of a division of labour is interesting.
- hell-fire - this isn't a story, and i think the point he's making is fairly juvenile.
- living space - he seems to be playing with a naive articulation of the many world interpretation of quantum physics, one that allows humans to move back and forth between different possible universes by means of converting into a probability pattern. it's not really well-formed, but i get the point. unfortunately, no physicist would actually go with this - the many worlds are not even theoretically real but just mathematically necessary on paper, and nobody really talks about physical manifestations of these parallel realities. it's a kind of mathematical identity in the form of a broad summation that i'd generally argue is, itself, not that well defined. the lebensraum twist is comical but he's right - if we can one day hop between parallel realities, then all possible universes can, as well. so, is an infinite number of realities seeking space in an infinite number of worlds really an answer to the malthusian problem, then? technically, it actually shouldn't be, in the long run, but you need to do some transfinite arithmetic to actually work that out. and, asimov gets there eventually, using more of a naive argument about aliens.
- the dying night - one of asimov's recurrent mysteries that happens to feature the concept of "mass transference" (the transporters from star trek) set in a reality with space travel.
- the watery place - the canals were on mars, not on venus. again, asimov seems to be extrapolating sardonically on the question of what might happen if a ufo were to land in small-town usa, perhaps with shades of hg wells. is he making a valid point? he might be. it's almost like a coen brothers film, in a sense. but, you'd think the aliens would know better, even if the modelling of human behaviour is relatively apt.
- gimmick's three - well, if you ever want to outsmart the devil, here's some clues, as to how. i think that the far side is a better comparison than dante.
- the last question - silly take on the big crunch theory of infinite inflation and deflation (although it seems to predate it). of course, the computer couldn't function anymore in such an energy-dissipated reality, as the energy required to run it would be too spread out to harness. the computer would die with the sun. and, finding a way to reverse the expansion would take all of the energy dissipated into nothingness. so, this is again utterly nonsensical. we don't know why the universe exists, but we can be certain it wasn't created by a supercomputer left at the end of the last inflation event as that would contradict the physical basis of it existing. it's disappointing to learn that asimov considers this his most substantive story, as it seems to be one of his least insightful.
- jokester - see, i think it's best to interpret this as a joke itself, although i like the idea of a supercomputer pleading with a bad comic to stop. i tell a lot of jokes myself, and they tend to be intended to numb the pain of existence, or otherwise neutralize the absurdity of it. it's ultimately, biologically, a stress-relieving response. so, i don't think we need to seek religious solutions, when an evolutionary one is so apparent; that seems rather backwards, especially coming from asimov. that said, i would also reject the idea that only humans use amusement as a stress response. i've met some dogs that have great senses of humour, and that seem to be able to laugh as well as they can cry.
- strike breaker - this is another of asimov's many texts exploring social ostracism using the mechanism of space exploration and a reminder that systemic discrimination need not necessarily be left behind here, as we leave this planet behind.
- the author's ordeal - more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- profession - this is a curious story about the futility of being intelligent within the emptiness of technocratic capitalism. it's fundamentally a critique of the corporatization of the education system, and rooted in asimov recognizing an often unstated truth: the university is as much of a refuge for those that can't survive in the market as it as a hierarchical structure for the intellectual elite.
- i'm in marsport without hilda - pointless smut.
- insert knob a in hole b - it's rather unlikely that anybody will ever be eating steak in space. this is otherwise a rather cliched nerd joke about "some assembly required".
- the gentle vultures - asimov is doing one of the things he's known for, which is to take a historical entity (the hurrians, which i believe were the sister-race to the sumerians, and which lived in the caucasus region, north of the fertile crescent. they frequently came into conflict with the various semitic groups that replaced the sumerians, who frequently warred amongst each other) and project it forwards into time, making it a character in a space alien story. this becomes a science fiction trope, in time. romans become romulans, mongols become klingons, etc. this is not to mention asimov's roman-influenced galactic empire, itself. besides retelling the story of hurrian supremacy over the semitic tribes via the space alien mechanism, the story itself isn't much.
- spell my name with an s - asimov has written a number of stories about the paranoia that defined the cold war. he may be expressing some discrimination he experienced, as a russian-american. this is otherwise pointless.
- i just make them up, see - more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- the feeling of power - multiplication by hand as a mysterious, magical power; it's like something from a monty python skit. this idea of technology making us stupid, of it thrusting us into a new dark age, is a frequent theme in asimov, though, and one that many others have picked up on, recently. so, comical plotline aside, there's maybe something profound, here. can your average adult multiply large numbers by hand, nowadays? something else to note is that we have to guess how the greeks (not to mention the babylonians) did mathematics with a primitive or awkward (base-60 in the case of the babylonians) numeral system (and without 0), and our discourses on the topic would no doubt seem as silly to an ancient athenian or babylonian as this story does to us.
- all the troubles of the world - asimov seems to want to misunderstand the concept of probability on purpose, here. no machine could ever decide where or if a crime is going to occur, there would necessarily be uncertainty and it would necessarily be wrong relatively frequently. acting on all false alarms would both create civil rights issues and be uneconomical. i mean, it's a swell enough idea to imagine a computer that can predict crime, but it's utterly nonsensical and utterly unrealistic. nor do we know why multivac wants to die, in the end.
- the uptodate sorcerer - boring smut
- the ugly little boy - this is a fairly forward thinking analysis of neanderthal humanity, given that it was written in the 1950s, when neanderthals were thought to have been barbaric cavemen. there was a competing hypothesis that neanderthals may have specifically been the unique ancestors of white europeans, which we today know is wrong; today, we know (from dna) that humans interbred with neanderthals and that they were probably a sister species, homo sapiens neanderthalensis. the introduction of a concept of pathos here would have been rather remarkable for it's time. it is, however, fundamentally a human interest story, rather than a sci-fi story. i suppose that it would probably be the inspiration underlying the film encino man.
- unto the fourth generation - pointless
- rejection slips - more self-congratulatory nonsense.
- what is this thing called love - pointless
- the machine that won the war - while this is meant to be ironic, the underlying point is to draw attention to the importance of randomness in computing, which is maybe not as well understood as it ought to be. these (perhaps outdated) popular perceptions of computers as infallible and omnipotent devices is rooted more in fiction than in fact.
- my son, the physicist - another outlandish nerd joke
- eyes do more than see - eyes and ears are of course mechanical objects that can be represented in software, so we don't have to lose their functionality in the process of digitization. but, he makes a good point that we shouldn't forget their importance, in terms of actually enjoying existence. faced with the realization of my mortality, i see no delusion in pretending that a senseless existence is not preferable to the lack of one altogether, but i cannot pretend to understand how i might analyze such a thing billions of years into it.
