Isaac Asmiov

 The book for December is Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot'. What should we know about Asimov?

He was born in 1920 in the Soviet Union. His family emigrated to the United States a few years later and ran a series of candy shops. He credits the newspapers and magazines that were sold there for his lifelong love of reading and learning. He started writing in 1939. Short stories at first, and later full length novels. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, publishing literally hundreds of books. 

Mostly science fiction?

He's most well known for his science fiction, but he wrote a ton of non-fiction books as well. I've got his guide to Shakespeare, and it is an incredible resource of the history of the plays, as well as the terms and situations that happen in the writing.

But, he's well known for the science fiction?

Extremely. Asimov is one of the Big Three of science fiction, the other two being Arthur C Clarke and Robert Heinlein. The three of them dominated science fiction sales in the 40s and 50s. Asimov's two most famous series are the Robot stories and the Foundation Series (which we'll eventually get to.)

Are they good?

They're both very good. The Foundation Trilogy is ranked 8th on NPR's list. 'I, Robot' is ranked 16th. Each of them is a collection of short stories that Asimov wrote over a period of time. The Robot stories are shorter than the Foundation ones. Almost all of them are plotted as solving a mystery of some sort. I personally prefer the Foundation stories, but it's not a strong preference.

Is there anything we should know about 'I, Robot'?

This is where Asimov created his famous Three Rules of Robotics. These control how robots operate around humans and each other. The stories usually involve some difficulty in how the robots interpret these rules. It's fun for the reader to try and outguess the author. My record of doing so is very poor. Asimov is much, much smarter than I am.

What else should we know?

Asimov's novel, 'Caves of Steel' belong to his Robot stories. This is number 94 on the list, so we'll get to it eventually.