wow Loomis
thanks!
Well I was writing this for Aaron as you posted so instead of paring my gestating post down or editing it i'm gonna send that part as it is:
"Aaron, regretfully, my list (along with the books
) is on my storage otherwise I would send it to you, but i guess you can't go wrong if you start reading the I Robot short story and a couple more before the movie. You might find it in the I Robot compilation book, that puts several of the first short stories with "interstitial" segments kind of linking them, or you can find it in other bigger Robot stories compilations (I don't remember exactly what they were called. The Complete Robot?) Those have more stories than the I Robot comp, but they are presented without the linking framework. I think some of the Multivac ones appear there too. Those are followed with the Robot novels, then the 3 Empire novels and finally the Foundation novels. I had to do the list cus they werent always presented on the compilatoions in order or there might be one or two published isolatedly in another book, etc, and I think there might be some that occurred interspersed between the novels. That list was hard work getting it right!
"
And Loomis, now that you have refreshed my marmaledtronic brain with your list,
i think i'll borrow it and add a couple of more things i remembered. So the crono order based on your list goes somewhat like this:
-I, Robot (short stories)
-The Rest of the Robots (more short stories)
-or The Complete Robot (combined edition of the above two)
*(I think some short stories were left out or something, from each of those so i had to get all 3 plus a couple of other collections that came out at the time (Robot Visions and Robot Dreams, the one that had a sleeping robot on the cover emulating a famous painting) plus another Asimov very small assorted-stories paperback book, and one isolated short story "Cal"?(i think his last) that was published as a booklet by the Asimov Blue Leather Collection? (Blue? Ray?
) (Or was it the Science Fiction Book Club?) and i'm not sure i think i photocopied another one from a book that was out of print etc etc, and other assorted odds and ends, you get the idea. To get it all you have to buy *gasp" do the book equivalent of double dipping (so what else is new
) Kind like collecting all the Beatle mixes
)*
-The Caves of Steel (novel)
-The Naked Sun (novel)
-The Robots of Dawn (novel)
-Robots and Empire (novel)
*then, not on your list are the Empire novels that take place after the Robot times but before or during the establishment of the Galactic Empire. which are: (altho i dont remember if this is the correct order)*
-The Currents of Space
-The Stars, Like Dust
-Pebble in the Sky
*there were also one or two isolated Empire and Foundation short stories not in the novels which i think i was lucky to get in the Asimov very small assorted-stories paperback book i mentioned above, I think. (can't remebwer its name, it's all very clear on my stored unaccessable list, of course
)*
-Prelude to Foundation
-Forward the Foundation
-Foundation (1951)
-Foundation and Empire (1952)
-Second Foundation (1953).
-Foundation's Edge
-Foundation and Earth
I think that was the order, no?
Loomis wrote:Make sense?
yeah! specially after I read Asimov's own little list in the intro or outro of the paperback of Prelude, I think, which is what started me on doing my complete Extended Edition of the Lor.. err I mean List of the History of the Future
For completition's sake, there was one more novel (The ends of eternity? can't recall) that was very very remotedly related to some concept in the robot to foundatoion series
oh and Loomis, this is only my opinion, but it might make it a better read for you, the Last book of the Foundations (which if i compiled your list right is Foundation and Earth?) which closes the whole history of the future, is in my opinion, well, was a little letdown in quality of style, after the previous ones (I mean if you read them in historicaly chronological order instead of published/written order) cus since it was written somewhat earlier than some of the books that go "before" it, it's style isnt as polished as the latter Foundation ones he wrote last (its kind of more primitive, maybe the years he wrote that one he was in a low middle period.) I think he was gonna write one or two after that part of the story or something but sadly he died. Just telling you so that when you get to it, since you'll know it's not as super duper in style, you wont get the somewhat anticlimatic feeling I got
I'm still waiting for Frank Herbert to finish DUNE too...
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Susan Calvin lives! (And watches her robots on 23:9 displays.) With autospellers, of course.
I just got back from seeing Spider-Man 2. I was on vacation when it came out, and all my friends saw it then, so I was unable to get someone to go with me until now. Anyways, I loved it, and it has me even more pumped for I, Robot.