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How is his stuff hard science? He made up the positronic brain, and his whole psychohistory was just absurd; if anything, the idea of a brilliant cabal of scien
by Noos 9y ago
How is his stuff hard science? He made up the positronic brain, and his whole psychohistory was just absurd; if anything, the idea of a brilliant cabal of scientists and technicians using psychohistory to predict the future is just dressed up witchcraft than real science. Stuff like Nightfall is just embarrassing.
Most of his science output was in a bunch of nonfiction books that I'm not even sure are still in print, and he had a rep for churning out books on every subject at lightning speed, rather than for great insight.
Dorsai and Dickson's stuff had issues too, but he was much better at writing people as well as ideas, and he's had a longer, better overall career at writing science fiction and fantasy. Asimov was probably the first household name writer, but really needs to be viewed a lot more critically then the fandom does.
- eesmith 9y agoWho do you think wrote hard science fiction which didn't have its absurd aspects? Heinlein, writing about ESP, and FTL? Niven too, for that matter. FWIW, Asimov's "Evidence" is listed as a representative example of hard science fiction at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction .
- cde-v 9y ago"Most of his science output was in a bunch of nonfiction books that I'm not even sure are still in print, and he had a rep for churning out books on every subject at lightning speed, rather than for great insight." The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science (now called Asimov's New Guide To Science) was and is still very highly regarded.