Tuesday 28 February 2017

Creation In Fiction

Fantasy
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis

SF
"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov
The Triumph Of Time by James Blish
"Flight to Forever" by Poul Anderson
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson

"Creation" can mean either just a cosmic beginning or a creative act.

Having linked here to the Asimov story, maybe I should reread it to comment further? However, some comments are possible already.

Themes covered by both Asimov and Anderson
creation
AI
robots (mobile humanoid AIs)
time travel
FTL
an interstellar empire in a future history
aliens
detective fiction
science writing
anything else?

Which does Asimov do better? I would say only the robots - because he specialized in them.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would argue that PA could have written robot stories at least as good as those of Asimov if he had been so inclined. We get an idea of what Andersonian robot stories might have been like in is "Critique of Impure Reason."

Sean