Friday Fiction - A Few Favorites

What's better than finding a book you really like, by an author you haven't read previously, and then discovering that there are six, or eight or ten other books by the same author, perhaps even a series featuring the characters you just enjoyed so much?

I know that from a literary standpoint authors of series are sometimes regarded as lightweights. I guess there is a case to be made that it is more creative to start each new novel from scratch, creating entirely new characters and placing them in an original setting. Certainly, many of the authors widely regarded as literary have worked this way -- from Dickens, Twain and Dostoyevsky to Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway to the likes of John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates. On the other hand, a very strong character or creative literary setting can justify repeated visits. Who would wish that Arthur Conan Doyle had cut short the career of Sherlock Holmes after only one or two cases? Or that L. Frank Baum hadn't given us many opportunities to visit Oz?

For me, the questions that matter are: Do I enjoy reading the book(s)? Is the writing clear and engaging, not stilted or loaded with cliches? Are the characters fully drawn and believable? Are the stories well-crafted and paced, and do they manage to walk that fine line between predictability and implausibility?

When I find a series of books that meet these criteria, I am delighted - all the more so if the author is still actively expanding the series with new titles. It gives me something to look forward to every year or so.

What follows is a list of a few of my favorite authors and the series of their books that I have enjoyed. Because my tastes tend to run that way, the focus is on the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime fiction. For now, I will just briefly describe the work of each author. At some future time, I may revisit some of them for a more detailed discussion.

Isaac Asimov - The Foundation and Robot series

I joined the Science Fiction Book Club when I was about 12 years old. The introductory package consisted of five selections for a dime (plus shipping). This was back in the mid-1960s. I think they even had you tape your dime to the subscription card when you filled it out and mailed in your selections.

Among the titles that were offered, there were a number that had notations such as "Three Books - Counts as One Selection!" Being greedy, I thought that these selections were too good too pass up. After all, I wanted to get maximum mileage for my dime.

Thus, one of the first titles I got from the SFBC was The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. When the books arrived in the mail, I was a little miffed to find that, in this case, the three books that counted as one selection were also bound in one cover (in a special SFBC edition). However, they really were three separate, albeit it fairly short novels - Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation.

In subsequent years, I learned that Asimov was one of the most respected science fiction authors and read many of his other stories and novels. He was also an excellent science writer, popularizing new discoveries in biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy in essays intended for the general public. For more than 30 years, he authored a monthly column on science fact that appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, never missing his deadline until a few months before he died in 1992, when his terminal illness finally prevented him from working.

Asimov was one of the most prolific authors in history with more than 500 books that he either wrote or edited. His books are represented in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal System, the only exception being the 100s -- books on philosophy and psychology. Actually, I find this omission surprising, because as a fiction writer, his stories often dealt with psychological themes. Along with Robert Heinlein, Asimov was one of the earliest authors of what was termed "social science fiction," in which the focus turned from rocketry and gadgets to the impact of technology on future civilizations.

The Foundation Trilogy is the keystone of Asimov's "future history," his imagined galaxy-wide future human civilization. In it Asimov created a character named Hari Seldon whose research in psychohistory revealed that the galactic empire was on the verge of collapse, and that a long dark ages would ensue. The Foundation was Seldon's attempt to preserve as much of the pre-collapse culture as possible in order to shorten the dark times. The trilogy is essentially the story of how accurate Seldon's predictions were and how effective his Foundation was in fulfilling its objectives. Along with Frank Herbert's Dune and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, The Foundation Trilogy is considered one of the most famous works in the science fiction genre.

Asimov's other series consisted of a collection of short stories and novelettes he wrote over a number of years about robots. These stories were collected and published in two anthologies - I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots. One of the most famous artifacts of Asimov's robot series is his Three Laws of Robotics, a code that he came up with to prevent a Terminator-like outcome as robots became more and more capable of competing with and even outperforming humans. As I recall, the three laws went something like this: (1) A robot may not cause or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey orders given it by a human being, except where in conflict with the First Law; and (3) A robot must protect its own existence except where in conflict with the First or Second Law. In many of the robot stories Asimov came up with scenarios where these laws were severly tested.

In the last decade or so of his life, Asimov revisited his Foundation series, adding a number of prequels and sequels to the original trilogy. In the end, he even tied his robots into the same milieu as the Foundation stories with the novels The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire.

In summary, here is an unofficial list of titles that make up Asimov's future history:

Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation

I, Robot (anthology)
The Rest of the Robots (anthology)
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire

Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation

With the approval of Asimov's estate, other science fiction writers, including Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin, have further expanded Asimov's future history with additional titles.

That's all for today. Next up: Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula K. Le Guin.