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"Lest We Remember" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the February 1982 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections The Winds of Change and Other Stories (1983) and Robot Dreams (1986).
John Heath is a "dead average" man working for Quantum Pharmaceuticals. Unhappy with his average position in the company and in life, he searches for a way to improve himself and at the same time impress his fiancée, Susan Collins. When researchers from Quantum give him the opportunity, he volunteers to be a test subject for a new drug that allows total memory recall. When the drug succeeds and John is able to remember everything and anything that he has ever read or heard down to the exact word, he goes on a rampage to climb the corporate ladder in his company, blackmailing his superiors into acceding to his demands. When his bosses and the researchers who gave him the drug trick him and lock him in one of the rooms in the office building, they try to inject him with the antidote for the recall drug. Susan, however, comes to his rescue, and although they never succeed in giving him the antidote (after he suffers a traumatic shock, the bosses believe he has lost the power), John promises to Susan never to use his new power for malevolence, while the possibility remains open that maybe one day everyone could possess that ability.
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Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
John Wood Campbell Jr. was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of Astounding Science Fiction from late 1937 until his death and was part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Campbell wrote super-science space opera under his own name and stories under his primary pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. Campbell also used the pen names Karl Van Kampen and Arthur McCann. His novella Who Goes There? was adapted as the films The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011).
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, both novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Caves of Steel is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is a detective story and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction can be applied to any literary genre, rather than just being a limited genre in itself.
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, which were to be followed by robots in several of his stories. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although similar restrictions had been implied in earlier stories.
Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by American biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It was first described in a spoof scientific paper titled "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in 1948. The major peculiarity of the chemical is its "endochronicity": it starts dissolving before it makes contact with water.
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.
"The Bicentennial Man" is a novelette in the Robot series by American writer Isaac Asimov. According to the foreword in Robot Visions, Asimov was approached to write a story, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, for a science fiction collection to be published in honor of the United States Bicentennial. However, the arrangement fell through, leaving Asimov's the only story actually completed for the project. Asimov sold the story to Judy-Lynn del Rey, who made some small changes to the text. Asimov restored the original text when the story was collected in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976).
Robot Dreams (1986) is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie. The title story is about Susan Calvin's discovery of a robot with rather disturbing dreams. It was written specifically for this volume and inspired by the McQuarrie cover illustration. All of the other stories had previously appeared in various other Asimov collections. Four of the stories are robot stories, while five are Multivac stories.
"The Red Queen's Race" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov; it uses the Red Queen's race from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass as a metaphor for the final plot twist. The story also makes reference to Asimov's psychohistory. "The Red Queen's Race" was first published in the January 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.
The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying is a 1972 collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. Each story is accompanied by commentary by the author, who gives details about his life and his literary achievements in the period in which he wrote the story, effectively amounting to a sort of autobiography for the years 1938 to 1949.
The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946, was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction literature appeared. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are, in this scheme, a transitional period. Robert Silverberg, who came of age then, saw the 1950s as the true Golden Age.
"Trends" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in Great Science Fiction Stories About the Moon (1967) and The Early Asimov (1972).
Azazel is a character created by Isaac Asimov and featured in a series of fantasy short stories. Azazel is a two-centimeter-tall demon, named after the Biblical demon.
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazines. The magazine's first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a companion publication, Super Science Stories. After nine issues Pohl was replaced by Alden H. Norton, who subsequently rehired Pohl as an assistant. The budget for Astonishing was very low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his membership in the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The final issue was dated April of that year.
Cosmic Stories and Stirring Science Stories were two American pulp science fiction magazines that published a total of seven issues in 1941 and 1942. Both Cosmic and Stirring were edited by Donald A. Wollheim and launched by the same publisher, appearing in alternate months. Wollheim had no budget at all for fiction, so he solicited stories from his friends among the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans including James Blish and C. M. Kornbluth. Isaac Asimov contributed a story, but later insisted on payment after hearing that F. Orlin Tremaine, the editor of the competing science fiction magazine Comet, was irate at the idea of a magazine that might "siphon readership from magazines that paid", and thought that authors who contributed should be blacklisted. Kornbluth was the most prolific contributor, under several pseudonyms; one of his stories, "Thirteen O'Clock", published under the pseudonym "Cecil Corwin", was very successful, and helped to make his reputation in the field. The magazines ceased publication in late 1941, but Wollheim was able to find a publisher for one further issue of Stirring Science Stories in March 1942 before war restrictions forced it to close again.
Autómata is a 2014 English-language Spanish-Bulgarian science fiction action film directed by Gabe Ibáñez starring Antonio Banderas. The film is co-written by Ibáñez with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate, and co-stars Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Melanie Griffith, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, and Tim McInnerny.
"Internal Combustion" is a classic science fiction robot story by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Infinity Science Fiction for February, 1956. It first appeared in book form in the collection A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales ; it later appeared in the anthologies Souls in Metal and Top Science Fiction: The Authors' Choice. The story has been translated into German.
"Cornzan the Mighty" is a classic science fiction story by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published under the variant title "Cornzan, the Mighty" in the magazine Future Science Fiction for December, 1955. All later appearances omit the comma. It first appeared in book form in the collection A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales. The story has been translated into German.