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"My Son, the Physicist" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was commissioned by Hoffman Electronics Corporation and appeared in February 1962 in Scientific American . It later appeared in Asimov's collection Nightfall and Other Stories (1969).
Gerard Cremona, a communications engineer with an American space agency, is trying to maintain communication that has been established with an expedition that has apparently reached Pluto after four years in space. The difficulty lies in the significant delays for the radio signal to travel back and forth, making timely and meaningful interaction impossible.
His proud mother, who happens to visit his office whilst he is wrestling with the problem, ultimately advises him to keep talking and get the expedition crew to keep talking as well. That way, although it normally takes twelve hours for radio waves to cover the distance, it is possible to have effectively continuous conversation.
Mrs. Cremona declares that all women know that the secret to spreading news is to "Just Keep Talking". Thus, by constantly transmitting data and instructions from both ends, and interjecting questions or responses as needed, no time need be wasted.
Although it plays no part in the story, the fictional supercomputer Multivac is mentioned inter alia.
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I, Robot is a fixup collection made up of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950 and were then compiled into a single publication by Gnome Press in 1950, in an initial edition of 5,000 copies.
Who Goes There? is a 1938 science fiction horror novella by American author John W. Campbell, written under the pen name Don A. Stuart. Its story follows a group of people trapped in a scientific outpost in Antarctica infested by shapeshifting monsters able to absorb and perfectly imitate any living being, including humans. Who Goes There? was first published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine and was also printed as The Thing from Another World, as well as included in the collection by the same title. Its extended, novel version, found in an early manuscript titled Frozen Hell, was finally published in 2019.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
"Robbie" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was the first of Asimov's positronic robot stories. In 2016, "'Robbie" won a retrospective 1941 Hugo Award for best short story. "Robbie" was the fourteenth story written by Asimov, and the ninth to be published. It was the first story in Asimov's Robot series.
"Liar!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections I, Robot (1950) and The Complete Robot (1982). It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story. Although the word "robot" was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his 1920 play R.U.R., Asimov's story "Liar!" contains the first recorded use of the word "robotics" according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The events of this short story are also mentioned in the novel The Robots of Dawn written by the same author.
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and in the anthologies in the collections Nine Tomorrows (1959), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), Robot Dreams (1986), The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986), the retrospective Opus 100 (1969), and in Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1 (1990). While he also considered it one of his best works, "The Last Question" was Asimov's favorite short story of his own authorship, and is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac. Through successive generations, humanity questions Multivac on the subject of entropy.
Nightfall and Other Stories (1969) is a collection of 20 previously published science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov. Asimov added a brief introduction to each story, explaining some aspect of the story's history and/or how it came to be written.
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
"The Dead Past" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, first published in the April 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was later collected in Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), and adapted into an episode of the science-fiction television series Out of the Unknown. Its pattern is that of dystopian fiction, but of a subtly nuanced flavor.
"The Billiard Ball" is a science fiction short story by American author Isaac Asimov, written in September 1966 and first published in the March 1967 issue of If. It appeared in Asimov's 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries, in his 1973 collection The Best of Isaac Asimov, in his 1986 collection Robot Dreams and in The Complete Stories, Vol. 2.
"Spell My Name with an S" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the January 1958 issue of Star Science Fiction under the title "S as in Zebatinsky", and was reprinted in the 1959 collection Nine Tomorrows under Asimov's original title. The story was inspired by Asimov's frustration with the frequent misspelling of his name as "Azimov".
"The Talking Stone" is a science fiction mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, which first appeared in the October 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries. "The Talking Stone" was the second of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories.
The Complete Stories is a discontinued series intended to form a definitive collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories and novels. Originally published in 1990 and 1992 by Doubleday, it was discontinued after the second book of the planned series. Altogether 88 of Asimov's 383 published short stories are collected in these two volumes.
"Unto the Fourth Generation" is a fantasy short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) and has been reprinted in the collections Nightfall and Other Stories (1969) and The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986). It is Asimov's most explicitly Jewish story.
Question and Answer is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It originally appeared in the June and July 1954 issues of magazine Astounding Science Fiction, and was later reprinted in 1956 as part of Ace Double D-199 under the title Planet of No Return, and again as a stand-alone Ace novel in February 1978 under the original title.
"A Statue for Father" is a humorous science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the February 1959 issue of Satellite Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories.
"For the Birds" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The editor of a proposed fashion magazine wanted a science fiction story about a clothing designer. Asimov agreed, and wrote the story in November 1978. It was accepted, but the proposed magazine never appeared, and Asimov sold the story to Asimov's Science Fiction. "For the Birds" was published in the May 1980 issue of Asimov's, and was reprinted in the 1983 collection The Winds of Change and Other Stories. The story was one of three Asimov wrote in the late 1970s set among a series of O'Neill-type space habitats.
"Deadline" is a 1944 science fiction short story by American writer Cleve Cartmill, first published in Astounding Science Fiction. The story described the then-secret atomic bomb in some detail. At that time the bomb was still under development and top secret, which prompted a visit by the FBI.
Michael Joseph Cassutt is an American television producer, screenwriter, and author. His notable TV work includes producing or writing, or both, for The Outer Limits, Eerie, Indiana, Beverly Hills, 90210, and The Twilight Zone. In addition to his work in television, Cassutt has written over thirty short stories, predominately in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He has also published novels, including the 1986 The Star Country, the 1991 Dragon Season, the 2001 Red Moon and the 2011 Heaven's Shadow, in collaboration with David S. Goyer. In addition, Cassutt contributes non-fiction articles to magazines and is the author of the non-fiction book, The Astronaut Maker, a biography of NASA legend George W. S. Abbey (2018).
The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov is a collection of forty eight short science fiction and mystery stories and two science essays by American writer Isaac Asimov, published by Dark Harvest in May 1989.
