An Asimov Companion

Characters, Places and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7864-9823-9
Verlag: McFarland

Buch, Englisch, 196 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 293 g

Reihe: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy

A prolific author, Isaac Asimov is most admired for his science fiction, including his collection of short stories I, Robot and his Robot, Empire and Foundation series novels. While each of these narratives takes place in a different fictional universe, Asimov asserted at the end of his career that he had, with his last Robot and Foundation novels, unified them into one coherent metaseries.

The Encyclopedia Galactica, a compendium of all human knowledge, is prominent in the Foundation series as a key plot element but is also widely cited in the text itself. Palumbo and Sullivan's major new reference work book contains 1,000 selected excerpts from the Encyclopedia, identifying and describing all of the characters, locales, artifacts, concepts and institutions in Asimov's metaseries. The authors argue that Asimov successfully integrates the three series through the retroactive use of chaos theory, the underlying principle behind both psychohistory and Three Laws of Robotics-respectively the crucial concepts in the Foundation and Robot stories.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Palumbo, Donald E.

Sullivan, Iii C. W.

Über Autor(innen)

Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University, USA. He lives in Greenville, North Carolina.

C.W. Sullivan III is Distinguished Professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University, USA and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.