Customer Reviews

NINE TOMORROWS

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Isaac Asimov may very well be the most prolific author in modern history. With over 500 books to his credit (506, to be exact...go to asimovonline.com for the full list, if you don't believe me!), covering just about every subject in the Dewey Decimal System (except philosophy, I believe), the man was a real marvel. One of these 500 volumes, "Nine Tomorrows," is a collection of short stories that Doc Ike first had published in various magazines during the period July '56 to November '58. As the title suggests, all nine tales deal with possible futures that may face mankind, and all feature the wit, erudition and clarity that are the hallmarks of every Asimov story/novel that I've ever read. The collection kicks off with the longest tale, "Profession," in which Asimov presents a 65th century when one's vocation is determined by a kind of computerized psychological profile, and in which youngsters compete in Olympics-style games for plum jobs on other planets. But what happens if it is deemed that you're cut out for nothing at all? That's what happens to young George Platen, in this consistently interesting tale. (Asimov does make one rare goof in this story: George should be 20, not 19, by the story's end. Has anyone else noticed this?) In "The Feeling of Power," Asimov tells us of a scientist who is actually capable of doing simple math problems on paper (gasp!), without the aid of a computer (!), and how the military minds of that distant century make use of these newfound skills. But the old ways of doing things lead to nothing but trouble, in this brilliantly cynical tale. Asimov has been called "the Agatha Christie of Science Fiction," and in "The Dying Night," a murder mystery of sorts, we see an early example of how he earned that title. A scientist lies dead, his papers on mass transference stolen, and three of his old school chums are suspect. This somewhat contrived story nonetheless leads to a satisfactory conclusion that most readers will never foresee. (The 1965 observations of Mercury, by the way, have dated the science in the tale, but this is certainly nothing that Asimov could have foreseen in July '56.) What is certainly the most humorous tale in the bunch comes next: "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda." Written in Heinlein-like, tough-guy prose, this tale concerns a Galactic Service agent who must determine which of three men is attempting to smuggle a powerful drug out of the eponymous port. This one really had me chuckling out loud, and winds up very amusingly indeed. A most entertaining tale. In "The Gentle Vultures," the author tells us that an alien race has been living on the Moon's far side for several decades, waiting for Earth's Cold War to blow up so that they might come to our aid...for a fee, of course. Asimov would have us believe that these folks are the source of the 1940s' and '50s' UFO's, and who knows...maybe he's right! Anyway, the interaction between the chimplike aliens and their kidnapped Earthling is very well done in this unique tale. In "All the Troubles of the World," a computer is responsible for not only caring for everyone on Earth, but also for predicting and preventing crimes. Is it possible that this 1958 story was inspired in part by P.K. Dick's "Minority Report," published two years before? Who knows? The story is very clever, though, and has a most touching ending. "Spell My Name With an S" shows how the smallest alteration in one's life can occasionally lead to great worldwide changes. A way-out surprise ending caps off another very clever Asimov short story. And then there's "The Last Question," in which Asimov theorizes on nothing less than the end of the universe 10 trillion years in the future...and what might happen after that. This is a truly mind-expanding short story that offers much food for thought in its 12 pages. The collection wraps up with perhaps my favorite story of the bunch, "The Ugly Little Boy." Here, a nurse is hired to take care of a 4-year-old Neanderthal tyke who has been plucked from the past by a scientific institute. The tale should be instructive to all those critics who have accused Asimov of being unable to depict convincing female characters. Nurse Fellowes is VERY well drawn, I think, with some psychological complexity and surprising maternal tendencies. The ending of this tale is nicely sentimental, and lingers long in the memory. Thus ends a really fine collection of stories from one of sci-fi's true masters. Trust me, you'll wish there were 20 tomorrows here, instead of just nine!

Isaac Asimov, science fiction grandmaster and one of the absolute best writers in the field ever to wield a pen, wrote so much - and so much of high quality, at that - that it is difficult for a newcomer to his works to even know where to begin. This daunted me so much that, for a while, I dared not venture into Asimov's canon at all - doubtless, many others have done so as well. Now that I have finally started reading him, I regret that I didn't do it long ago. I urge - urge - you not to make the same mistake. Though Asimov wrote literally hundreds of short stories, this short and concise collection features some of his very best. Included in this collection are absolute masterpieces such as The Last Question (one of the Top 3 science fiction short stories of all-time, in my not-so-humble opinion); Profession (an excellent and very underrated story); The Dying Night (an excellent SF mystery that has been, alas, outdated by subsequent science, but is still enjoyable to the full); The Ugly Little Boy (a rare emotional moment for Asimov, and a great story at that - he called this his third favorite that he ever wrote); and Spell My Name With An "S" (a unique and clever story sprung from the lifelong trouble Asimov had with people adding an extra "S" to his surname.) This collection also includes several lighter pieces, which serve to fill space and lighten the mood. Very, very, very highly recommended to any fan of science fiction writing, an absolute classic and masterpiece of the genre.

Sci-fi grandmaster Isaac Asimov is at the top of his game in this collection of nine short stories. The first is "Profession", which speculates on the nature of education in a future where the Earth is the technological center of a civilization of hundreds of populated planets. The story revolves around young George Platen, and the very special profession for which he has been selected. Asimov goes beyond describing the technology for imparting information and makes points about the everyman's preference for physical over social science, the nature of the creative mind, and how society finds
ways to placate the uncreative, including an event at the future Olympics. More menacing is the "Feeling of Power" in which an unassuming computer programmer discovers the lost art of arithmetic in a future society where only computers know how to do mathematics. Asimov shows how this discovery moves up the bureaucratic chain until it reaches the ears of those who know
how to make use of it, but also makes a statement about scientific responsibility. "The Gentle Vultures" shows a non-competitive race that goes from planet to planet helping the survivors of nuclear catastrophe - until they encounter their first Cold War. And two of the very best tales deal with the burgeoning concept of artificial intelligence. "All the
Troubles of the World" shows a society that relies too heavily on its guiding computer, while "The Last Question" is a totally unique story dealing with a theosophical question and featuring a conclusion that is perhaps the greatest in all science fiction.

Although most of the stories were written in the 1950's, there's very little that's been dated by subsequent scientific discoveries, largely because this collection isn't about hard science so much as the relationships between far-reaching technologies and human society. The protagonists aren't
swashbuckling hero types, and they usually aren't even dedicated scientists single-mindedly pursuing knowledge; they're more likely to be "little guys", ordinary working people with jobs to do, who when faced with something they should be helpless to combat, still summon up the courage to act during that one brief moment when they can make a crucial difference. Probably the most dated feature of this collection is its attitude toward women, who are frequently absent entirely, or serve only in the most stereotypical of roles. Only the touchingly sentimental "The Ugly Little Boy" treats a woman as anything like a real human being. Even so, the power of Asimov's ideas
and the scope of his vision of the future have delighted readers for over half a century. If you haven't read these stories in other collections, you'll certainly want to catch them here.

Any one of the nine short stories in this volume would make their author's career. By assembling them in one volume it becomes immediately apparent that Isaac Asimov was the undisputed master of modern science-fiction. Asimov's style is perfectly suited to the genre--his writing style is plain and deceptively simple. Yet for all the simplicity of the writing the ideas remain profound.

Asimov not only understood science and technology, he had a virtually prophetic vision of how science and technology would change the world. Our internet and cell phones would be no surprise to Asimov--he'd consider how far we have yet to go.

PROFESSION: A fascinating study of a future society where one's profession is dictated by a computer according to a person's talents and aptitudes. Ideas that no longer look entirely futuristic.

THE FEELING OF POWER: The guy can do math in his head! A wry take on the effects of computing power on personal computational ability.

THE DYING NIGHT: A first-rate mystery story told in the milieu of science fiction.

I'M IN MARSPORT WITHOUT HILDA: Like "The Dying Night" a story that demonstrates Asimov's ability to effortlessly cross genre boundaries.

THE GENTLE VULTURES: Watch out for the humans. Take any work by any modern science fiction author--Asimov has already been there and has often done the story better.

ALL THE TROUBLES IN THE WORLD: Artificial Intelligence issues that are still being debated today.

SPELL MY NAME WITH AN S: About the societal impact of near infinite computing power and governmental intrusion into scientific research.

THE LAST QUESTION: Wow. A mindblower. This one is easily among the best science-fiction short stories ever written. Asimov's take on intelligence and the future of the universe.

THE UGLY LITTLE BOY: Time travel and human experimentation are combined in this gem that teaches us that our essential humanity is more important than any scientific achievement.

nine tomorrows is a nine short story collection by isaac asimov. the book was published in '59 and the stories are compiled from various sf magazines from '57 to '59. nine stories giving the reader various glimpses into the future. it's amazing how much of the technology asimov writes about is current in our society; computers, scanners, answering machines, etc. "spell my name with an s" is my favorite short. it's about a numerologist who had a scientist change one letter in his last name and changed his life and the planets existence. asimov has written hundreds of books throughout the decades. i'm sure every fan has their own starting point to read. i thought these stories were very enjoyable and hold the test of time.

As a general rule, I don't review books that are classics or books that I've read in my distant past. However, I recently read this short story collection again after some of its stories were referred to in another book I was reading, and I decided to put some words down.

When I was a teenager, Isaac Asimov was my idol. I read everything of his I could lay my hands on and, considering how prolific he was, you can imagine that my shelves are still stuffed with his books--fiction, science, biography, autobiography. But, for one reason or another, though I never stopped admiring him, I stopped reading him once he passed away and no new books were forthcoming. After rereading this, I realize that that was a mistake.

Asimov was a master of the science fiction short story. I was amazed as I was reading these stories, all originally published in the late 1950's, at how well they've held up. Yes, some of the relationships smack of fifties morality and, yes, some of the technology seems a little clunky in the twenty-first century. But it doesn't take much imagination to see Multivac in our modern computers, for example, or a small digital camera as the scanners in "The Dying Night".

In fact, there's hardly a clunker here. "Profession", "The Ugly Little Boy", and the two Multivac stories, "All the Troubles in the World" and "The Last Question" remain some of my favorites, outside of the robot stories. I'm sorry to say that I've missed out on too much of the science fiction of the past decade; however, I hope anyone coming to science fiction now doesn't miss out on the masters of the Golden Age, like Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, and, of course, Isaac Asimov. This short story collection would be a good place to start.

"Nine Tomorrows" is a collection of nine classic sci-fi short stories by Isaac Asimov. For those unfamiliar with him, Asimov is one of the "grand-masters" of science fiction and his writing (up through the 60s in particular) is amongst the very good or great of sci-fi writing...I think this collection is as good a place as any to start with his works.

The collection starts out with its longest piece, "Profession," a satisfying story with a nice mystery behind it that could easily have been adapted into a screenplay. Nearly all the additional stories are also very good (and several are excellent) - dealing with such topics as philosophizing on a man's future dealing with increased technological advances, such as more and more powerful computers...to our ability to wipe out each other with ever increasing more powerful weaponry. Overall, this collection is the kind of storytelling that seems hard to find these days and is representative of the thought-provoking science fiction that came out of the 50s. In my opinion, Asimov always put the "science" (and logic) in science fiction - but his readings are also very accessible to readers.

There are enough very good stories contained in here to warrant a 5-star rating for the book (it's also a rather short - but very "meaty" read - at 220 pgs). Even the stories that may not be of classic quality have clever/humorous endings. If you can get a copy of this I recommend it - your brain will thank you!

Many of the skills that were needed for survival even 100 years ago are now largely lost to the mass knowledge pool. The people of that time would have found it difficult to believe that what was so critical to their lives would be rendered irrelevant in the future.
The first two stories in this collection take that as their premise, in "Profession" the very act of reading is lost and in "The Feeling of Power", the ability to perform basic arithmetic has vanished with the advent of accurate, handheld computers. The first seems unlikely but the second is very real, as a math teacher, I have witnessed students going into a panic mode if their calculator is not working. The fact that the numbers are simple so the operations are easy makes no difference.
In "The Dying Night" an eccentric if not mad scientist professes to have perfected a process of mass transfer and he openly brags to his former classmates that have returned to Earth from various planets and moons in the Solar System. When the mad scientist is found dead under questionable circumstances, all of the classmates come under suspicion. Sleuth Wendell Urth is consulted and using his supreme powers of deduction, the culprit is unmasked. The Urth stories are especially entertaining to readers that understand that the Urth character is Asimov poking fun at himself.
"I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" is a space age rendition of story of the husband out of town without his wife and looking for some action. He finds it when he makes contact with Flora and then is called into emergency service to solve what could be a monumental drug-smuggling syndicate. Solving the crime turns out to be easy, the woman problems are a more complicated situation.
"The Gentle Vultures" is an unusual twist on the benevolent alien observers of humanity theme. An advanced space traveling species has set up bases to observe Earth and are willing to help, the problem is that their help will only come after there is a major nuclear war on Earth. In their experience with other species, once nuclear weapons are developed, they will be used in a massive war and then the "Vultures" land and offer their assistance. Although it may appear to be the case, they are not malicious, truly believing that they are doing the right thing to advance a species.
A very powerful and an ultimately all-powerful computer are the primary story points in "All the Troubles of the World" and "The Last Question." In the first, computing technology has advanced to the point that the Multivac computer is the only real authority on Earth and it is able to predict the potential actions of people. By taking pre-emptive action, nearly all crime has been eliminated so law enforcement is little more than watching the output of Multivac and responding accordingly. However, being the repository of all the individual problems of humans has created a personality disorder in Multivac and it becomes the source of a potentially catastrophic crime. In "The Last Question" Multivac becomes the ultimate computer, existing in several dimensions and finally it is merged with the very fabric of space and the spiritual existence of all humans. When the universe reaches the point of heat death, Multivac realizes that it is the ultimate power in the universe so it acts like it.
"Spell My Name with an S" is a basic story about simple changes having significant results. Marshall Zebatinsky is an American man that wants to have a greater impact in the scientific world. To placate his wife, he consults a numerologist, only to discover that the man is actually a statistician so his skepticism is slightly alleviated. When the consultant recommends that he change the spelling of his last name to Sebatinsky, he dismisses the advice yet follows through with it. The change turns out to be significant as it is the height of the Cold War and since there is a prominent Soviet scientist with the name Zebatinsky, this causes the speculative causality wheels in the American intelligence types to churn and generate hypothetical reasons for the change. This is an excellent parody of the Cold War mentality that interpreted even trivial events as major challenges.
"The Ugly Little Boy" is one of Asimov's best short stories. A scientific establishment manages to establish a stasis field that allows them to bring items from the past to the present. Their first attempt brings a young Neanderthal boy forward in time. Miss Fellowes is hired to be his nanny and while others find him repulsively ugly and call him ape-boy, she quickly grows to love him, naming him Timmie. When Timmie proves to be capable of being educated, she realizes that returning him back to his native environment would be a death sentence so in an extremely selfless act, she returns with him.
In these nine stories, Asimov conclusively demonstrates that he is truly a grand master of science fiction; the tales are imaginative and in some cases have been proven plausible.

All of the stories are good. But one in particular is more than excellent.
It's called: The Last Question. It blew my mind away when I first read it. I'm sure it'll do the same to you who ever you are.

The Ugly Little Boy is a good one as well. Please read the book and enjoy!

This collection contains two of Asimov's best stories--"The Feeling of Power" and "The Last Question." I find it odd that so many lesser books can remain in print while this major work of one of SF's more important voices languishes. Let's hope it gets bundled with another Asimov short story collection and returns to print.