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Originally Posted by Akai
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That looks interesting, Akai! I like the quote on the cover. For anyone who wants to know more about the book:
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Originally Posted by innerspaceboy
Just finished a reading project I'd been chipping away at for years. When I was 15 years old I happened upon a short story collection by Isaac Asimov and "The Last Question" inspired a life-long love of science fiction. The story involves a recurring thematic element called Multivac which Asimov used in 16 of his stories. Back in February I shared a photo of the exceedingly rare 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly I tracked down which marked the first-ever printing of "The Last Question" for my library.
I constructed a spreadsheet of every one of the stories and then researched and documented the complete publication history of each story so I could secure copies of every one. It was quite a challenge as the first tale, "Question," was only published in a 1955 issue of Computers and Automation magazine and was subsequently withdrawn for being too similar to one by another author at the time. Thanks to The Internet Archive I was able to download a hi-res scan of the original magazine to complete my reading project.
Tonight I finished the 16th story, published in a pulp zine in 1983 which I found in a used bookshop. It was a wonderfully satisfying project.
Thank you, Dr. Asimov.
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That's impressive, Innerspace! Congratulations on completing such a longterm project.
I can't compete with anything like that, especially as the story behind this book is "Someone gave it to me. I read it."
My verdict: It is structured a bit like
The Hours , with chapters flipping between two stories; one modern, one old, with, presumably, thematic connections between the two. Quite a good scheme for a book, although the "historic" story never really came to life for me.
The modern story, a drama played out in the US and the Dominican Republic is pretty good.