What An Idea

One of my favorite sci-fi authors (and probably many others) is Isaac Asimov. His robot mysteries and the Foundation series are classics and his collections of short stories are always entertaining. He had a way of setting up a mystery and leading you to the wrong conclusion over and over. One of the things that intrigued me about reading his short fiction was the stories behind the stories. Several times, he and several other writers were called in and given a premise by the editor. They would be told that this issue of Astounding was on a specific topic, say time travel, and we would like a story about some specific item concerning a point in the future. Each author would have to write a different story using that theme in a limited period of time. Being under the gun seemed to work well for Asimov.

Writing these entries is a lot like that. I try to stay a little ahead in case of emergencies and sometimes have two or three saved. I have been doing this for 10 months and know that I have not scratched the surface of things to talk about but due to the nature of the way things are, you find yourself running over familiar ground in search of fresh ideas. We tend to stay with what we know and see on a daily basis. Our interests are pretty established by the time we turn 30. We may pick up something new like in-line skating but that is more of a new way to kill yourself and not so much a new thing. Although, I have had very few people look at my site, I realize that I am doing this for me. This is my way to get my thoughts in order and vent when things get too absurd.


Very rarely do we experience anything new and exciting. That is why I love sci-fi, for the chance to experience some strange, new concepts. One of Asimov’s first short stories was called Nightfall. It was about a planet at the peak of its technological advancement. Archeologists are excavating through ruins and finding that there are older civilizations that seem to have been destroyed by fire. It appears to be a cycle of destruction. The odd thing about this planet is that there is never darkness. It has several suns that hang in the sky and one is always shining and providing light. All of the facts come together and by the end of the story we find that every period of fire was preceded by the absence of any sun in the sky. Since it was never dark, this civilization had not experienced it and when faced with the absence of light, create their own and destroy themselves. The survivors fell back to barbarism and the cycle started again. That was a bold, new idea that he eventually expanded into to a novel.

Icool

Cobb