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Here's a new short story for us to discuss.

Isaac Asimov was the most prolific science fiction author of all time. In fifty years he averaged a new magazine article, short story, or book every two weeks, and most of that on a manual typewriter. Asimov thought that The Last Question, first copyrighted in 1956, was his best short story ever. Even if you do not have the background in science to be familiar with all of the concepts presented here, the ending packs more impact than any other book that I've ever read. Don't read the end of the story first!

"This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.

After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won't tell you what that was lest l spoil the story for you.

It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should."

ooohhh...I really like this story! I was not expecting that ending. As I turn it over in my mind the implications of that last section get more and more profound.

I also liked the evolution of names through the story.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading short stories...Thanks for starting these discussions!

Nick said: Asimov thought that The Last Question, first copyrighted in 1956, was his best short story ever.

1956? It's is really interesting how well the story has held up. I remember talking about the cosmic entropy when I was in school and being a little disconcerted about the concept, then much later hearing the buzz about dark matter when we first started to look for it. The speculation at the time was that if there was enough of this missing matter, the universe expansion would start to slow and eventually reverse before collapsing back into a singularity and subsequently another big bang. I was really hoping that theory would pan out. The whole concept of a cycle seemed much preferable to just a perpetual expansion until the lights go out.

Ah, that's always been one of my favorites.

The strong point of the story is how he manages to come at the question from a slightly different direction each time. The purpose of each scene is the same, but they're all different. And of course, the opening line is a winner.

And the last line, which I like to quote every once in a while.

One of my favorites as well -- I was drawn to the thread in part because I just posted a review of The Gods Themselves (which I just reread) when I saw your comment, Rindis.

It is worth posting this link, however



which is a VERY short story that precedes Asimov's by a couple of years. "There is now" has also long been one of my favorite lines.

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I love short stories, so this is a fun thread. I liked that in this story it almost seemed like religion and science together and it works. We are so used to the two not agreeing. So I really liked that aspect.

I particularly enjoyed the evolution of Man that Asimov presents. It is interesting to think that we go from a multitude of individual physical beings and evolve to a "hive-mind" of mental beings.

It makes me wonder if Douglas Adams used this short story as a basis for the Hitchhiker's Guide, where for generations and ages, all Man waits for an answer to a philosophical question to be generated by an advanced computer.

Nice link, Robert!

I LOVE Fredric Brown!

To me the interesting thing is that they are basically the same story -- so much so that one has to wonder whether or not Asimov was consciously or unconsciously plagiarizing Brown. Back then I think that everybody knew everybody else and they probably shared ideas and themes, especially where they didn't really "compete" and these don't. One of them is arguably one of the shortest published stories in SF (I won't say THE shortest because somebody would doubtless trump me:-) and gets its impact from that. The other is a much more involved version of pretty much the same thing, with a slightly different "question". And if that isn't enough, When Harlie was One by Gerrold is the full-length novel version -- same general plot, different details and story.

In all three man builds semi-sentient supercomputer -- noting carefully that the architecture of said computer in the first two cases is that of a "beowulf" (I'm a longstanding member of the beowulf list, so it is interesting to note that the basic architecture was appearing in SF long before the concept of "a network" was properly invented). In all three cases man wishes to ask the computer silly questions, where Asimov's question is actually less silly than the other two storys' questions (it is actually an important question even today in theoretical computer science, where it is asked in the context of information theory and computability). In all three stories the computer is forced to "become god" in order to answer. There was one more story with almost exactly the same plotline I read back in the 60s or 70s (and that I probably still own, somewhere) but I cannot remember the title or author -- it was a bit more noir and not as well written, computers buried underground and all.

These stories more or less created a subgenre or SF theme that continues to this very day, often with the same general idea being pursued. Heinlein's Mike in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (and other sentient computers throughout his writings. Hal. Douglas Adams "computer" working on the answer to everything. The info-universe of Gibson with its dark and strange gods, deus en machina instead of ex.

Both Asimov's and Brown's stories represent an unfortunately lost SF artform in yet another way -- the short, pithy, short story leading to a ba-da-booom punchline. For example, who could forget Damon Knight's To Serve Man?




rgb

I occasionally fool myself into thinking I'm well-read. Then someone reminds me how much more is out there.

Good essay Robert.

I wouldn't be surprised if Asimov's story was inspired by Brown's. Though as more of an 'answer' to it.

A couple more recent novels that have themes of a single controlling computer system: The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan, and Earth by David Brin.

Aw, you're just tempting me to show off and cite something like The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper (which is actually about the LACK of a functioning world-scale computer -- my paperback copy cost something like 25 cents new in the 60's) or mention AVIAS and Pern. But the truth of the matter is that I read a book a day from roughly when I was seven years old to when I was 32 and my first son was born (sometimes two or three books a day). A lot of that was rereading, especially at first, but no matter what it adds up to a lot of books, and SF was my overwhelming genre of choice over most of that period.

Even so, there is still a lot of stuff I haven't read, especially in contemporary fantasy and SF. Somewhere post-Tolkien, the fantasy world took a wrong turn and the idea of a single, really well written novel that stands alone disappeared. No more Red Moon, Black Mountain. And even Chant was armtwisted (I imagine) to try to write something of a bad sequel well after the fact. Nowadays one cannot go and just pick up a fantasy novel at random off of a shelf in a store because the odds are 3 to 1 that it would be book 3 out of 6 in a series, and if you buy book 1 be prepared to spend the full $30 on the entire series because there ain't no conclusion to the end -- if there is one at the end. If you ever really conclude, you can't come back with one more, after all.

SF has fared a bit better. Yes, Pern is interminable -- even after All the Weyrs in Pern brought the series to an entirely satisfactory close and killed off the one unifying character there is all sorts of past to fill in. They can't just let it die when there is still more money to be made. Still, there are actually quite a few novels that are just that -- one story that begins, develops, and ends, no room for a sequel. There are even still short stories being written, although the venues where one can publish a short story have radically changed with the advent of the internet.

Consequently I just have to cross whole genres off of my list. I don't do vampires (with one or two exceptions that my sister gave me that were vampires as light romantic humor, God help us all). Witches ditto (same exception). I only do a fantasy series if I'm desperate, ideally after some research, because fantasy quickly becomes horror if you don't LIKE the fantasy world you are trapped in by book 3, if the writing is mundane, the plot hackneyed, the conclusion no where in sight, and your ability to care whether or not you ever reach it slipping rapidly away. I tend to shop by authors. If Brin wrote it, I buy it. Robert Forward ditto. Stephenson of course. But then one hits a wall -- for some reason, I just can't read Greg Bear. I have a couple or three books that LOOK like they'd be great, but I put them down around page 130 and never quite pick them up again. So there are whole blocks of books and authors I haven't even tried yet, although I've pursued a few suggested on goodreads with about a 50% success rate.

This isn't just rambling and grumbling -- it actually is relevant to this short story. I think it is pretty clear that the old masters honed their writing skills in the pulps. The pulps kept them "alive" as authors. This last weekend I came across an entire collection of one of the old pulps from the 70s in a local junque/antique store and regretfully turned away (where would I put it, my house is FULL to where I have to get RID of books). Still, it was great fun to just look at the authors and titles. Every great name in SF published at least one or two stories a year in the pulps (if not five or ten or still more) over several decades.

When they wrote novels, they wrote them with the discipline and plot skills derived from short stories, where one had to begin, develop the plot, and conclude all in 3000 to 6000 words. When they got out to 60,000 words, they knew how to make them count. Even Asimov, who started one of the longest running and most successful series (outside of space opera by EESmith) in SF, wrote a whole lot more standalone novels.

Not quite a lost art, but it is so EASY to write a series and sell (to publishers and public) the next installment. I feel the temptation in my own writing, and have given in to it with one (not yet published) effort.

Heh, and then you throw in The Cosmic Computer. Good off-the-cuff contrast there. ^_^

I've never read at that speed, and my reading definitely suffers today, but I have read a fair amount....

I'm thinking I may go over to
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...
and do a 'done in one' fantasy thread. Just for you. ^_^

Edit: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show_g...

I bet this idea dates back to the 'clockwork universe' concepts during the Enlightenment, several hundred years at least. Asimov may have borrowed an idea from Brown, but I could easily see him having been unaware of it too.

I never knew that this story was Asimov's favorite, but it has long been my favorite. I practically memorized it and told it to various people during college. What struck me is that I invariably got one of two responses. Some people loved the story and were completely mind-boggled by it, while others thought it was one of the most predictable endings they'd ever heard. I certainly didn't see it coming when I first read it. None of the people I told it to had read Asimov before - they heard the story first from me.

Same here. I was pretty surprised until the last!