The uzbekistan state world languages university english faculty II

2.3. Brief analysis of other works of the writer

Isaac Asimov is a true legend of the "golden age" of American fiction. He devoted almost his entire life to literature: over four hundred books, including special studies and popular science works, came out from under his pen. The point, of course, is not in quantity; there are more prolific writers among science fiction writers. But, unlike most of his colleagues, Asimov did not follow the hackneyed cliches - he gushed with original ideas, each of which was capable of spawning an entire direction in science fiction.
No matter how trite it sounds, already the biography of Asimov looks like a fascinating novel. One listing of his literary awards would take several pages in small type. More importantly, however, his numerous books are still being translated and republished around the world, including works written more than half a century ago.
I am a robot. The first thing that comes to mind when the name of Isaac Asimov sounds is the image of a robot in world fiction. No, of course, robots were not invented by Asimov. It was Asimov who suggested the ideal way to once and for all protect humanity from the very possibility of a “revolt of machines”. If in the magazine fiction of the 1920s a distraught android was one of the main enemies of mankind, then with the advent of Isaac, the robot turned from a crafty slave into an indispensable assistant and faithful confidant of a person.
Asimov's book "I am a robot" turned out to be prophetic: scientists urgently took up robotics, and robots began to be widely used on production lines.
The sixth story of the collection "I, Robot" - "Liar" - makes it clear that human psychology, his philosophy and social laws interest Asimov more than the technical, fantastic side of the work. Some of Asimov's thoughts in this story are conveyed through the statements of the robot RB-34 (Erbie): “These books are the same as the rest. They just don't interest me. There is nothing in your textbooks. Your science is just a mass of collected facts, somehow held together by the likeness of Theory. All this is so incredibly simple that it is hardly worthy of attention. I'm interested in your fiction, the interweaving and interaction of human impulses and feelings. You cannot imagine how complex people are. I can't understand them all because my thinking has so little to do with it. But I try, and your novels help me.” This passage not only reflects Asimov's penchant for socio-philosophical issues, but also his faith in art, his commitment to the ideas of humanism. Asimov shows us a robot that considers itself a higher being than man. At the same time, the robot, striving for the ideal, tries to develop purely human traits in itself - feelings, interests and emotions. Asimov pushes us to the idea that the ideal robot is a person.
Actively using the form of dialogue, Asimov develops in the stories the conflict between the supporters of rationalism, humanism and knowledge. Linking these three qualities, the writer outlines for himself the guidelines for his early work. The writer depicts robots, regardless of their purpose, in the image and likeness of a human. But it makes more sense to give robots the form that is most advantageous from an engineering point of view for the function they are designed to perform. Let's say, for an electronic calculating machine, it is best to have, as now, the form of a row of boxes. But the thing is that in his robots the author created images of people, real people with different characters, opinions, thoughts. This qualitatively distinguishes Asimov's robots from the androids of earlier authors. Before Asimov, human forms of robots were explained by the desire of people to "play" the role of gods, the process of creation and its result came to the fore. In Asimov, robots are a priori placed on the same social level with people. Asimov’s robots are distinguished from a real person only by the “three laws of robotics” programmed during their creation. This is the main socio-philosophical problem expressed in the work. Robots are able to err, make mistakes, experience and sympathize, but in the course of their improvement, the “first law” gradually turns from a rule of purely technical necessity into an unusually important social factor. This is the main socio-philosophical problem expressed in the work. Robots are able to err, make mistakes, experience and sympathize, but in the course of their improvement, the “first law” gradually turns from a rule of purely technical necessity into an unusually important social factor. This is the main socio-philosophical problem expressed in the work. Robots are able to err, make mistakes, experience and sympathize, but in the course of their improvement, the “first law” gradually turns from a rule of purely technical necessity into an unusually important social factor.
Thus, a series of fantastic stories, united under the general title "I, Robot" is a pseudo-history of the fictional science of "robotics", illustrated by successive episodes in which the same characters act. But even in such a seemingly purely sci-fi collection, Asimov often neglects the technical side in order to more clearly reflect his socio-philosophical ideas. In the foreground of Asimov is the glorification of the ideas of humanism, the desire for rationality and faith in the power of the intellect.
Foundation and Founders. The most famous Asimov cycle, which began during this period, was the "Foundation". The pictures of the death and collapse of the greatest Empire, talentedly drawn by the writers, are impressive. But Asimov's main finding in this cycle is, of course, psychohistory itself. “Without trying to predetermine the actions of individuals, she formulated certain mathematical laws according to which human society developed,” this is how the hero of the novel explains her essence. For thousands of years, the creation of such a science has remained the dream of those in power. Today, oracles and fortune-tellers, Pythia and augurs, Tarot cards and coffee grounds have been replaced by the eldest child of Progress - the almighty Science. Whatever they use to predict the approximate direction of the development of society - at least a few months in advance, before the next elections ... Alas,
As for the "Foundation", the fate of this cycle has developed quite happily. At the 24th WorldCon in 1966, The Foundation won the Hugo Award for "best fantasy series of all time." In the voting, Asimov's novels bypassed both the most popular "History of the Future" by Robert Heinlein, and "The Lord of the Rings" by John R. R. Tolkien, whose name has already thundered in the English-speaking world.
steel caves. Fantastic detective is a very special genre. It combines the features of a traditional detective novel and science fiction, and therefore is often criticized from both sides. Connoisseurs of the detective genre are annoyed by fantastic assumptions, fans of science fiction are constrained by the rigid structure inevitable for a detective. However, writers stubbornly return to this direction, again and again forcing cohorts of elusive criminals and brilliant detectives to get down to business. And one of the universally recognized classics of the fantastic detective is again considered to be the unsurpassed and many-sided Isaac Asimov.
The novels Caverns of Steel, The Naked Sun, and Robots of Dawn, about police officer Elijah Bailey and his partner R. Daniel Olivo, are in some ways a continuation of the I, Robot series. The detective itself is akin to an intricate chess game, but Asimov added an additional unknown to this equation - robots. One of them, the level-headed and reserved detective Daniel Olivo, becomes the protagonist of all the novels in the trilogy. Other robots invariably fall under suspicion or become key witnesses in cases that a couple of investigators have to unravel. The move, it should be noted, is the most witty. The behavior of thinking machines is rigidly defined by the Three Laws - and yet, robots are constantly involved in fatal crimes. Moreover, the difficult foreign policy situation requires finding the culprit in record time...
End of Eternity. Another direction in which the American writer left a distinct mark is chrono-opera, literature about time travel. The time machine has been a hot topic since time immemorial. There are an astronomical number of variations on this theme in modern fiction, including many classic ones. But "The End of Eternity" by Isaac Asimov occupies one of the most honorable places in this series. How easily a poet is guessed from the texts of Bradbury, just as easily a natural scientist is identified in the author of The End of Eternity. Having meticulously and ruthlessly logically examined the situation with time travel, Asimov constructed an organization that would inevitably arise in a world where traveling to the past or future is no more difficult than visiting an aunt in Saratov.
Eternity is a kind of totalitarian state that exists outside the main time stream and uses a time machine to correct history. Its main goal is to keep society unchanged, to insure the inhabitants from global catastrophes and upheavals. And at the same time, maintaining the status quo, Eternity has deprived humanity of the future, in fact, has frozen the progress of civilization for millennia. Alas, it is global upheavals, wars and catastrophes that make society move forward. Complete peace leads civilization to decay and death...
Not all writers share Isaac Asimov's skepticism. For more than half a century, Eternity has been revived again and again in the novels of other authors, under new names. Most of these organizations, however, do not so much correct the history of mankind as monitor its integrity. Too great is the fear of anarchy that will reign in a time filled with travelers without visas. It was this fear that Isaac Asimov felt earlier than others - and brilliantly beaten in his novel.