Sunday, September 15, 2019

Before the Golden Age

Short Stories collected by Isaac Asimov.
Over 900 pages.
Amazing book, still in great shape.
These stories were collected and put together by Mr. Asimov from when he was a kid and he would read science fiction magazines such as Amazing Stories and others.

Remembering that not only were these original stories written in the 1930s, before cell phones, before computers, before reaching the moon, but they were collected and assembled decades later into a book before all that as well.

And yet, these stories read almost exactly like episodes of the Star Trek TV series!
Only the names were different, but the descriptions were almost identical.

Instead of phasers, they were called guns-that-shot-beams.
Instead of monitor screens, they were called visiports,
and instead of computers, the robots conversed and computed in spaceships that were even more slick and quiet than the Enterprise.

On a planet with atmosphere, the spaceships ran on energy collected from air.
The only story that was so annoying that I couldn't even finish reading it, was a story about the moon.

The general public at the time still wasn't convinced the moon wasn't made of green cheese, and
astronauts had not brought back moon rocks.
Even keeping that in mind, reading a love story about the moon that was covered in a thin film of light green moss was too annoying. Too much fiction away from any science I guess.

One story about Mars had beings on it that hadn't been seen by earth's telescopes because the beings lived in canals behind cliffs, which was amusing, but the atmosphere was described as red, windy, and cold and was believable and intriguing.

I can't wait to put it up for sale to hopefully share with someone.
I'm only on page 700, so might be a little while.

And yes, barring inclement weather, I am visiting my bulk vending route Monday.
I will be happy to get back on the road after a very rough and trouble Friday 13th.
Was bad. All too eager to get back to work.
 All the best,
YoungImages.com
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