This another in the "Isaac Asimov's" series that collects stories from his magazines and publishes them on a comment theme. This theme is sexuality in science fiction -- no, not about sex and robots as the cover suggests; yes, I was disappointed by that. Of the ten stories, five are great -- they flow well, the characters make you care, the dialog is realistic, and the plot ties together well throughout. These five are: Brian Stableford's "Bedside Conversations" about sex change and childbirth in unlikely bodies; Peni R. Griffin's "The Goat Man" about how the beastly man is not always the beast your mother told you to avoid; Connie Willis' "Even the Queen" about alternatives to "naturalness" and the willingness to forgo it for less pain; Tanith Lee's "Zelle's Thursday" which is thankfully about robots and domestic problems of human beings; and finally Deborah Wessell's "The Last One to Know" that has shows gender extending into marital roles in surprising ways. The other five are either a bit too confusing, a bit too long, or a bit too, well, much for my personal tastes -- that's coming from a BDSM erotica folks!

Isaac Asimov's Valentines is yet another high quality collection of short science fiction
stories that were first published in Asimov's wonderful magazine. The editor of
this collection, Gardner Dozois, is one of the most highly
skilled working today (he also edits the annual collection
entitled The Years Best Science Fiction). Dozois has a keen
instinct when it comes to putting together thoughtful and
varied anthologies. You can't please all of the people all of the time, but I always find at
least a few true gems in each of Dozois's endeavors. Valentines is composed of ten stories
that all gain their impetus from the emotion of love. Each plot weaves imagination and
emotion into a coherent whole, although some succeed better than others.
I particularly enjoyed No Love in all of Dwingeloo, by Tony Daniel and Chemistry by James
Patrick Kelly. Other authors include Connie Willis, Robert Silverberg and Terry Bisson.

Not a collection of stories by Isaac Asimov himself, but eight stories by various authors, all previously published in the periodical ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION. Like all good speculative fiction, these stories ask the question "what if?"

What if a vampire went to London to join the 1940s war effort? "Jack" by Connie Willis portrays a vampire using his unusual abilities for the good of humankind. The horrors of bureaucracy make the horrors of war look almost inviting by comparison.

What if vampires are a separate species that keeps tabs on the human race? Other writers have done it, but seldom with the grace of David Redd in "The Old Man of Munington." Two young girls and the Old Man himself follow a younger vampire's plans to eliminate a possible risk to the human race the vampires watch and guard.

Perhaps the most chilling question and answer comes in "My Brother's Keeper" by Pat Cadigan: What if vampires support inner-city drug abuse because they have something to gain? These are vampires at their most terrifying -- not tuxedo-clad fiends in some isolated Carpathian castle, but men and women who look like the rest of us, nesting right in our midst and drawing their power from the things we fear most.

Other stories include Tanith Lee's haunting "Winter Flowers," a story of vampire mercenaries who encounter a castle of creatures even stranger than they; "A Surfeit of Melancholic Humors" by Sharon N. Farber, a charming and somewhat medical tale of vampires in seventeenth-century plague time; and Susan Palwick's "Ever After," which picks out the darkness of fairy tale conventions and blends it into the darkness of the vampire mythos. All the stories are good; some are excellent. All balance vampire fiction conventions with enough of the unexpected to keep us guessing -- pleasantly so.

Este libro es una compilación de cuantos cortos de Asimov, que muestran como fue evolucionado en sus primeros años. Cada cuento trae un reseña de todo lo que paso cuando lo escribio y lo publico. Para los que les gusta el estilo de Asimov este es un libro perfecto, tambien para los amentes de la cienia fición ligera sin muchas pretenciones pero de buena calidad.

What is historically known as the "Land of Canaan" has been, and still is, one of the main crossroads of human History, Religion, and Philosophy. Asimov tells us the complex yet fascinating story, from the first known human traces, found in Jerico circa 7,800 BC, until the total control of the Roman Empire, in 135 AD. We read the stories of the Cananeans, Phillistines, Arameans, Hebrews, Jews, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, etc., and the successive dominations of Egyptians, Hicsians, Assyrians, Caldeans, Persians, Greeks and Romans. It is written with the trademarks of Asimov's history: fast pace, sense of humor, precision, anlysis and criticism.

Although later discoveries, very important in the last decades, may have modified or slightly altered some of Asimov's hypotheses or data, I think it is a wonderful introduction to more serious and specializaed study of this crucial region of the world. For non-specialists, particularly, it is a good book, since the writing is easy and the tone is non-academic. Recommended.

I read and re-read this book in high school, and then loaned it to a chemistry teacher I liked. I never got it back, and have regretted it ever since, though it was around 1984. While I am sure my tastes have changed somewhat in the intervening 16 years, I remember that the stories were very novel and inspiring, from "hard sci-fi" type stories of someone left on earth after everyone else had evacuated it, to stories with metaphysical implications about the nature of reality. It must have fulfilled some teen fantasy for me about being left alone to do as I liked with the entire world as my plaything, a fantasy I rehashed for many years after I read the book. If you find this book in some used book store somewhere, buy it!! (And don't loan it out.)

This book is filled with artist's concepts of the year 2000, as they saw it in 1900. It's pretty amazing to look at what these people thought would change - and what they never thought of at all.

Después de leer la Trilogía de la Fundación falta algo, la historia no puede terminar ahí. Este libro entrega lo que faltaba. Una busqueda de los origenes en el Futuro, ir a los límites. Asimov muestra que el ser humano continua siendo escencialmente el mismo, es decir muy curioso. Todo lector de la trilogia de Asimov debe leerlo.

This is the fifth book in the Lucky Starr series, originally published under the pseudonym Paul French. In this volume, Starr and Bigman Jones travel to a moon of Jupiter to discover the cause of a series of accidents on a secret project to develop a space craft with an antigravity engine. They uncover a spy of Earth's enemy, Sirius. Jupiter IX is called Adrastea in the novel; however, now Adrastea is referred to as Jupiter XV (more (16) satellites are known now than were known in 1957). It is one of the closest moons to Jupiter's surface and could not be the moon referred to in the novel. In an introduction written in 1978, Asimov apologizes for some of the scientific inaccuracies in the story due to all of the new information that had been discovered since 1957. Besides the number of moons, Jupiter's magnetosphere would present severe difficulties to space travelers. The intense radiation field that surrounds Jupiter would be fatal to travelers unless some new method is available to counter the problem. It is also doubtful that the characters would have landed on Io due to its large degree of volcano activity (there are at least eight active volcanos). There is also evidence that Io forms a ring (or torus) around Jupiter consisting of ionized sulfur and oxygen. In 1989, it was discovered from infrared spectroscopy using Earth-based equipment that Io has hydrogen sulfide on its surface. The characters in the novel also land on Amalthea (Jupiter V). This moon, discovered in 1892, is small and has a low orbit. Also unknown in either 1957 and 1978 was the fact that Jupiter has a single faint ring encircling the planet, a ring not detected by Earth-based observatories.

This volume is the eighth and last in the Lucky Starr series for teenagers, originally published under the pseudonym Paul French. A secret agent for Earth's enemy, Sirius, has stolen some intelligence and escaped to the moons of Saturn. Lucky Starr and his friend Bigman race to Saturn only to discover an enemy base set up on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Somehow they have to return to Earth and force the Sirians out of the Solar System without starting an interstellar war. The story line in Asimov's novel involves the settling of an "enemy" of Earth within Earth's region of space. It's amazing how close Asimov was to an analogous situation in recent history. A short while after this book appeared, there was a revolution in Cuba which resulted in the Soviet Union having an ally close to the U.S. mainland. More moons are now known to orbit Saturn than were known in 1958; there are at least twenty satellites. In the novel, two moons play central roles: Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, and Mimas, which Asimov (in 1958) states is the moon closest to the planet. However, we now know of closer moons. A photograph of Mimas taken by a fly-by probe shows a giant impact crater having a diameter about one-third that of Mimas. The crater, now named Hershel, has walls of about 16000 feet in height and a central mountain reaching up to 20000 feet. Just as in Asimov's novel, Mimas appears to be made up of mostly water ice, with 20%-to-50% rock. Titan has a substantial atmosphere, mostly nitrogen with some methane.