Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Barcelona Martínez Roca D.L. 1987
Description
Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave as he plumbs the memories of his first, and perhaps only, love and of his daughter, lost to a kind of madness that Cleave can't understand. When his acting career is suddenly revived with a movie role portraying a man who may not be who he says he is, his young leading lady gives him the opportunity to see with clarity the chasm that yawns between doing something and the recollection of what was done.
User reviews
LibraryThing member endersreads
This nifty collection of 9 of Asimov's shorts (previously published in magazines), along with 2 short works of verse, was published in 1959. My favorites are "Profession" and 2 of Asimov's own favorites, "The Last Question" and "The Ugly Little Boy". "Profession" is a story of a bright young man,
Show More
George Platen, who is a citizen in the 65th Century, where people are educated by "taping"--an instantaneous computer/brain interface. George, being different and thought feeble-minded, realizes "Somewhere there must be men and women with capacity for original thought." "The Last Question" is a story most athiests would find disturbing, I believe. It is part of the Mulitvac series. Mind blowing stuff! "The Ugly Little Boy" is a story of a Homo neanderthalensis child, his keeper, and his nurse. Great collection of work here, don't miss it! Show Less
LibraryThing member lunaverse
Good collection of Asimov's short stories. Most memorable is "The Last Question", where a series of generations asks the big computer, "How can entropy be reversed?"
Yay Asimov!
Yay Asimov!
LibraryThing member oelusiveone
Being older (over 50) I was amazed at how accurately Asimov predicted where computers were heading & intrigued by his visions for the future. My daughter, being younger(in her 20's), just loved the stories.
LibraryThing member StormRaven
Nine Tomorrows is not a large collection, but it packs into its short length some of Asimov's best non-Robot short stories. Each of the nine short stories is excellent, the two poems somewhat less well done (Asimov apparently liked writing poetry, but wasn't really that good at it). The stories in
Almost all of these stories are now considered to be signature Asimov works: Profession, The Ugly Little Boy, Spell My Name With an S, The Feeling of Power, All the Troubles of the World, and The Last Question. Even the weakest two (The Gentle Vultures and The Dying Night) are excellent stories (although The Dying Night relies upon what is now somewhat outdated information).
Anyone looking to get a good introduction to Asimov's short fiction at its best would do well to look here first.
Show More
this volume were written in the late 1950s, when Asimov was just finding his voice as a writer, and each one is thought provoking and enjoyable to read.Almost all of these stories are now considered to be signature Asimov works: Profession, The Ugly Little Boy, Spell My Name With an S, The Feeling of Power, All the Troubles of the World, and The Last Question. Even the weakest two (The Gentle Vultures and The Dying Night) are excellent stories (although The Dying Night relies upon what is now somewhat outdated information).
Anyone looking to get a good introduction to Asimov's short fiction at its best would do well to look here first.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Borg-mx5
An excellent collection of Asimov short stories that appeared in SF magazines
LibraryThing member DirtPriest
I needed a short book to occupy my time between waiting for Phil Lesh's book about playing bass in the Grateful Dead and taking a short break from studying Greek history. This was a good choice, what could be better than nine great Asimov short stories? Some are better than others, of course, but
Show More
they are all good. There is just something about speculative 1950's scifi. It makes me think of Happy Days and Star Trek at the same time. Show Less
LibraryThing member mumfie
Has "The Last Question" in, one of the greatest science fiction short stories ever.
LibraryThing member michael.confoy.tamu
Good stories though some have not aged well.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
It's been a long time since I read any of Asimov's short stories. In fact, it's been a long time since I read any Asimov. I don't remember noticing before how traditional Asimov was in assigning roles to men and women. Maybe he did and I just wasn't as tuned in as I am now. Or maybe he had his
That said, I think my favourite story was the first, "Profession", which posits a future where people are chosen for their adult jobs by their brain patterns and they are trained for those positions by having tapes downloaded to their brains. They are not able to handle new advances in their field as they never take any more training or do any further reading. George Platen did not get chosen for any profession when he turned 18 and he is stuck in a home while his friends compete in the Olympics for the best jobs. And yet Platen isn't stupid, he can read and think. What will happen to him? The answer is vintage science fiction.
Show More
consciousness raised by the time I started reading his work. At any rate, I probably would have rated this book higher if it wasn't for the fact that women played a very subordinate role in 8 out of the 9 stories and in the one where a woman was the main character, The Ugly Little Boy, she is a nurse. I know that these stories were all written in the 1950's and therefore they are a product of their time but a person as talented as Dr. Asimov surely could have foreseen that women were capable of working in any field. Even in the 1950s there were women scientists and doctors and computer programmers and they weren't all freaks or man-haters. I did a Google search for "Isaac Asimov" and "women's roles" and found this list of his essays which seem to show that by the 1970s Asimov was actively supporting the women's movement and equality for women. That makes me feel better but I still felt his male-centered stories in this book marred my enjoyment.That said, I think my favourite story was the first, "Profession", which posits a future where people are chosen for their adult jobs by their brain patterns and they are trained for those positions by having tapes downloaded to their brains. They are not able to handle new advances in their field as they never take any more training or do any further reading. George Platen did not get chosen for any profession when he turned 18 and he is stuck in a home while his friends compete in the Olympics for the best jobs. And yet Platen isn't stupid, he can read and think. What will happen to him? The answer is vintage science fiction.
Show Less
LibraryThing member adam.currey
A collection of 9 short stories about possible futures. Generally still thought-provoking and interesting, despite having been written in 1959.
LibraryThing member dajashby
“Nine tomorrows” is a collection of stories by Isaac Asimov originally published between 1956 and 1958. I’ve given the stories an average rating of 4.3. In my opinion the short story forms are ideal for sf, but a lot of what gets published fails the first test - they aren’t stories. Asimov
Show More
always gives you a beginning, a middle and an end. Each piece has a central point. The best thing in the collection is “The ugly little boy”, which is about a Neanderthal child who is kidnapped into the 20th century by scientists, and the childcare nurse who they hire to look after him. It’s a pretty scathing critique on the subject of scientific ethics. Several stories deal with the future of AI, about which Asimov was amazingly prescient, given that they were written 60 years ago. The collection is a bit let down by a couple of jokey stories that were ok, but appallingly sexist(“I’m in Marsport without Hilda”) , or just too slight (“The gentle vultures”) Show Less
LibraryThing member pgiunta
In what may be one of the best collections from Isaac Asimov that I've ever read, the master of SF brings us nine extraordinary tales ranging from the dramatic to comedic to heartbreaking. Nine Tomorrows gets five stars from me.
"Profession" — In the future, your ability to read is installed into
"The Feeling of Power" — In a society where mathematical computations are handled strictly by computers, a lab technician devises a method for longhand arithmetic... with disastrous results.
"The Dying Night" — A science conference on Earth reunites four colleagues, some of whom have been working off-planet for many years. One of them has developed a method for instant teleportation and intends to present his discovery at the conference—until he's found dead in his hotel room.
"I'm in Marsport without Hilda" — A government agent arrives on Mars after an assignment and learns that his wife is unable to travel from Earth to meet him. He steals the opportunity to arrange a date with a local lady of the night, which he tries to keep even when his supervisor tasks him with another mission right there in the spaceport.
"The Gentle Vultures" — An alien race known as the Hurrians spends 15 years observing Earth, waiting for humanity to destroy itself in a nuclear war so that the they can takeover the planet and enslave the survivors.
"All the Troubles in the World" — What happens when an entire planet is managed by a single super computer that no longer wants the responsibility?
"Spell My Name with an S" — At the insistence of his wife, a downtrodden nuclear physicist named Zebatinsky reluctantly visits a numerologist who suggests that by changing the first letter of his last name to an 'S,' the probablility is high that his life will improve—but not before placing him under surveillance by the federal government.
"The Last Question" — A super computer called Multivac spends thousands of years collecting data to answer one question that has been repeatedly put to it over the generations: Will the human race ever have the ability to restore the sun to its current state after it has died?
"The Ugly Little Boy" — Miss Fellowes, a nurse, is hired on to care for a Neanderthal child that is snatched from the past into the present by a new technology developed by Stasis, Inc. By contemporary standards, the boy is considered ugly and is dubbed by the press as the "Ape-Boy." After three years, the executives of Stasis decide to send the now educated child back to his own time where he will likely perish, but Miss Fellowes has different plans.
"Profession" — In the future, your ability to read is installed into
Show More
your brain by a computer during childhood and your career is determined by a brain scan taken at puberty—but what happens when the results of the scan are inconclusive and the authorities determine that you are not suited for any career at all?"The Feeling of Power" — In a society where mathematical computations are handled strictly by computers, a lab technician devises a method for longhand arithmetic... with disastrous results.
"The Dying Night" — A science conference on Earth reunites four colleagues, some of whom have been working off-planet for many years. One of them has developed a method for instant teleportation and intends to present his discovery at the conference—until he's found dead in his hotel room.
"I'm in Marsport without Hilda" — A government agent arrives on Mars after an assignment and learns that his wife is unable to travel from Earth to meet him. He steals the opportunity to arrange a date with a local lady of the night, which he tries to keep even when his supervisor tasks him with another mission right there in the spaceport.
"The Gentle Vultures" — An alien race known as the Hurrians spends 15 years observing Earth, waiting for humanity to destroy itself in a nuclear war so that the they can takeover the planet and enslave the survivors.
"All the Troubles in the World" — What happens when an entire planet is managed by a single super computer that no longer wants the responsibility?
"Spell My Name with an S" — At the insistence of his wife, a downtrodden nuclear physicist named Zebatinsky reluctantly visits a numerologist who suggests that by changing the first letter of his last name to an 'S,' the probablility is high that his life will improve—but not before placing him under surveillance by the federal government.
"The Last Question" — A super computer called Multivac spends thousands of years collecting data to answer one question that has been repeatedly put to it over the generations: Will the human race ever have the ability to restore the sun to its current state after it has died?
"The Ugly Little Boy" — Miss Fellowes, a nurse, is hired on to care for a Neanderthal child that is snatched from the past into the present by a new technology developed by Stasis, Inc. By contemporary standards, the boy is considered ugly and is dubbed by the press as the "Ape-Boy." After three years, the executives of Stasis decide to send the now educated child back to his own time where he will likely perish, but Miss Fellowes has different plans.
Show Less
LibraryThing member martialalex92
I had forgotten how much I love Asimov. Never felt tired reading these short stories and while none of them are his best, they still sparked a lot of interesting questions
Language
Original publication date
1959
Physical description
241 p.; 19 cm
ISBN
8427009631 / 9788427009639