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Paleofuture. Part 1: Introduction

Now is it a good time to mention that the second book of the Foundation trilogy contains a good example of a black swan event
 
Quite enjoying writing this series, there's a lot of material and potential. To foreshadow future articles, in addition to Foundation (the first three books so far, in two separate articles) I've also done Rendezvous With Rama, Ringworld and Emprise, and I'm going to tackle Ender's Game after those.
 
Good article. Puts me in mind of a quote 'The future ain't what it used to be.' I wish I could remember who said it...

The short stories of Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov (most of them published in the 50s and 60s and which, as a young teenager in the 70s, I read in a lavishly illustrated magazine/comic called Speed and Power) are, if I remember rightly, generally optimistic works. I didn't really get Foundation (I was too immature) but I loved Rendezvous with Rama.
 
I'd put a word in for Eric Frank Russell as well - a very underrated sci-fi writer. Wasp, Next of Kin, A Little Oil, and Allamagoosa are, each in their own way, a delight. Although I will note he has problems with pacing his novels, with the finale tend to feel rushed.
 
David Flin said:
I'd put a word in for Eric Frank Russell as well - a very underrated sci-fi writer. Wasp, Next of Kin, A Little Oil, and Allamagoosa are, each in their own way, a delight. Although I will note he has problems with pacing his novels, with the finale tend to feel rushed.
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My favourite is The Great Explosion, which, much like Foundation, is really a collection of short stories, but great fun nevertheless.
 
One piece of Asimovian Paleofuture are his various Multivac stories. It’s not quite a series, as the location and description of the computer vary between stories and they don’t really fit into a single timeline. The idea of having a single enormous computer accessible from terminals all over the world is sort-of a prediction of the internet while also being wildly inaccurate in not predicting the reduction in size of computing power.
 
Ncw8 said:
One piece of Asimovian Paleofuture are his various Multivac stories. It’s not quite a series, as the location and description of the computer vary between stories and they don’t really fit into a single timeline. The idea of having a single enormous computer accessible from terminals all over the world is sort-of a prediction of the internet while also being wildly inaccurate in not predicting the reduction in size of computing power.
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Of course, that's ripped from the headlines after the Univac computer predicted the result of the US presidential election in either 1952 or 1956, can't remember which. So, while I'm sure the stories are better than I'm dismissively making them sound here, it is a little bit like a current writer basing an FH series on "Nate Silver used ChatGPT to predict Biden would win North Carolina!" or something.
 
Thande said:
Of course, that's ripped from the headlines after the Univac computer predicted the result of the US presidential election in either 1952 or 1956, can't remember which. So, while I'm sure the stories are better than I'm dismissively making them sound here, it is a little bit like a current writer basing an FH series on "Nate Silver used ChatGPT to predict Biden would win North Carolina!" or something.
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The fun bit is that Asimov thought that Univac was so called because it only had one vacuum tube. Hence a more powerful computer would have multiple vacuum tubes.
 
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