The Winds of Change and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: All stories either make you think or groan
Review: Isaac Asimov was an excellent writer, with a range of coverage that no one else has ever achieved. This book is a collection of his science fiction short stories, and each is either thought provoking or good for a groan at the end. The first takes up less than a page and ends with one of the best/worst puns that you will ever encounter. The last story, where the title of the book is derived, is considered by Asimov to be the best in the collection. I disagree, considering it to be the worst. It is a blast at the Moral Majority movement, and while I have no real affection for them, the story does not deliver a real blow to their position. Twelve of the fourteen pages of the story are a constant dialogue by a member of the Moral Majority that is a harangue of his colleagues in the physics department. I lost interest about halfway through it.
The other stories are much better, with my favorite being "Found!" which is about an interstellar virus that attacks metallic objects. Sunlight is used as an energy source and the metal is used to reproduce. The viruses are damaging satellites and humans are sent to investigate why they are failing. What I found appealing about the story is that it is so plausible. So many stories about the arrival of life from outside the solar system are based on that life being intelligent. However, the evolutionary development of life dictates that primitive life is much more likely to be found, and would be much more capable of successfully traveling across interstellar distances. Therefore, it is more reasonable to believe that any life that manages to arrive at our planet would be a primitive form that feeds on sunlight and minerals, the two things that it will be more likely to find.
Overall, the stories are very good. My only other complaint is that some of them first appeared in other venues, which is where I read them for the first time.


Rating:
Summary: A Good Collection of Short Stories
Review: In this collection there are twenty-one short stories that run the gamut from humorous to profound. Included with the stories are small introductions by Isaac Asimov. Two of the stories, Belief and Ideas Die Hard, were written in the 1950's. The former is a charming story about a physicist who finds he can levitate. The latter is a good but self admitted out of date story about travel to the moon. The other nineteen stories were written in the late seventies and early eighties. They cover a variety of topics including alien traders, computer illiteracy, the creation of the universe, the last shuttle leaving earth, a clothes designer and much more. It's unreasonable to expect that you'll like every story in any collection of short stories. However, The Winds of Change has more hits than misses. I think fans of Asimov would enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Collection of Short Stories
Review: In this collection there are twenty-one short stories that run the gamut from humorous to profound. Included with the stories are small introductions by Isaac Asimov. Two of the stories, Belief and Ideas Die Hard, were written in the 1950's. The former is a charming story about a physicist who finds he can levitate. The latter is a good but self admitted out of date story about travel to the moon. The other nineteen stories were written in the late seventies and early eighties. They cover a variety of topics including alien traders, computer illiteracy, the creation of the universe, the last shuttle leaving earth, a clothes designer and much more. It's unreasonable to expect that you'll like every story in any collection of short stories. However, The Winds of Change has more hits than misses. I think fans of Asimov would enjoy this book.