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subdivision of the field which I find it convenient to speak of as "social science fiction."
It is my opinion that social science fiction is the only branch of science fiction that is sociologically significant, and that those stories, which are generally accepted as science fiction (at least to the point where skilled editors accept them for inclusion in their science-fiction magazines) but do not fall within the definition I have given above, are not significant, however amusing they may be and however excellent as pieces of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, "Social Science Fiction," Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Future, ed. Reginald Bretnor (New York: Coward-McCann, 1953), pp. 15859
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P. Schuyler Miller
These Foundation stories (Foundation and Empire) are well worth having between hard covers. They represent a great sweep of the imagination, and they may well come as close to the social forces controlling and directing human culture as do Toynbee's or Spengler's cycles of rise and fall. The force which protects the Foundation against Bel Riose is one which we hope may save the Free World from Soviet communism. But it is the structure, not the people of the Foundation or any of its worlds, that matters. The Asimov humor, too, is sadly missing. These are books for the devoteenot for the convert or the to-be-converted.
P. Schuyler Miller, [Review of Foundation and Empire], Astounding Science-Fiction 51, No. 2 (April 1953): 15657
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Damon Knight
Isaac Asimov's second novel about Lije Baley and R. (for Robot) Daneel Olivaw (The Naked Sun) is again a detective story set in a science fiction background. It is also something much more unusual in science fiction, and perhaps not wholly relevant to it: a love story. (. . .)
As science fiction, I think most readers will find the book a little thin, although ingenious and funny in places. As a detective story, it is downright disappointing: the solution to the missing weapon problem, after all the foofarow, turns out to be over-elaborate to the point of silliness. But the shy, unstated romance between Lije and Gladia is a really delightful thing,

 
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