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important actors; in the later novels they are central figuresand often are important political or scientific figures. In the early novels they are naive, frivolous, and often simpleminded, but in the later novels they are ambitious, intelligent, and strong. Indeed, the progressive liberation of Gladia in the later Robot novels seems to mirror the progress of feminist organizations in American politics. |
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Clyde Wilcox, "The Greening of Isaac Asimov: Cultural Change and Political Futures," Extrapolation 31, No. 1 (Spring 1990): 6162 |
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Rather than just "gee whiz" wonder at expansion into space or sentimental nostalgia over lost youth, both of which are simpler effects for which Asimov in the typical science-fiction tradition might have settled, paradox and the continual deepening and complication of the big themes mark each of (his) late fictions. It seems to be the philosophic puzzle of causation and purpose that drives these booksand that may have driven Asimov back to fiction. There is, in fact, nearly a surfeit of images to express this puzzle. One big word for the notion is "orthogenesis." Though Asimov does not burden the stories with the word itself, every turn of image, plot, and characterization is haunted by the question of the nature of purposeful evolution. In Foundation's Edge, the gestalt-planet Gaia, which will grow to the organically unified and gestaltgalaxy called Galaxia, represents the ordained and general "law." However, the decision, or choice, to move Galactic expansion in that direction is given to one individual human, Trevize. The final novel, then, will puzzle over how the hero knew to follow the correct hunch and to make the right decision. No law could tell him to follow the law. In other words, decision or choice may be grounded more on hunch and on individuality than on law and generality. |
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In the Robot novels, the puzzle emerges again in the differences between Spacers and Earthmen as well as in the extent and nature of robot control. Asimov wrings out an addition to the Three Laws: the Zeroth Law is used to abstract the purposeful direction of humanity in general. He has telepathic robots designed by Spacer technology derive this Fourth Law. He links such benevolent despotism to psychohistory and ultimately to the total control of Gaia and Galaxia. Still he retains the need for individual human choice, not to mention that someone had to make the machines who derive the |
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