Title: The Early Asimov: Volume II
Author: Isaac Asimov
Type: Fiction
Page Count: 240
Rating: 4/5
This book does exactly what it says on the tin, acting as a sequel to The Early Asimov: Volume I and continuing to share Asimov’s early work along with his commentary on each of the stories. Interestingly enough, I think the original collection was also published in hardback as a single edition, but it was printed as three separate paperbacks for reasons of (I guess) economy.
Still, you can enjoy it just fine as a standalone if you spot a copy of it going second hand, and the stories are pretty solid here even though they were written towards the start of his career. His commentary is fascinating too, although it always is, and I liked the fact that a few of the stories acted as direct sequels to each other. That’s actually mostly because occasionally an editor would encourage him to do so or to ask for more of the same, and he was only too happy to do so.
This isn’t going to be a good book to pick up if you’re new to Isaac Asimov, although the stories are still pretty good and definitely worth reading. It’s just kind of funny because in his essays he’s talking about some of his classics, and this was what else he was writing around that time.
