Tag: Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov – The Stars Like Dust | Review

Title: The Stars Like Dust

Author: Isaac Asimov

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 192

Rating: 4/5

This book is pretty cool because it’s home to an interesting little mix of genres. It’s basically a cross between a science fiction novel and a political thriller, but with little bits of a detective novel thrown in. Asimov’s at his best like that, because he’s really good at using technology as a worldbuilding device and to ask questions about the worlds that he creates.

It was a pretty short but sweet read and I’m glad that I picked it up, but it also has a hell of a lot to offer considering how short it is. I read it over the space of a couple of days, but many of the ideas are going to weigh on my mind for the weeks and months to come. That’s the sign of a good book, and it seems to happen a lot when I read Asimov.

This one’s far from his most famous book and so perhaps you’ll want to start somewhere else, but definitely get to it if you can.

Learn more about The Stars Like Dust.


Isaac Asimov – Nightfall One | Review

Title: Nightfall One

Author: Isaac Asimov

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 176

Rating: 3.5/5

This book was unfortunately a little bit of a letdown, which itself is quite surprising. This book is pretty odd because it was published alongside Nightfall Two in paperback, while the hardback just combined the lot of them. I think that might have been the best way to read it.

Perhaps part of the problem here is that the stories are all listed in chronological order, and so Asimov got older as the collections went on. That means that his older stuff comes later, and I personally feel as though he developed as a writer over the years. Not everyone agrees with me.

It’s still worth reading though, if only because everything Asimov wrote is worth reading. I just didn’t get quite as much out of it as I was expecting. Another reason could be that these stories were longer than those in the other book, and Asimov’s great at ideas. Shorter stories means more ideas to consider.

Learn more about Nightfall One.