Reading library
Petrovichi, c. 2 Jan. 1920 · New York, 6 Apr. 1992
A biochemist by training and a tireless explainer, he wrote or edited more than five hundred books. His robots, his Galactic Empire and the psychohistory of Foundation form a single future history, which he tied together himself late in life.
Above the axis, books by Isaac Asimov. Below, the sequels written by others. Tap a dot to jump to the book.
Isaac Asimov, 1951–1993
Isaac Asimov
Using psychohistory, the mathematician Hari Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire and thirty thousand years of barbarism. At the edge of the Galaxy he founds a colony of scholars meant to cut that dark age to a thousand years.
Isaac Asimov
The Foundation faces a last general of the Empire, then the Mule, a mutant able to shape emotions, whom the Seldon Plan did not foresee.
Isaac Asimov
The Mule, then the Foundation itself, hunt for the mysterious Second Foundation, hidden guardian of the Plan, “at the other end of the Galaxy”.
Isaac Asimov
Thirty years later Asimov returns to the series: councilman Golan Trevize, convinced that the Seldon Plan is too perfect to be true, sets out to find Earth. Hugo Award.
Isaac Asimov
Trevize continues his search for Earth, the forgotten planet of origin, and discovers who has been guiding humanity for twenty thousand years.
Isaac Asimov
Young Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor with a theory he believes is unusable. Hunted by the Emperor and his rivals, he discovers the capital and the first steps of psychohistory.
Isaac Asimov
Published after his death: Seldon grows old, loses his loved ones one by one and, against the ruin of the Empire, sets up the two Foundations.
Stories and novels, 1950–1986
Isaac Asimov
On an overcrowded Earth where humanity lives under domes, detective Elijah Baley, who distrusts robots, must team up with one, R. Daneel Olivaw. A true science fiction detective novel.
Isaac Asimov
Baley investigates a murder on Solaria, where a few thousand humans live apart, served by millions of robots, and can no longer bear to meet in person.
Isaac Asimov
On Aurora, a Spacer world, a humanoid robot has been “killed”. Baley must solve a “roboticide” on which the future of Earth depends.
Isaac Asimov
Two centuries after Baley, his robots Daneel and Giskard devise the Zeroth Law and make a choice that ties the Robots to the Empire and to Foundation.
Isaac Asimov
Nine stories linked by robopsychologist Susan Calvin, in which the Three Laws of Robotics are put to the test, from a robot nursemaid to the Machines that run the world economy.
Isaac Asimov
The other robot stories of the 1940s and 1950s, with Susan Calvin and troubleshooters Powell and Donovan.
Isaac Asimov
Thirty-one stories collected by Asimov himself, including “The Bicentennial Man”.
Isaac Asimov
A collection of robot stories and other pieces, including the title story, in which a robot dreams that there are no Three Laws.
Three novels, 1950–1952
Isaac Asimov
A young nobleman whose father was executed by the Tyranni searches for a document that could end their rule over fifty worlds.
Isaac Asimov
On Florina, the only source of a precious fabric, a “spatio-analyst” whose memory has been wiped holds a secret about the planet’s sun.
Isaac Asimov
His first novel: a Chicago tailor is thrown into a distant future where Earth, radioactive and despised, is just a province of the Empire.
Isaac Asimov, 1955–1992
Isaac Asimov
Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a technician outside time who changes reality for the good of humanity. Until he falls in love. Often called his best novel.
Isaac Asimov
A submarine and its crew are shrunk and injected into a scientist’s body to destroy a clot in his brain. Asimov wrote the novel from the film’s screenplay.
Isaac Asimov
An “Electron Pump” gives Earth free energy, swapped with a parallel universe. The price could be the explosion of the Sun. Hugo and Nebula awards.
Isaac Asimov
Asimov rewrites Fantastic Voyage his own way, with sounder science: an American neurologist is miniaturized in the Soviet Union.
Isaac Asimov
A space colony flees to a nearby star, Nemesis, which is heading towards the solar system. A telepathic teenager discovers unexpected life there.
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg expands the famous 1941 story into a novel: on a planet lit by six suns, night falls only once every two thousand years.
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
A Neanderthal child is brought into the present to be studied. A nurse grows attached to him. A novel based on a 1958 story.
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
The novel based on “The Bicentennial Man”: over two centuries, the robot Andrew Martin seeks to be recognized as a human being.
Novels for young readers, as Paul French, 1952–1958
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
The first of six novels for young readers published under a pen name: David “Lucky” Starr investigates poisonings linked to the farms of Mars.
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
Lucky goes undercover among the pirates hiding in the asteroid belt.
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
Under the oceans of Venus, colonists are manipulated by a telepathic creature.
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
A scientific project is sabotaged on Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun.
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
A Sirian spy is hidden among the researchers on a moon of Jupiter. The Three Laws of Robotics enter the series.
Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
Lucky chases an enemy agent into the rings of Saturn, where Sirius wants a foothold.
Collections, mysteries and autobiography
Isaac Asimov
Four long stories, including “The Martian Way”, in which Martian colonists fetch water from the rings of Saturn.
Isaac Asimov
Science fiction and fantasy stories, several of them with the computer Multivac.
Isaac Asimov
Nine stories, including “The Last Question”, which Asimov considered his best, and “Profession”.
Isaac Asimov
Twenty stories, including “Nightfall” (1941), often voted the best science fiction story of all time.
Isaac Asimov
The first Black Widowers collection: six friends dine every month and tackle a puzzle that only their waiter, Henry, ends up solving.
Isaac Asimov
Stories from the 1970s, including “The Bicentennial Man”, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Isaac Asimov
The humorous tales of George and his two-centimetre demon, who grants wishes all wrong.
Isaac Asimov
His memoirs, written in his last years and published after his death: childhood in Brooklyn, chemistry, science fiction and his friends.
Sequels written by other authors
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford picks up Hari Seldon just as he is offered the post of First Minister of the Empire.
Greg Bear
Greg Bear tells of Seldon’s trial, seen by Daneel Olivaw and the robots who secretly guide the Empire.
David Brin
David Brin closes the trilogy with a dying Seldon, who discovers how much was done behind his back.
Roger MacBride Allen
With Asimov’s blessing, Roger MacBride Allen imagines a robot without the Three Laws, accused of attacking a scientist on Inferno.
Roger MacBride Allen
Inferno’s “New Law” robots are caught up in a political murder.
Roger MacBride Allen
The terraforming of Inferno nears its end, and with it the fate of the robots who do not obey the Three Laws.
Adaptations, since 1966
Richard Fleischer
Richard Fleischer’s film with Raquel Welch, which Asimov novelized. Oscars for visual effects and art direction.
Chris Columbus
Robin Williams plays Andrew, the robot who wants to become human, based on the story and the novel The Positronic Man.
Alex Proyas
An action film with Will Smith, loosely inspired by the stories: it takes the Three Laws, Susan Calvin and U.S. Robots from them.
David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman
Apple TV+’s very free series, which adds clone emperors and a digital Seldon. It goes beyond the first novel.