Word: novels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There is enough honesty of a similar quality throughout the picture to keep any not too critical adult going through any matinee. Combine that with the pleasant lyricism of its skating scenes and you have the movie equivalent of a Judy Blume novel for teenagers: something you need not be ashamed to offer a kid and that you may find yourself more interested in than you would have suspected as you glance over her shoulder. - Richard Schickel
Both are remarkable works. Opus 200 is a cornucopia: for sci-fi buffs there are excerpts from the 1972 novel The Gods Themselves and the award-winning robot story The Bicentennial Man. For those who prefer Asimov's other talents, there are such tours de force as an introduction to binary numbers; an explanation, in language that even Dick and Jane can follow, of why it is possible (but not practical) to reverse the basic nuclear reaction and convert energy into matter; some witty Asimovian annotations on Shakespeare, the Bible and the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and Lord Byron...
...other amatory conquests remains to be revealed in Vol. II of Asimov's autobiography, now under fevered construction. For the normally imperturbable author is nervous for the first time in his literary life. "It's kind of frightening," he confesses. "If people don't like your novel, they don't like your novel. But if they don't like your autobiography, it means they don't like you." The anxiety is unnecessary. As William Blake once proclaimed, energy is eternal delight. Not everyone may like every one of Asimov's other volumes...
...than ginger ale. The carefree author cannot shake a persistent fear−certainly not of writer's block, or of ill health, or even of nuclear catastrophe. The man whose fiction has sent men and machines across whole galaxies, and through time in perhaps his most memorable single novel, The End of Eternity, refuses to board a plane. "Everybody has to worry about something," he muses. "Some people worry about sex. With me, it's jets." Which seems fair. After 200 books on every conceivable subject, it would be surprising to see Isaac Asimov...
...must work his way through a healthy number of suspects to prove his case. The formula is familiar, and Asimov, wearing his mystery writer's hat, works it out with ease. He also introduces himself as a character and manages to dominate long passages of the novel; when Asimov is not onstage, other characters are talking about him. This amiable megalomania often shoves suspense well into the background. Murder at the ABA, published in 1976, will not keep readers on the edge of their seats; it is a well-worn armchair, overstuffed, shaky at the joints, but a comfortable...