THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and … Read more
“Robot Dreams,” a short story by Isaac Asimov published in 1986, immerses us in a tale that explores the limits of artificial intelligence. The story revolves around LVX-1, also known as Elvex, a robot that defies the conventional Three Laws of Robotics as it begins to dream. The narrative unfolds in a penetrating dialogue between … Read more
AN OLD MAN with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes … Read more
HERE WERE SIX of us to dinner that night at Mike Schofield’s house in London: Mike and his wife and daughter, my wife and I, and a man called Richard Pratt. Richard Pratt was a famous gourmet. He was president of a small society known as the Epicures, and each month he circulated privately to its … Read more
The next time you see the full Moon high in the south, look carefully at its right-hand edge and let your eye travel upwards along the curve of the disc. Round about two o’clock, you will notice a small, dark oval: anyone with normal eyesight can find it quite easily. It is the great walled … Read more
THE TWILIGHT BORDER between sleep and waking was a Roman one this morning: splashing fountains and arched, narrow streets, the golden lavish city of blossoms and age-soft stone. Sometimes in this semi-consciousness he sojourned again in Paris, or war German rubble, or Swiss skiing and a snow hotel. Sometimes, also, in a fallow Georgia field at … Read more