Isaac Asimov. Buy Jupiter (1975) A collection of mostly short-short stories, which range from shaggy-dog jokes to parables. Asimov writes a short note about each story’s genesis and publishing history, which together form a sketchy autobiography of his life from the 1940s to the 1970s. All of the stories raise or suggest deep questions. Asimov’s strengths are dialogue and the character sketch, well suited to the short story.
The title story imagines aliens who want Jupiter as a billboard to be viewed as their starships pass by our solar system. But they aren’t as canny as Earthlings when it comes to advertising, so they don’t realise they should also ensure they have the rights to Saturn and the other outer planets. One of Asimov's repeated theses is that the outlier, the oddball, the “unsettled mind” are the creative ones that drive what little progress homo sapiens has achieved. (This thesis shapes the Foundation series.) I wouldn’t go that far: These people drive change, and change is just as likely to be regress as progress, when it’s not merely a ineffectual distraction from the orderly flow of the daily round.
I enjoyed this book, reading most of it one evening, and finishing it the next morning. ** to ****
Update 2021-08-15: Re-read the whole thing this past week. Discovered that I'd forgotten most of the stories, which shows that Asimov's fiction isn't especially memorable. It was clearer than ever that these short tales are more or less elaborate jokes: a slow misleading build-up, a quick delivery, and a punch-line to underscore the point. They were all funny, albeit several of them macabre jokes. Still, I enjoyed reading them. Maybe I'll remember them better now. If, that is, I really want to. Same ratings.
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