Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel is coming to the big screen August 9th

The Naked Sun, First Edition, one of his best works.

… except that the project is titled “Elysium” starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.

Confused? Bear with me.

Ok so I’m a self-professed Asimov fanboy and the world of geeks was on fire last night and today as the first official trailer for “Elysium” hit the web. In sheer excitement I jumped in to watch it as well and join the fun.

Set in 2154 the trailer begins by showing this nearly perfect world. Quite futuristic but not ridiculous and quite in line with what I had always imagined Asimov’s worlds to be like. Then we get a shot of Jodie Foster welcoming a couple of people to Elysium followed by a lady next to a pool with a robot servant, who goes into her chamber to “cleanse” herself. Then we get the tagline of “no poverty  no war, no sickness”. At this point I’m thinking “Holy shit this is Aurora/Solaria and that’s Gladia with R. Giskard right behind her in living flesh (tin)!”

And as if to answer my next question “But what about Earth”, the trailer shows us Earth, in actually a sorrowful state. It’s not quite Caves of Steel atmosphere, but more like post Robots and Empire set.

This is where the book and the movie seem to diverge quite drastically. I’ll just let you watch the trailer here.

So this got me curious to know if anyone else has drawn the parallels between Asimov’s famous Robot Series of books and Elysium. I could not find anyone that has made the analogy yet, but I found several very telling hints that this is indeed Asimov’s world re-imagined.

One: More than a year ago Deadline reported that John Scott 3 and Henry Hobson were set to write and direct Caves of Steel. That seems to never have panned out.

Two: The two were supposed to work with Simon Kinberg on bringing this project to life as a producer.

Three: Simon Kinberg never ended up producing Caves of Steel, but he did end up producing Elysium.

I think the three have met at some point last year. Threw around some ideas and talked about Asimov’s books and potentially make a script out of it. It’s likely that all three read Asimov’s four main Robot books and were highly influenced by it. The resemblance between Asimov’s material and what’s presented here in the plot is uncanny and I’m not willing to write it off to pure chance. Especially when taken in context of the fact that these three people have previously worked or attempted to tackle Asimov’s famous

Honestly, I think Elysium looks spectacular and even if it can channel some of Asimov’s work I think this could be a fantastic movie.

Elysium is an amalgamation of Solaria and Aurora and hints at some of the issues Asimov tackles over the span of four books. My hope is that they eventually make Asimov’s movies proper and give them a right treatment, but in meantime I think Elysium provides a small clue as to how that world could be realized and what It may look like when they do bring it to life.

I (heart) Asimov

I’ve been reading through more Asimov lately. Most recently “The Caves of Steel” and “The Naked Sun”, I’ve read through both books in under 2 weeks and now I’m onto his third book “The Robots of Dawn”. So far they have been incredibly addicting. I’m either up until 1 am every night reading or when I am not reading I’m thinking about how much I want to be reading his Robot series.

I completed all his Foundation series, and despite what people claim, I think his later work is much better and stories are more of pageturners. Speaking of which, it’s nearly impossible to let down his books once I start reading. His language is so captivating and the story leaves me hanging by a thread from one moment to the next. Generally at 1 am I just have to call it quits no matter how good it is and resume reading the next day.

I read a couple other interesting books lately, most notable “The Postmortal” and “Ready Player One”. I highly suggest both books, although the postmortal is a depressing book given that it deals with death, it is still excellent science fiction.

Once I’m done with these next two books, Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire I will either take on Asimov’s “Empire” series or move on to Jurassic Park and Dune before coming back to Asimov once again.

Review: Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov

I finished reading “Foundation’s Edge” by Isaac Asimov five minutes ago. It is the fourth novel in his Foundation universe of novels. I read through 400 iPad pages in total today just to finish the story because there was no good stop point. Thus far, this is his strongest novel, most condensed storytelling and brilliant writing. All three books pale in comparison to this and they were outstanding reads in their own right. The following book “Foundation and Earth” is obviously going to deal with the mythical planet Earth – mythical in the universe set up by Asimov at least. Although Foundation’s Edge dealt with the issue of Earth, what it is and most importantly where it is, the book introduces many new concepts that I am sure are foundation for the next 7 novels in the series.

I don’t want delve further into the plot because I am afraid of ruining the experience. If you have not picked up the Foundation novels I highly recommend you do. Asimov’s writing style is accessible yet smart, his imagination seemingly endless. He weaves stories and mysteries together so well that when you reach the point of conclusion the “answer” seems like the most logical and inevitable, yet completely natural.

When you do pick up Foundation novels make sure to read them in the order they were written in, rather than their actual chronological order. Asimov went back and wrote books in between some of his titles in order to supplement information and expand on his worlds. In my opinion that also detracts from some of the mystery of not knowing what will happen and it is amusing to read and watch his stories evolve with time. Foundation novels in order of publishing are:

1. Foundation
2. Foundation and Empire
3. Second Foundation
4. Foundation’s Edge
5. Foundation and Earth
6. Prelude to Foundation
7. Forward the Foundation

Not written by Asimov but these are authorized sequels to his story written by different authors.

8. Foundation’s Fear
9. Foundation and Chaos
10. Foundation’s Triumph

From this point on, I have been recommended exploring the “Robot Series” universe as it ties in very much with the foundation novels.