Isaac Asimov wrote a vast number of short stories that varied in quality. Earth Is Room Enough is a collection of them from the 1950s. That particular decade was a time when the possibilities of space travel captured the public’s attention so science-fiction writers catered to that interest with a vast output of writing regarding that subject. Asimov, however, was never the kind of guy who tried to keep up with all the hacks and sometimes went his own way by also writing stories that take place here on Earth. Some of these are collected in this short volume. While the location of all of them is our current home planet, there really is not one dominant theme that strings them all together.
The first story, titled “The Dead Past”, is the longest and best of the bunch. A historian hears about an invention that makes it possible to watch the past the way we watch television. He wants to observe the ancient city of Carthage to prove his theory that the Carthaginians did not practice child sacrifice; he believed that the accounts written about this were actually fictional propaganda meant to make the Roman citizens turn against the Carthaginians. (Was this an ancient version of Qanon?) When he contacts the company that owns this technology he only gets turned away. He finds a scientist who agrees to build this machine but they become suspicious that the government is involved in a cover up operation to keep this technology a secret. “The Dead Past” is not so much of a conspiracy theory story as it is a re-examination of the Frankenstein’s Monster complex where technology ends up harming its creators more than it helps them.
“Kid’s Stuff” is another interesting story. An author of pulp fantasy stories is working when a large insect-like creature appears on his desk. Despite its appearance, it claims to be an elf from Avalon then proceeds to dominate the mind and actions of the author. The elf’s plan is to enslave the author and take him to Avalon in order to teach the fairies there how to build a technological society. The author is unwilling to resist the telepathic domination of the elf but his son comes to the rescue at the end. Of course, the story ends with a happy resolution and a nice, neat explanation as to what actually happened, just as we would expect. Asimov did at times explore some radical themes but here we get a good example of how he often stuck to a conventional formula for story-telling.
The third most memorable story is “Dreaming Is a Private Thing”. A technology has been invented in which its user wears a helmet that transplants dreams into their heads, kind of like virtual reality. Since most people have dull imaginations, they hire professional dreamers to create dreams to be transmitted to others through the device. The elderly executive of the most successful dream company is under various kinds of pressure to keep the business at the top. Competitive market forces, new technological innovations, and government intrusions all threaten the company’s stability. On top of it all, his most talented dream-maker wants to quit in order to have a more ordinary life. While the technology sounds interesting, it is actually a gimmicky vehicle that Asimov uses to carry a statement about the need for quality over quantity. The director’s dilemma is whether or not he should sacrifice the quality of their product to stay competitive in the marketplace or not. An intelligent reader should have no trouble guessing what decision is made in the end.
The rest of the stories are somewhat interesting. There is the usual stuff about robots, a couple supernatural fantasies, a story that illustrates the multiverse hypothesis in quantum mechanics, and then there are some short stories that are more like jokes than works of literature. Jokes do not age well and the ones in this collection are just as corny as the ones your grandfather would tell when you were a little kid.
Overall this book is good for a one-time read. The ideas and insights are interesting but Isaac Asimov does a better job with the same themes in other works. Some of these stories could have been expanded and written with more depth but the author was a busy man and obviously had other priorities. Earth Is Room Enough is a collection of odds and ends that don’t really congeal into a unified whole the way I Robot does. But if you manage to pick up an old paperback imprint in nice condition, it is worth going over once as a light diversion.
Asimov, Isaac. Earth Is Room Enough. Fawcett Crest, New York: 1957.
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