Futuristic Technologies in Asimov’s Science Fiction Stories

Abstract

Isaac Asimov has advocated the idea that science fiction is a flavour that can be applied to any genre of fiction. The two novels that are used for this term paper; “The Naked Sun” and “The Robots of Dawn” are in keeping with this idea. The two stories are essentially whodunit stories, with several futuristic technologies like positronic robots and hyperspace travel blended into it. This term paper mainly focuses on identifying the futuristic technology in Isaac Asimov’s science fiction stories. It would focus on how such futuristic technology stories, which take place in a world completely unfamiliar to the reader, fit into models of classification described by Tzvetan Todorov and Arthur Asa Berger. In this term paper, there would also be an attempt to do analyse how the notion of ‘crime and punishment’ is handled differently in these stories, and also to see how elements of science fiction and futuristic technologies fit into the genre of detective fiction. The term paper also contains a brief character analysis of the Futuristic technologies by detectives in the two stories.