Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection (Isaac Asimov, 1995)The book seemed more interesting that it actually was. It is called “Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection” and is supposed to be a collection of fantasy stories by Asimov. Now Isaac Asimov is my favorite science-fiction author and…no wait, Asimov is probably my FAVORITE author in general. I love his stories, I love his writing style, and I frankly, love his personality.
But I did not know Asimov wrote fantasy, so this collection should have been interesting. The book is divided into three sections. The first section contains the short stories in the collection. It has eleven fantasy story, but it is not as expected. Eight of them deal with the same characters, a series of stories about a man and his tale of a small demon, Azazel. Two of the other three stories are not exactly adult fantasy, and are just fairly-like stories, and the final one hardly seems to count as fantasy (its Mystery!)
The second part is a series of articles from Asimov on the genre of fantasy, and how it relates to science-fiction. Because it seems these articles are taken out from his introduction to his sci-fi magazine, there is actually a bit of overlap sometimes.
And lastly, the third section has Asimov’s articles on…other subjects. No fantasy. It almost feels like the editor of the anthology run out of ideas and material and shoved random stuff in it.
The introduction to the anthology is, “ASIMOV…FANTASY? As almost everyone on our planet knows, Isaac Asimov was the most prodigiously talented, productive, and renowned science fiction writer who ever lived. As everyone perhaps DOESN’T know, he also delighted himself and his readers by writing fantasy stories throughout his fifty-year career.” Well, the collection does not seem to really prove that statement.
3/5
