Books: Gold

My favorite science fiction author when I was growing up was Isaac Asimov, who wrote the "Foundation" and "Robot" series of novels. Unlike some of his peers, there's never been a really satisfactory film adaptation of his books (whereas pretty much everything Philip K. Dick ever wrote is now up on the big screen), and I think that is what has caused the popularity of his works to stay at a slow burn.

An example of the difficult-to-translate nature of his stories comes in the form of his Hugo-award-winning short story called "Gold." In a somewhat metafictional turn, the story is about a "compudrama" director who is having difficulty translating a story into visual form; the story in question is actually "The Gods Themselves," a prior book by Asimov.

It's probably the last significant piece of science-fiction Asimov ever wrote, but it's also a great illustration of the struggles that accompany the creative process. In a way, Asimov is commiserating with all the film directors and screenplay writers who have ever tried to give emotional weight to an abstract idea with only pictures and sound.