WHAT have you finished reading recently? All Systems Red, Martha Wells. An action-mystery short novel featuring a sarcastic robot helping colonists on another world.

WHAT are you reading now? The Nazi Seizure of Power, though that will be a slow burn. I started reading For Cause and Comrades, an examination of soldiers’ motives in the Civil War as evinced by their letters, on Sunday — but I will probably focus on the Nasties and SF for now.

WHAT are you reading next? Possibly Double Star by Robert Heinlein, or Star Trek: The Entropy Effect. The latter supposedly opens with Spock seeing Kirk murdered on the bridge of the Enterprise!

“The bridge really can get along without you for a few more hours.”
“I realize that, sir. However, when I began my experiment I psychophysiologically altered my metabolism to permit me to remain alert during the course of my observations. I could return my circadian rhythm to normal now, but it does not seem sensible, to me, to prepare myself for rest when my presence may be required when we reach our destination.” Kirk sorted through the technicalities of his science officer’s statement.
“Spock,” he said, “you aren’t saying you haven’t had any sleep in six weeks, are you?” “No, Captain.”
“Good,” Kirk said, relieved; and, after a pause, “Then what are you saying?”
“It will not be six standard weeks until day after tomorrow.”

The prompt for today is “short stories, novellas, etc”, which brings Asimov to mind immediately. As I’ve mentioned before, finding Asimov via his short story collections was my tipping point into being a Science Fiction Reader, as opposed to someone who read stories that sometimes involved aliens or space travel. I seriously used to say that I wasn’t an SF reader, I just like Star Trek. In 2008 or so I tried an Asimov collection and fell head over heels in love with Asimov as a writer. I wound up not only devouring all the collections my library had, and those my university library had, but buying boxes of Asimov books off of ebay just to fish out ones I hadn’t read and donate the rest to goodwill. The only other SF writer I’ve read many short stories from would be Ray Bradbury, and it is my intention to read something by him this month.

Related:
“Ten Stories by Isaac“, a post I did sharing ten of my favorite Asimov stories. They’re not all SF.