The Best of Isaac Asimov

I've recently finished reading The Best of Isaac Asimov, which is a book containing a good cross-section of Asimov's work up until the time when it was published in 1973. I'd never read any of his stuff before, so I thought this would be a good place to start. I picked the book up in quite good condition from Amazon Marketplace for a penny, and it has a cool front cover, although I'm not sure which story the picture refers to, if any.

There are twelve short stories, and each one is enjoyable in its own way. I like Nightfall for its dramatic ending, The Martian Way for its adventure and creativity, The Deep for its view of Earth through the eyes of aliens, The Dead Past for its grippingly dark plot and The Last Question for its thought provoking look into the far-future.

The fact that these are short stories means that without investing too much time in each one you can still see an interesting progression, and Asimov's background as a professor of biochemistry helps add a certain realism to everything. In fact, he actually made some fairly accurate predictions in these works of fiction, describing, for example, the feeling of euphoria experienced when walking in space before anyone had actually done so. Really good stuff.