Opus 100

Opus 100 is a collection by American writer and scientist Isaac Asimov. It was published by Houghton Mifflin on 16 October 1969. Asimov chose to celebrate the publication of his hundredth book by writing about his previous 99 books, including excerpts from short stories and novels, as well as nonfiction articles and books. Opus 100 also includes five complete science fiction stories and one complete science essay.

Opus 100
Dust-jacket from the first edition
AuthorIsaac Asimov
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
1969
Media typePrint (Hardback, paperback)
Pages318
ISBN978-0-395-07351-3

Contents

Introduction

Part 1. Astronomy

Part 2. Robots

Part 3. Mathematics

Part 4. Physics

  • Excerpt from Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
  • Excerpt from the introduction to Only a Trillion
  • Excerpt from The Neutrino
  • Excerpt from "Superneutron"

Part 5. Chemistry

  • Excerpt from "The Sound of Panting" from Only a Trillion
  • Excerpt from Biochemistry and Human Metabolism
  • Excerpt from The Chemicals of Life
  • Excerpt from The Noble Gases
  • "Thiotimoline and the Space Age"
  • Excerpt from The Kinetics of the Reaction Inactivation of Tyrosinase during its Catalysis of the Aerobic Oxidation of Catechol (his PhD thesis)

Part 6. Biology

  • Excerpt from The Wellsprings of Life
  • Excerpt from Photosynthesis

Part 7. Words

  • Excerpts from Words of Science
    • "Helium"
    • "Idiot"
    • "RH Negative"
  • Excerpts from Words on the Map
    • "New Jersey"
    • "Philadelphia"
    • "Virgin Islands"
  • Excerpts from Words from History
    • "Bloody Shirt"
    • "Mob"
    • "Potemkin Village"

Part 8. History

  • Excerpt from The Greeks
    • "The Spartan Way of Life"
  • Excerpt from The Roman Republic
  • Excerpt from The Egyptians
  • Excerpt from The Near East
  • Excerpt from "There's Nothing Like a Good Foundation" from Asimov on Science Fiction
  • Excerpt from "The Dead Hand"

Part 9. The Bible

  • Excerpt from Asimov's Guide to the Bible
  • "Twelve Point Three Six Nine" from Science, Numbers, and I

Part 10. Short Shorts

  • Excerpt from Please Explain
  • "On Prediction", an introduction to Future Tense edited by Richard Curtis
  • "An Uncompromising View", a review of Mechanical Men by Dean E. Wooldridge
  • "Dreamworld"

Part 11. Humor

  • "The Holmes-Ginsbook Device"

Appendix: My Hundred Books

Reception

Algis Budrys gave Opus 100 a mixed review, saying "the book as a whole demands so many shifts of personality and attitude in the reader that no one, not even Asimov, could keep up with them comfortably."[1]

gollark: <@235768051683950593> YOU should install GTech™ communications cuboids™ on the 5G tower.
gollark: As I was saying, the SBH™ is a mere part of the SBC™, like the SBF™.
gollark: Wrong.
gollark: We have some bee data, see.
gollark: I really need OCR.

See also

References
  1. "Galaxy Bookshelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1969, pp. 121, 158
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