In 1975, Listening Library created an audiobook by recording Isaac Asimov reading ten of his stories, along with a bit of trivia for each. Every work here is, in some way, Dr Asimov's favourite. This collection can also be found by the name The Last Question and Other Stories (and read by Jim Gallant instead).
Works collected in Science Fiction Favorites:
- "I Just Make Them Up, See!"
- "Someday"
- "The Feeling of Power"
- "Living Space"
- "Satisfaction Guaranteed"
- "The Last Question"
- "Jokester"
- "The Immortal Bard"
- "Spell My Name with an S"
- "The Ugly Little Boy"
Science Fiction Favorites provides examples of:
- The Annotated Edition: Each story has a preface and a postscript where Dr Asimov comments with trivia about the related story. Most of the entries describe why Dr Asimov liked it so much, which usually involved a story about [Invoked] what inspired the story.
- Audio Adaptation: In addition to selecting which stories/poems would be included, Isaac Asimov also provided the narration for the entire book. The following stories were adapted into the audio format:
- "Best Of" Anthology: Isaac Asimov selected his ten favourite stories for this collection in 1975.
- Billed Above the Title: The Audible cover places Dr Asimov's name at the top of the cover, with "ASIMOV" in font larger than the two lines of title combined.
- Color Contrast: The Penguin Random House cover has a white top half with the title in large blocky black outlines and a black bottom half with the (faint) title in large blocky (dark) grey outlines. At the bottom of the cover, Isaac Asimov's name appears in small flowing white script.
- Death of the Author: [Invoked] Dr Asimov explains in the postscript of "The Immortal Bard" that it was inspired by the way people found various meanings and hidden elements in the stories that he didn't even realize was in there. Shakespeare failed the course on Shakespearean writing because Dr Asimov was certain that he'd do just as badly if he took a test based on his own stories.
- Doing In the Wizard: In the postscript to "Spell My Name with an S", Dr Asimov Discusses the reason why he created the Energy Beings at the end of the story. He decided that he hadn't explained where the numerologist and The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday came from, and since he wanted a Science Fiction story rather than Fantasy, he made the numerologist into an alien that pretended to be human.
- Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue: In the introduction, Dr Asimov implies that literature's strength is their lack of physical description. Readers can create their own version of how a character or a room looks, something that would be dictated to them in a visual medium.
- Genre Anthology: Dr Asimov, in conjunction with Listening Library, provides his voice for this Science Fiction collection. The opening poem is the only non-genre entry.
- Inspiration for the Work: [Invoked] Dr Asimov reveals the inspiration behind several of these stories in the annotations:
- In the preface to "I Just Make Them Up, See!", Dr Asimov shares how he had a terrible day, so his solution was to write a funny poem.
- In the preface of "The Feeling of Power", Dr Asimov shares the faculty dinner where he suggested the Central Theme to a colleague; "A time when people have forgotten arithmetic, and then someone discovers it again." Dr Asimov admits that after he got home, he called the colleague to say that he was going to write the story.
- In both preface and postscript of "Living Space", Dr Asimov thinks the way an author's life influences their work is interesting. This story was written when he was trying to find a new home, and despite literally inventing an infinite number of homes,
he found a way to make people run out of living space. - In the preface of "Jokester", Dr Asimov says the inspiration came during lunch, when an editor gave him the Driving Question; "I wonder where these jokes all come from? Who makes them up?"
- Minimalistic Cover Art:
- The Audible cover has a plain blue background, with a "book" inside where the title and author's name are in the same blue as the larger background. The background of the "book" is a red and yellow gradient.
- The Penguin Random House cover is designed with black and white divisions, where the top half is white with the title in large blocky black outlines and the bottom half is black with Isaac Asimov in small flowing white script.
- Mr. Imagination: In the introduction, Dr Asimov explains the reason why books are better than movies and television is that they encourage the reader to create their own world of imagination, and each person's version of the story becomes very different."A story is what the writer says and what you imagine, together. So that you contribute to a book, more than you can possibly contribute to a television program." — Isaac Asimov
- Reality Subtext: (Discussed Trope) In both preface and postscript of "Living Space", Dr Asimov explains the Inspiration for the Work was from his house-hunting. He finds it remarkable that while he had literally invented an infinite number of homes, he found a way to give his characters their own problems in house-hunting.
- Robo Speak: When adapting "Someday", Dr Asimov chooses to include a haunting voice and reedy tone when voicing the Bard (a mechanical storytelling machine). This intonation is not clearly described in the text.
- Science Marches On: (Discussed Trope) Dr Asimov points out in the postscript of "The Last Question" that he neglected to include Black Holes in the story, and explains the absence was due to not hearing astronomers talking about them in 1956. He concludes that problems like that are why Science Fiction stories will always lag behind science.
- Spell My Name With An S: The Penguin Random House cover spells Isaac Asimov's name as "Issac Asimov".
- Technology Marches On: (Discussed Trope) Dr Asimov points out in the postscript of "The Feeling of Power" that when he wrote the story, in 1957, pocket computers didn't exist. The differences between the pocket computers he describes and the pocket computers we have is dismissed as "a detail".
