Foundation's Friends: Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov

Subtitled ``Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov,'' this pleasant anthology of new stories celebrates Asimov's 50 years of writing SF. Seventeen authors explore the people, places and ideas Asimov has made famous, albeit in their own styles. Robots circumvent, enhance or expound upon the Three Laws of Robotics, a la Robert Sheckley, Harry Harrison (in a Stainless Steel Rat adventure) and Connie Willis, who puts Asimov himself into a ``Dilemma.'' Mike Resnick reveals an introspective Susan Calvin; George Alec Effinger sends a Jewish American Princess to see ``Nightfall,'' Edward D. Hoch visits the Black Widowers, and Orson Scott Card looks at Hari Seldon and the start of the Second Fundation. Frederik Pohl's ``The Reunion at the Mile-High'' is a charming and unexpected tale of the 50th reunion of the Futurians, Asimov and Pohl included, in an alternate-world 1989. (Nov.)