false 41821 19 For 14 years of a career stretching from 1939 to his death in '92, Isaac Asimov wrote little SF & instead produced popular non-fiction in enormous quantities. <I>The Gods Themselves</I> ('72) was his "comeback" SF novel, welcomed by both Hugo & Nebula awards. It opens in the world of Big Science that Asimov knew well, full of in-fighting & the race to publish first. The Inter-Universe Electron Pump sucks unlimited energy from nothing, making all power stations obsolete & bringing a new golden age. No one--especially not the scientist who got the credit--wants to listen to the doomsayer Lamont who calculates that the pump's side effects may detonate the Sun. Worse, there's no kudos for him: "And no one on Earth will live to know I was right". Part two moves to the dying parallel universe whose hyper-intelligent aliens actually invented the pump & don't care what happens to our Sun. Asimov cleverly focuses on three immature aliens whose intelligence is less daunting & who slowly learn--with very different personal reactions--about their race's weird analogue of sex, about the pump's moral implications, & eventually about the unexpected meaning of maturity. These are the most original, engaging aliens Asimov ever created. Part three is set in a carefully worked-out Moon colony & grapples with the "para-physics" of inter-universe loopholes. Can a politically acceptable replacement for the pump be developed? Solid, workmanlike SF with far more talk than action: one of Asimov's rare standalone novels.--David Langford 1253407 book 1972 The Gods Themselves total:1773|5:499|4:657|3:495|2:102|1:20| 1773 6832 2304 101 4 2 false true Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 11 15:01:03 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 11 16:19:38 -0700 2008
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classic" ...more...]]> 3 3 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Dec 30 13:43:03 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 30 17:43:16 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Mar 09 15:35:41 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 04:43:40 -0700 2008
This book is a real page turner! I seem to h...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Oct 14 15:43:47 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 13 12:54:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Jul 29 23:23:50 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 19 16:17:59 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Sep 25 07:14:24 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 28 07:46:41 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jan 18 01:25:37 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 10 02:50:16 -0800 2007 Fri Jan 18 01:24:55 -0800 2008
Some of my favorite quotes from this year come from this b...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 13:39:04 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 13:47:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon May 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 06:37:41 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 06:49:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 05:05:03 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 14:26:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Oct 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 08:16:09 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 11:50:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 03 08:44:06 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 08:50:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Sep 27 15:23:40 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 27 16:50:55 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 00:26:38 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 00:26:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jun 20 23:36:44 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 23:43:14 -0700 2009 If you're like most people, probably the only book on alien sex you'll read. To be fair, it was only the middle third of the book that dealt with the topic.

Alien sex aside, Asimov had a pretty good plot and a story that kept me g...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jul 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 22:14:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 22:52:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Nov 03 19:17:05 -0800 2008 Sun Apr 19 18:31:39 -0700 2009
I must note, that I read this book about 20 times before, it was an absolute favourite of mine back in nerdy teenage years. I thought that reading it in the original language might give it someting extr...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 05:17:48 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 18 19:00:34 -0700 2008
The premise of the novel is relative to our time - that of energy and man's seeming habitual tendency to ignore growing ills and ultimately deny them. Asimov makes no qualms about ...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Tue Jul 22 08:33:20 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 20 07:47:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 30 11:09:04 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 05:36:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=41821