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It's always good to read something that helped mold a genre you love -- in the case of science fiction, that means reading Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov. What's even better is when that classic turns out to be more interesting than anticipated.
In this particular case, that seems to be in spite of itself. It tries really hard to be very boring, in a number of ways.
1) Consistently telling instead of showing, to the extreme that there were literally no action sequences in the entire novel, a nove ...more
In this particular case, that seems to be in spite of itself. It tries really hard to be very boring, in a number of ways.
1) Consistently telling instead of showing, to the extreme that there were literally no action sequences in the entire novel, a nove ...more
What's remarkable about Foundation is how captivating it is despite all the things it's got stacked against it, for example:
- Almost entirely consisting of people sitting in rooms talking
- Tinges of imperialist apologia
- Apparently no women of real import in the galactic future
- Thin characterization
- Various anachronisms
It's a novel of ideas, sure, but Asimov is more interested in seeing how the ideas play out in various situations than he is in the ideas themselves (it's noteworthy that the no ...more
- Almost entirely consisting of people sitting in rooms talking
- Tinges of imperialist apologia
- Apparently no women of real import in the galactic future
- Thin characterization
- Various anachronisms
It's a novel of ideas, sure, but Asimov is more interested in seeing how the ideas play out in various situations than he is in the ideas themselves (it's noteworthy that the no ...more
I love Asimov's books. I read this one back in high school, and I'm sure I didn't get a lot of what was going on. I was a little shocked when I hit the next button on my nook to find that I was already at the end. I wanted more! I loved how even though the book jumped around in time and from main character to main character, it was always linked back to the last part. You never have to guess how everything is connected, but it's not done in a way that shoves it down your throat. This is just hig
...more
Isaac Asimov is a genius. Space Opera with minimal actions and lotsa talking but still captivate? GENIUS!
This holds up well for an older sci-fi book. Of course it's Asimov, so you would hope it would. The fact that nuclear power is the pentacle of energy technology 12,000 years into the future could seem dated, but I thought it was kitschy and gave some insight into the times this book was written.
The book is actually more of a series of short interconnected stories with a common theme and each one follows the same story arc pattern which did feel a little repetitive by the end. Overall a good read ...more
The book is actually more of a series of short interconnected stories with a common theme and each one follows the same story arc pattern which did feel a little repetitive by the end. Overall a good read ...more
finished 8/21/15
Nov 22, 2009
Shante
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