The Sword and Laser discussion
This topic is about
Foundation
2012 Reads
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FOUND: Do dated ideas hurt your enjoyment of the story?
Lots of things stood out, but none of them hurt enjoyment for me. I always find it odd that a readership which supposedly likes imaginative, speculative fiction sometimes seems so conservative that it finds itself unable to deal with technology that's not like what we have. Face it, the stuff being written about today will sound silly and dated in 50 years. Hell, look at Gibson's Neuromancer... fencing "3 megabytes of hot RAM..?" . Please, I transfer 10,000 times that in a month all around the world. But it doesn't stop me from loving that novel.
I think if readers can stretch their imaginations to encompass odd and improbable things that don't exist we should also be able to deal with archaic tech in a novel.
I tend to put myself in a mindset of it being an alt universe where they never came up with computers, and it doesn't bother me in the least. I actually find it more interesting in some ways to see what someone thought a possible future might hold if other sciences and technologies had been developed further over thousands of years while computer technology wasn't. That being said, I'm very doubtful that psychohistory could possibly calculate enough factors to make some of the determinations Seldon makes with pen and paper.
I always enjoy how much a vision of the future reveals about the time a book was written in.I rather like the throwback into a time in which people thought that 10 years into the future they would drive nuclear-powered cars or use atomic vacuum cleaners.
It's not that the ideas in Foundation are dated. It's that they are not science fiction. Wells conceived of a time machine;Jules Verne, a submarine. Clarke, communication satellites.Asimov gives us atomic this and space that. It's silly fantastic futurism rather real imaginative thought. For a space empire that was supposed to have lasted for tens of thousands of years, I'd think technology would have advanced past simple atomic weapons or ridiculously 20th Century Western cultural norms.
Asimov's sin is a failure of imagination and frankly of intellect and reason.
I've always thought of the dated technology as being because the galaxy had fallen into relative barbarism. It's pretty clear that no one outside the Foundation truly understood much of anything about science, by that time.
Lepton wrote: "It's not that the ideas in Foundation are dated. It's that they are not science fiction. Wells conceived of a time machine;Jules Verne, a submarine. Clarke, communication satellites.Asimov gives ..."
"Verne took the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800 by Robert Fulton."
H. G. Wells coined the term "time machine", but he wasn't the first to use the concept of time travel in fiction. Just one example: A Christmas Carol
Lepton wrote: "It's not that the ideas in Foundation are dated. It's that they are not science fiction. Wells conceived of a time machine;Jules Verne, a submarine. Clarke, communication satellites.Asimov gives us ..."
Psychohistory. That's the science fictional concept at the heart of the series, not space ships or ray-guns, and to pretend it's not worthy of being called SF when you accept time machines is just absurd.
David wrote: "I've always thought of the dated technology as being because the galaxy had fallen into relative barbarism. It's pretty clear that no one outside the Foundation truly understood much of anything ab..."
Which doesn't make a lot of sense. The planets in the Anacreon region are still using internal combustion engines. Even if we assume they've fallen back to the level of the most primitive mass-produced automobiles, that tech level is only slightly less advanced than what's necessary for a nuclear reactor.
We have to think of the time that it was written. So many things that he wrote about in these books have come to be things that we use in day to say life. It is pretty amazing :)
Dated references don't really bother me all that much. Given the time it was written people read the paper or a book, they smoked and nuclear power was this amazing new power source. I can only assume that since this was set thousand of years into the future he had his characters smoke and read the paper and used nuclear power to make the settings and characters more relatable to the general reading public.
One problem with using wildly imaginative ideas for technology they might have in the future is that a few decades or even a few years after a book is written, the ideas may have been proven impossible. So I don't think it's such a bad idea to go with ideas that have already been proven to be within the bounds of realistic science. Many readers could just as easily be put off by technology that seems ludicrous as by technology that seems outdated. To be truly inventive in ways that aren't likely to become dated, the only real options are magic and comedy, both of which work best precisely because they're ridiculous. As much as I love propulsion systems such as Infinite Improbability and Bistromathics, they don't belong in serious science fiction.
I for one find it interesting to place myself in a different "common sense" or societal mores from another place, time, or culture.
NMC wrote: "Unfortunately, it does ruin the story a little for me, mainly because it's science fiction. So when an author gets something wrong or something seems implausible,"Well, does FTL bother you? Faster than light travel isn't merely implausible it's impossible by everything we know. Yet SF fans seem to have no issue with it. How about the Singularity? It's very implausible that we'll ever be able to upload an accurate copy of our minds to some cloud... yet people consume that stuff. I could make a good argument that novels which use either concept are fantasy, not SF since they rely on things that can't happen in the real world... Hell, look at Peter Hamilton's 'Dreaming Void' for a novel accepted as SF that has 'technology' based on pure handwavium. Frankly, if plausibility (never mind possibility) is the yardstick for what's SF then a lot of SF isn't... it's fantasy in disguise.
Lepton claims Asimov suffered a failure of imagination. I'm wondering if it's the readers instead.
Psychohistory is just some ginned up teleological philosophy of history with a Marxist undertone. I don't consider that science fiction either.
Before I listened to S&L, I hadn't read much recent SF. The majority of my SF reading had come from The Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein). So antiquated ideas really didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story. It might have actually heightened it, knowing about the developments in science and technology since the time of the novels' writing. I guess you just have to keep the publication date in mind as you read. Reading a SF novel from the '50s is an interesting look into a society that itself was looking into a future that we live in today.
Lepton wrote: "Psychohistory is just some ginned up teleological philosophy of history with a Marxist undertone. I don't consider that science fiction either."Huh? Nothing in any of the Foundation books ever suggests that history has a direction as Marxism requires -- the fact that the story isn't set in an anarcho-socialist utopia in fact contradicts Marx.
The idea that sociology is a hard science that, with large enough groups of people, can be used to accurately predict the future is as science fiction as it gets -- far more so than Wells' "Here's a magic time machine. Isn't it cool? Let me use it to construct a very literal parable about Marxism" novel.
I love that at the beginning it says that Hari Seldon's dad was a Tabacco farmer. It makes me giggle. It doesn't make me mad. He had ideas of what would still be around and he was wrong. So what?!? Well, I guess they are still around now, but hopefully won't be soon. I like that he leaves some detail out because I have an imagination. When I read this 15 years ago, I pictured things differently than I do now in the book. That is why I don't like Stephen King. I feel like he is too descriptive and leaves nothing for my imagination. It's all his imagination.
Hello, been listening to the podcast for a while, this is the first book i decided to jump in on. Unfortunately I read it in 3 hours... (wow just reread my post, I sound like an insufferable prig, but oh well, there it is.)Now to the topic at hand. Does a dated idea destroy make me enjoy the story less? Often it does, but not in this case. Many people are talking about the unambitious tech of Foundation, but tech should never be the center of a science fiction story in my opinion. Science fiction should just be a series of "what if?" questions extrapolated out to make a world, with interesting characters to act in it. A great Sci-Fi author will use this to bend or twist open a mind to possibilities.
The only thing that pulled me out of the story was the newspapers and all the smoking. If Asimov in later editions pulled the smoking references, and simply removed the word "paper" all the way through the work, it would've been so much better.
On the smoking thing, it doesn't say that they are harmful cigars... maybe in the thousands of years the empire developed a great filter system or something.Dated ideas don't bother me at all, I actually kind of like seeing how people years ago thought the future would work out. Like how in old sci-fi shows there are tape decks everywhere, and everyone wheres a string vest (or was that just Space:1999)
John wrote: "On the smoking thing, it doesn't say that they are harmful cigars... maybe in the thousands of years the empire developed a great filter system or something.Dated ideas don't bother me at all, I ..."
I tried to think of it that way John, but I just couldn't imagine a future where lighting something on fire was an acceptable means of social rumination. Even now the only social ruminant that seems even marginally acceptable is coffee, and that is quickly moving into the background as well.
I don't mind dated or implausible ideas as long as they are properly sold by the author. That means there has to be some internally consistent connector between the real world and the implausible fictional future which allows one to suspend disbelief within the context of the novel. For example hyperspace travel - the connector would be the skip drive or some sort of advanced as yet undiscovered technology that somehow overcomes the mountain of obstacles standing in the way.With phsycohistory, I would need computational horsepower to sell the idea properly and possibly less ambitious probability percentages. But when Seldon pulls out his calculator and goes "See!" and Dornick nods like it all makes sense - epic fail.
I was fine with the nuclear power and paper books - this isn't gadget sci-fi, it's ideas sci-fi. Asimov is exploring questions about how technology/information/knowledge can/should/might be used. Doesn't particularly matter what the tech is.The only thing that threw me was the frequent mentions of "Vegan tabacco." Took me ages to figure out he meant tabacco from the star system Vega, and not tabacco free of animal byproducts.
David Sven wrote: "But when Seldon pulls out his calculator and goes "See!" and Dornick nods like it all makes sense - epic fail. "Really? Hmm... What do you think someone from the 19th century would say if you wrote a story set in the early 21st century and people were routinely pulling out small handheld devices that did amazingly powerful computations?
So why is it so far fetched to have Seldon carry a device that could have immense computing power but that he calls a 'calculator'?
Rick wrote: "David Sven wrote: "But when Seldon pulls out his calculator and goes "See!" and Dornick nods like it all makes sense - epic fail. "Really? Hmm... What do you think someone from the 19th century wo..."
That's my point. I could go with superior unexplained technology to overcome the implausible. But that's not what's happening in that scene. The device Seldon pulls out is just a prop. It is not referred to as the advanced technology that makes psychohistory possible. Its just there as an aid to Seldon's own mental calculations.
I don't think sci-fi stories should spend too much time on "as you know" exposition. If the characters in the scene both know what the device is and what it's capable of (particularly people in the same academic field), it wouldn't make sense to explain to the reader what it is, when it can easily be inferred, even by non-experts reading the story thousands of years earlier. But if you want some better described tech, it'll come when you meet the Second Foundation.
Dated ideas are sometimes jarring for me. It is sometimes interesting to see old assumptions in action, but it can also get tedious fast. I was somewhat disturbed that there are virtually no women in the entire book. There's the one near the end who likes baubles, and I can't think of another who had any lines. When anyone mentioned women, it is in terms of their role in the kitchen or as mothers.
That is somewhat interesting, just to see 1950s mores in action, but I am going to need a pretty big spacer before I read another book like this.
One of the things I enjoyed about the Foundation series was that Asimov never worried about how the sci fi gadgets worked. He just called it atomic this or nuclear that and moved on with the meat of the story and I really appreciated that. To me nothing gets more boring than a 5 page exposition of the science of why a certain thing works a certain way.
Joshua wrote: "I tried to think of it that way John, but I just couldn't imagine a future where lighting something on fire was an acceptable means of social rumination."Why not? Societies change, and tens of thousands of years is a long time for change -- more than all of recorded history so far. I see no reason to believe that "progress" shall always continue in the same direction.
David wrote: "I don't think sci-fi stories should spend too much time on "as you know" exposition. If the characters in the scene both know what the device is and what it's capable of (particularly people in the..."Rik wrote: "One of the things I enjoyed about the Foundation series was that Asimov never worried about how the sci fi gadgets worked. He just called it atomic this or nuclear that and moved on with the meat ..."
I tend to agree. And I have no problem with any of the technology or hand held atomic pistols etc. I'm good with it. But my problem with Seldon's Hand held device, isn't the device itself or that it wasn't powerful enough - it just didn't make any sense to be using it to do pshycohistory. I would have been more willing to suspend disbelief if it wasn't mentioned at all. Then I could at least pretend they were collecting collating and computing data by some means that did make sense. Except the premise of the story has psychohistory being in the hands of a single individual with the math - not advanced technology.
Anyway, I'm making a bigger deal out of that than I actually care about. My real problem is I just find the story bland. I can overlook the inconsistencies if I can connect with the characters and the plot can keep my attention.
I liked some of the later stories better ie the showdown between Hardin and Wienis. And the Trader story with the Transmuter. I thought they were ok as short stories as they involved a battle of wits that lent themselves to Asimov's dialogue. But I'm reading Abercrombie at the moment and cough cough The Hunger Games. Asimov just can't compete with what's out there at the moment - well not for my attention anyway.
Speaking as a person who has read a ton of golden age science fiction including the granddaddy of them all the John Carter series well before it was a movie I can honestly say dated ideas do not faze me. I think they give us interesting views of the past. For example in the book form of War of the Worlds the Martian vehicles were steam powered.The biggest offender, I feel, of the early days is the Tom Swift Jr. series. I feel they are only loosely based in science. This holds true to the point in one book the boy scientist invents a matter making machine. These stories were written to spark imagination which they did well.
Hum. Well, I'm old enough to remember the 1950s and smoking cigars was thought to be good for your health, supposed to improve the digestion or some such nonsense. Azamov was a graduate student paying his way through college with stories sold mostly to pulp magazines. He had no idea his book would become a classic of science fiction.The 1950s was not a very happy time, really. They were only just learning how crazy Hitler and Stalin were and how they had used technology to do truly barbarous things. Added to that was the shock of "the bomb." The conflict with the Soviet Union and an on-going fear of "the red threat" supposedly posed by enemy agents secreted throughout the US made the crazy club of politics just as goofy then as now. (My favorite story from the time was an election where one politician was behind in the polls on the eve of the election so he called a press conference and announced that he had secret information that his opponent, though believed to be a church-goer and a loyal American, was in fact discovered to be a philanthropist and a known thespian; it turned the election around.)
There was a movement on the college campuses to make politics rational. It was proposed that political leaders should take a competency test for the office they were running for and needed to have some background in science.
I don't know where Azamov stood in that movement but in the Foundation he postulates a world where political decisions could be made on a mathematically objective basis. He contrasts the Foundation and its leaders with the rough-and-ready politicians like those in the real world that had recently turned the world of 1940s and 1950s inside out.
Anyway, maybe it's my age, remembering how it was, but I've always enjoyed reading it.
Sean wrote: "Huh? Nothing in any of the Foundation books ever suggests that history has a direction as Marxism requires -- the fact that the story isn't set in an anarcho-socialist utopia in fact contradicts Marx."Not sure I agree with your reading of Marx, but let's just say psychohistory has a Hegelian undertone, then. Similar process without the added materialism or utopianism.
Joshua wrote: "The only thing that pulled me out of the story was the newspapers and all the smoking. If Asimov in later editions pulled the smoking references, and simply removed the word "paper" all the way through the work, it would've been so much better."Well, there's a good reason to use paper, if you had the stated goal of publishing an Encyclopedia of cultural and technical knowledge that was intended to survive societal decline and an extended period of barbarism: durability.
Why would you produce a digital-only document when it's extremely likely the infrastructure required to maintain such a resource won't survive the collapse of civilization? A paper book requires only two things to access its contents: i) literacy, and ii) light. And to preserve it requires (depending on the materials) vigilance in preventing fires and water damage in the storage area--a recommended approach towards any building regardless of purpose--or a caste of scribes to continually make copies of the important documents. Much easier to maintain in the collapse of industrial civilization than all the engineers and technicians and electricians and coders you'll need, and the factory workers to assemble computer components, and the miners to extract the rare earths and heavy metals and other materials electronics are made from, and the education system that trains all these people.
In the case of the "newspapers", I just see that as a holdover term. I haven't read a physical newspaper in a few years now, but I read "the papers" all the time. Just like some computer keyboards still have a "Return" key even though there's no longer a carriage to return to the start position. Or how we still "dial" a telephone number even though I personally haven't used a rotary dial telephone in almost two decades.
I'm not done with the book yet, so I can only base my response on what I've read so far (about to start part 3). The information being dated doesn't bother me because it's fiction and I imagine myself in their world. I agreed with David's comment: "I've always thought of the dated technology as being because the galaxy had fallen into relative barbarism." The whole point was that there was only one path left, so part of the Encyclopedia being paper was to consume time and keep everyone working and not thinking until the time was right for the best path. The smoking and other issues thus far haven't hurt my enjoyment because I expected politics to play a role and I knew the story was written before I was even born.Honestly, technology does not make a book science fiction. If that were true, then James Bond would be science fiction. I feel like this is going to be a thin-line subjectively for others since we all have our own opinions of what we enjoy and would consider true science fiction. I had a similar issue with the movie Avatar because it just seemed Pagan themed other than the vessels used, so I just didn't feel the science fiction vibe even though others heralded it as such. It's going to be the reader's opinion. Either way, the book has still been enjoyable thus far whether called sci-fi or not, especially considering it was published separately.
David Sven wrote: "The device Seldon pulls out is just a prop. It is not referred to as the advanced technology that makes psychohistory possible. Its just there as an aid to Seldon's own mental calculations. "You err, though, in interpreting 'calculator' to mean what we think of as a calculator. What we think of when we say 'calculator' didn't exist when Foundation was written.
Asimov simply posited a handheld device that helped with Seldon's mental calculations - I don't remember it being described in any detail. It's your assumption that it was closer to our concept of a calculator vs an advanced hand held computer.
Mod
I guess I just expected having a powerful portable computer to do calculations with would be normal 15,000 years in the future.
Hell look at what our cell phones do now, and those didn't even exist in any form when this book was written.
@Joe That's a good point about making a physical copy. I never really thought of it that way.
Interesting to see all the different viewpoints on this. I'd be curious to do some kind of graph with regards to the 3 or 4 opinions with respect to age of the poster to see if there is any kind of correlation.
I read Neuromancer the first time in the mid-90s before the Matrix came out and when the internet was still in its infancy. I was never really bothered by the level of technology.
I re-read it a year or two ago after friends reading it for the first time complained about how dated it was, and found myself agreeing with them. I don't think I enjoyed it as much the second time around.
I envy those who read Foundation closer to it's publication date, that's an experience I'll never have to get a true feeling for the book.
@Rob, just remember the experiences of the newer books that you read now so that when your grandchildren are complaining about how dated they are, you can roll your eyes at them and tell them why it is a good book :)
Sean wrote: Why not? Societies change,..."
That is a good point, but ingesting smoke and allowing it to pour out of various orifices, especially in space ships and stations, where oxygen has to be recycled or manufactured just seems silly, even without the harmful health effects of incendiary relaxation.
Also, Lighting a cigar or a cigarette is too explicitly mentioned through the book, it's like the plot happens between the smoke breaks. I would rather he at least varied it, as in:
"Mallow picked his nose and began to speak."
"Seldon adjusted his underwear and said,"
"The mayor stuck his hands into his armpits and sniffed his fingers, then spoke"
It seemed the only preemptive action to speaking is lighting or smoking something.
Joe wrote: "Well, there's a good reason to use paper, if you had the stated goal of publishing an Encyclopedia of cultural and technical knowledge that was intended to survive societal decline and an extended period of barbarism: durability. "
I think if I ever write Sci-Fi, I will try to use a media neutral term for information distribution. It's not a big deal, as I said, but it's something I noticed on this reading of the book.
In Leviathan Wakes, the characters refer to their "handhelds," presumably so the authors wouldn't be tied to a trendy term like "tablet" or "slate." or a potentially dated one like "calculator."But in 20 years, our kids are going to be asking "Handhelds? How would a society that's colonized the asteroid belt not have neural implants yet??"
Alterjess wrote: "In Leviathan Wakes, the characters refer to their "handhelds," presumably so the authors wouldn't be tied to a trendy term like "tablet" or "slate." or a potentially dated one like "calculator."B..."
Why not call any device that media is seen on a "viewer" or Display. Such as:
"Gork glanced at his display, and noticed that his brother, Krog, had tried to contact him while he slept. He listened to the message as he ate his toes for breakfast. "
This could be anything from a tablet to a screen on the wall, to an eye lens implant. Easy and always current. Form factor should only be mentioned in a story when it is essential to a plot. Asimov is by no means the worst offender when it comes to this. Just ignore what the tech looks like if it isn't essential to the plot. Tell me what it does, and I'm good.
Don't worry, Krog's toes grow back every day, and are filled with 15 essential vitamins and minerals.
Joshua wrote: "Why not call any device that media is seen on a "viewer" or Display."That would be ok for science fiction that is purely about ideas (like The Left Hand of Darkness or Lord of Light). There is a lot of fun in reading about how an author imagines the future technology to be.
The communicators in Star Trek: The Original Series look dated now but they inspired the first mobile phones.
"Dr. Martin Cooper, inventor of the first handheld mobile phone, credits the TOS communicator as being his inspiration for the technology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communic...
Michael wrote: "Joshua wrote: "Why not call any device that media is seen on a "viewer" or Display."That would be ok for science fiction that is purely about ideas (like The Left Hand of Darkness or Babel-17). T..."
I can see your point, as I said though, if it isn't essential to the plot ie. the captain has to be able to modify or drop his communicator to create tension or get out of a jam, describing it is unnecessary. Or why not excuse your form factor entirely and say something like:
"The Captain's communicator was one of the current models, which suffered from a popular resurgence of physical knobs, switches, and even a rotary dial. All contained on a 2"x5" sheet of material made to look like worn brass."
I had this exact problem when reading Stranger in a Strange land. The social interactions and characterizations were so dated they were simply unbelievable. The characters generally appeared stupid to me, and I couldn't get through the book.
Paper is really the best option for long term storages. Ask any modern day data archiverMy VHF and cassette tapes are worn out, and I do not own anything which can play them.
DVD's have a data storage shelf life of 10 to 15 years before they start to decay.
My SD cards no longer have slots to use on modern laptops and PCs
My USB stick is worthless on my iPad
And does anyone really expect their Google Doc/Drop Box accounts to be around in 20 years ?
As for smoking. Throw in the "tobacco of the future no longer causes cancer" argument (via vaccinations or new tobacco breeds).
Also remember smoking world wide is still very common. It's in heavily legislated countries like America where you see a decline
I actually enjoy this kind of dated-ness sometimes. It shows that the work is a product of it's time and makes me think about all the wonderful crap we have that no one could have conceived of. Like I love it in Willis's Doomsday Book that they can travel back and forth in freaking TIME but they always miss phone calls because they haven't thought of voicemail or answering machines, let alone cell phones.I have a different problem with some older books at times. Sometimes a book is so influential that down the line we read a lot of books that use that as their inspiration and then we go back to this seminal work and it seems, well, done to death. Like Capote's In Cold Blood didn't seem that radical for me when I finally got around to it because I'd read so many things like it, even though I know it was a radical departure for the time and was the first or at least most well-known of it's kind back then. Same thing with movies/TV shows that use the Rashomon idea of differing perspectives on the same event. Kurusawa was first, but it's been so overdone that if you see it now it doesn't seem that new of an idea.
Stan wrote: "Paper is really the best option for long term storages. Ask any modern day data archiverMy VHF and cassette tapes are worn out, and I do not own anything which can play them.
DVD's have a data ..."
I think that cloud computing probably has a 50 year future in one form or another. I am not talking about the archiving of the encyclopedia though, and never was. I was questioning two points that pulled me out of the story, newspapers on Terminus and smoking
(view spoiler) .
Again, even putting health aside, you have to deal with the properties of something being burnt in an enclosed environment. This would require a planet strapped of resources to build otherwise unnecessary scrubbers into ships, houses, and especially public buildings. Given the number of main characters who light up and take a drag before saying anything at all, either you have scrubbers or live in a fog that hides all 1 foot in front of you.
I'm surprised by all the people who think it strange to have smoking in the book. Perhaps I'm actually living on a different planet to everyone else, because on the planet I know it's still pretty common, and it doesn't seem like something we will get rid of completely, no matter how many people think it disgusting. Even with the problems listed above, it seems to me they would have some way of dealing with it.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Stranger in a Strange Land (other topics)The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (other topics)
The Space Merchants (other topics)
A Christmas Carol (other topics)
I'm trying to keep spoilers minor by not really touching on plot so much as background. Please use spoiler tags for anything pertaining to plot points.
I for one enjoyed the book (I read it in less than 2 days), but to me it was apparent the age of the book based on some of the underlying technology and day-to-day actions of the characters.
In particular the fact that they seemed to making a paper encyclopedia rather than digital (although this wasn't explicit).
There seemed to be no notion of an internet (which is understandable given state of computers at the time) especially where a character visiting the encyclopedia office ask for a copy of a particular book to be "transcribed for him".
Another major sign is the prevalence of nuclear power/weapons. Man is pretty innovative, and I doubt over 15,000 years of humanity hasn't led to even more powerful deadly/weapons or new/improved power sources.
Now there was improvements to the size of devices, so I tend to give this a bit more of a pass.
Some minor ones were things like newspapers (google reader is my newspaper), or smoking tobacco (I think?) I'm not 100% if the cigars some of the characters smoked were meant to be tobacco or some other (possibly healthier) substance?
This is also debatable, because people are well aware of the dangers of smoking, drinking, etc and still do it. Most vices in moderation can be fine anyways.
What about you? Were there things that jumped out at you? Did it hurt your enjoyment of the book?