Recently I was feeling like my credentials as a reader of science fiction weren’t up to snuff. There are certain books and authors that are classics in the genre that I haven’t read and sometimes, especially being a female who likes to read a genre that has been dominated by males for a very long time, I feel like I’m not quite legit. My latest feelings of insecurity did not come from anywhere specific, they just sort of bubbled up from who knows where. But I think they are feelings we can all relate to as readers because no matter what we read there are always going to be books we have not read, big gaping holes even, that will leave us insecure about whether or not we can consider ourselves well read. It’s like saying you love Victorian literature but you’ve never read Wilkie Collins, that sort of thing.
From insecurity and curiosity, I decided it was about time I read Isaac Asimov’s first Foundation book. I’ve read one Asimov book before, Fantastic Voyage, and quite liked it. So with Foundation I was expecting something adventure-y. I was also expecting a novel. The book is neither. It is a collection of short stories. Okay, I can adjust to that. But instead of adventure we get politics and the collapse of an empire and lifting up of science into a religion.
The political maneuverings are really the only thing keeping me going. The book was published in 1951 and the stories had appeared in a magazine at various times before making it into a book. The science is amusingly dated. Psychology has been elevated to the heights of being able to predict the future. Nuclear power is considered clean energy. And this group of scientists have been tasked with writing an encyclopedia and a good deal of their research is done using microfiche which is supposed to be the gold standard for reading and research technology. And back in the day it was. But this book takes place so far into the future that humans have spread out to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and Earth either no longer exists or is uninhabitable and has become a mythical place lost in time and history.
All that is just fine and kind of amusing. What is not amusing is that there are no women in the book. All the scientists are men, all the politicians are men, every single character is a man. Women aren’t mentioned as wives or mothers to sons or even buxom love interests. It’s like they don’t exist. As I am reading along and trying to not grind my teeth I am suddenly reminded, oh yeah, this is why I haven’t read a lot of the “classic” SF books! And this is why women have felt left out of the genre for so long.
I’m about halfway through the book and I can tell you right now that I won’t be reading the rest of the books in the series. I’m not going to let myself feel insecure about that either. Because really, it doesn’t matter whether I have read them or not. What matters is that I enjoy the books I read and not worry about what others might think.
I’ve never been a huge Asimov fan, although, as you point out, it might be kind of fun to try some of his stuff again, just to be amused by how wrong he got the future. I had the same experience you’re having (lack of female characters) when I read A Canticle for Leiboweitz — a fascinating book and premise, but no women in sight. Even more frustrating, I mentioned this fact to Bob, who’d been the one to recommend the book to me, and found out he was completely unaware that there were no female characters. Ahh, to be a man (even the most open-minded of men) in a patriarchal society.
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GREAT example of privilege.
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Emily, Canticle for Leiboweitz is another of those classic books I haven’t read. No women in that one either? Oy. Is it still worth the read or should I skip it? Ah yes, even open-minded men have blind spots. I’ll do that once in a while to Bookman, mostly with movies or TV shows when I will observe that all the women are either there for sex or to be murdered or both and he hasn’t noticed. Sigh.
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I’d say it’s still worth the read from an interesting philosophical/religious perspective.
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I’ll take your word on that! 🙂
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No way can you take on the expectation weight of reading a genre’s must-read classics to be ‘legit’! And if this book isn’t your cuppa, move on. I think you gave reasonable reasons for not finding it to your liking. And I bet you can still find some missing classics that will delight you. Right? 🙂 Great post.
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Care, Thanks! You are right, of course! And I am sure there are plenty of classics I will still enjoy. I have only landed on the tip of the iceberg that is James Tiptree Jr. and she has plenty of women in her stories.
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Asimov is on my list of authors to read. I have not read anything by him, though I do love the sci-fi genre. I understand your feelings that you felt you had to read these ‘classics’, and your insecurities in doing so. I feel the same way myself when i want to write in a genre i’ve barely read. I don’t feel like I should as I don’t have the experience as others.
The lack of woman in the novel is a surprise… and not a surprise. Let’s face it, part of it I think was the times, and the social concepts surrounding women. I’m not sure if I blame Asmiov or not. I think I may still give it a try, my boyfriend has read them, and so has his father. I’m always open minded and am willing to give it a try. If like you I find it disappointing, at least i’ll know that myself.
As Care said, there may be others out there, hidden classics that you will find more enjoyable.
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njmckay, as you say the lack of women is and is not a surprise though I would have expected they would appear at least as secretaries or something, but nope. There is a woman scientist in Fantastic Voyage so I fell like I can blame Asimov for a certain lack of imagination in this one. Still, the book is very much a product of its time. I hope you end up enjoying it when you give it a try!
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Excellently put, Stefanie. Over the years I’ve come to realise I just can’t be in environments where people refuse to take me seriously unless I painstakingly expose myself to a canon that erases my humanity. So I’ve happily embraced “not being a serious genre reader” and spend most of my time in my quiet little corner, reading books that don’t fill me with despair.
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Asimov was probably writing these in a period when SF was published in a pulp world where the readership was overwhelmingly male. A bit strange from a genre that has Frankenstein as its first masterpiece! This banishment of women clearly diminished the genre. As with a lot of things the “golden age” is SF was anything but!
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Ian, oh yes, the SF magazines at the time were pretty consistently written by and for men. You are right that it is strange given the genre’s beginnings. Heh, yup, the “golden age” turns out to be gold plated and is showing its wear and tear.
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Ana, thanks! You are very right in your refusal and there are a growing number of women reading and writing in the genre who also refuse, which is heartening! I must say I have added a good many of the books you read in your “quiet corner” to my TBR list 🙂
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Have you read Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Great? She discusses and recommends a bunch of classic SF and fantasy and the picks are really good.
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everydayhas, yes, I have read it and have a tidy little list of books from it I’d like to read. Perhaps I will start in on that list instead of worrying about missing out on the “classics.”
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i feel you… i went through the exact same process last year and decided to start this award winning foundation series… the first novel was ok, i liked the concept of the statistics-based predictions and the fortelling of a seldon crisis. but books two and three were a struggle! they took me forever to go through and i had to force myself to complete them in the end. i won’t be reading further over those first three though…
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Jaie, ach! That you persisted through the second and third book shows great endurance! And thanks for also confirming for me that I won;t be missing anything by not going past book one 🙂
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i’m actually quite proud (reading both books with little or no enjoyment!), i should put it on my resume… 🙂
have you read ancillary sword yet??? that is a more satisfying kind of sci-fi for me.
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I just brought home Ancillary Sword from the library. I LOVED Ancillary Justice and can hardly wait to start the next one.
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i will be looking forward to read your review on it !
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Maybe like Emily’s husband, Bob, I am blinded because I am male, even though I like to think that like Bob that I am open-minded, and didn’t recognize it, but I seem to remember that Hari Selden, the main character in the Foundation series, had a wife and there are other female characters in the later books. Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve read the series, but I do remember liking the series when I did read it. That said, if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. I tried A Canticle for Leibowitz years ago and didn’t like it. It was too dry for me. Then again, Foundation isn’t Star Wars either. 🙂
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Bryan, we all have our blindspots no matter who we are. If Hari had a wife she is not mentioned in the first book. Or at least she has not been mentioned up to page 122. There are still fifty pages left for me to read so maybe… 🙂 Heh, you are definitely correct that Foundation is not Star Wars!
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There are books i think I should read sometime (brilliant books!) but honestly I do not know if I will ever get to them and I am ok with that. So many great reads out there… I need 4 lifetimes 🙂
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Sheila, four lifetimes would be lovely. But you know, during those extra lifetimes we’d only be adding to the number of books we want to read so I think we should aim for immortality 🙂
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Huh. I never realized there weren’t any women in Foundation. Read Joan Slonczewski’s SF novels for lots of women. Read Fritz Leiber (my favorite story is Space-Time for Springers) for classic SF that’s more fun.
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Jeanne, maybe they appear in later books but there aren’t any in the first one. Thanks for the recommendations!
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I just finished a book based upon teeth-grinding tenacity of my feeling that the author is worth reading… Don DeLillo. But holy moly, this book [The Names] was not one I would recommend to my worst enemy. So there is always that thing… do you stick with something because you think the author is venerable or whatnot? I applaud your realization that Asimov is not cutting the mustard for you.
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Cipriano, I totally know that dilemma! It is what made me read The Great Gatsby three time in spite of really not liking it at all after the first time around. I am finishing the one Asimov book and I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m almost done and there will be no others.
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I haven’t read Asimov either, and from what you’ve said here I don’t think I’ll rush to read him. But then, I’m not a big sci fi reader. It’s interesting though to consider the role of women in various books of various eras. I hadn’t thought of that before in terms of sci fi. At least in classic crime we have Miss Marple – as a change from women primarily playing the role of victim!
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whisperinggums, yup, no need to rush out and read Asimov! It is interesting to consider the role of women. There were a few women writers of early SF and their books are not without women, however they are often not listed among the classics of the genre. Classic crime was ahead of its time! 🙂
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