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Well, I soldiered on to the end of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and around page 135 (of 172) a woman appears! She is the young and beautiful wife of a petty tyrant with big aspirations who married her only because her father has money and power in the Empire. She, of course, is an unhappy woman with a sharp tongue, always pestering her husband with how dumb he is and threats of telling her father. She suggests she will leave her husband and he threatens her with violence:
‘Well, now, I’ll tell you what my lady. Perhaps you would enjoy returning to your native world. Except that, to retain as a souvenir that portion of you with which I am best acquainted, I could have your tongue cut out first. And,’ he rolled his head, calculatingly, to one side, ‘as a final improving touch to your beauty, your ears and the tip of your nose as well.’
But don’t worry, it all comes right when he gives her some fancy jewelry like no other that any woman at the big party will have that night. She immediately shuts up and starts admiring herself in the mirror, then goes away happy.
And very late in the book almost at the end, we are told that war with another planet will be avoided in part because the small, nuclear powered household appliances they have been buying from the Foundation for several years will begin running out of power (the appliances all have tiny individual nuclear power generators like a fancy battery). This other world will not go to war with the Foundation because they won’t be able to get any more of the things they have come to rely on. The women will start complaining when their nuclear knives no longer work, when their stoves begin to fail and when their washers stop doing a good job at cleaning.
Oy.
Foundation is made up of a collection of five short stories that appeared between 1942 and 1944 in Astounding Magazine. They were collected together into a book and published in 1951. This became the first book in the Foundation Trilogy which later expanded with prequels and sequels and is now known as the Foundation Series.
The prose is fairly pedestrian and the plots aren’t all that interesting. Even though the stories deal with a series of crises, there isn’t really any threat of failure because, as we are told over and over, it was all already predicted by Hari Seldon, the great psychohistorian and cruncher of numbers. Where’s the tension when predestination is at play?
One of the more interesting things about the stories is how the Foundation, made up of a bunch of scientists, in order to survive and conquer, has turned science into a religion with priests and rituals and all the trappings. The priests and acolytes are trained in science enough to be able to maintain things like power grids and perform minor “miracles” but not know enough to actually “do” science on their own. They pretty much believe the whole religion scenario. The high ranking muckity-mucks are actual scientists who are in on the scam, constantly working to perpetuate it and to spread the Foundation’s dominance across their little corner of the galaxy through it. Domination by science through the vehicle of religion.
My main amusement while reading the book, however, was the invented slang and swearing. How can things like “son-of-a-spacer” and “I don’t care an electron” not arouse a giggle or at least a smirk? And exclamations like “space knows!” and “by space!” pepper conversations and is intended to sound so futuristic and scientific. It was almost worth it just for that. Almost.
Still, though I found it all a giant dud, I am glad to have read it. At least I know what it is about now even if I don’t understand why it’s so popular and considered a classic. Maybe the other books sort it out better but I have no interest in reading them so I guess my understanding will remain incomplete. I’m okay with that.
Oh, good. Because you read it, I don’t
have to—thanks for cute review!
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booksadnbuttons, you bet! If you want more plot details, there are thorough articles on each of the books at Wikipedia.
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Ah the trophy character! As they say, science fiction says more about the time in which it was written (and the author) than the future. Which is not a bad thing but it does make for some awkward time capsules passing as classics.
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roughghosts, yes, the trophy character, the token. sigh. You are very right about how much of SF says more about the time it was written than it does about the future. A writer’s ability to imagine the future is influenced by his/her present circumstances. It’s pretty revealing that Asimov couldn’t imagine women several thousand years into the future doing anything other than cooking and cleaning and admiring themselves in mirrors. But then the men in his future didn’t change much either.
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STEPHANIE, HAVE YOU LOOKED/TRIED “THE GREAT COURSES” WEBSITE? I HAVE, LATELY AND THEY HAVE HELPED MY READING A BOOK/CLASSICS/SHORT STORIES/NOVELS, TREMENDOUSLY! I RECOMMEND IT TO ALL WHO LIKE TO READ, AND WANT TO HEAR WHAT “THE GREAT COURSES” HAVE TO SHARE..
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Congratulations on reading a book that is really of historical interest. I have not read Asimov’s fiction (but he was an excellent populariser of science fact). I wonder if a lot of SF dates quite a lot (not always a weakness). These Asimov stories do bring home the sort of domestic mores that might be associated with another 1950s cultural artifact: The Flintstones! I rather worry that Asimov’s scientism is something still very much with us (Marilynn Robinson’s Abscence Of Mind).
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Ian, Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage is lots of fun, very Jules Verne. I can appreciate what he was trying to do with these stories but they just didn’t work for me. The scientism in the book is interesting but also really disturbing. Though at the end of the book one hundred years have passed and the religious aspect of the Foundation’s spread has reached its limit. Interestingly, the thing that takes its place is trade/consumerism. When you have a whole galaxy full of resources you don’t worry about running out or ruining planets I guess. The Flintstones! They were on in rerun in the afternoons after school. Not my favorite cartoon but I always thought having a dinosaur for a pet would be kind of cool 🙂
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waddlesbluhealer, oh yes, I’ve seen the “great courses” ads in magazines and online. My sister likes them quite a lot and has done a couple of them. Much of what they offer these days can be had for free in MOOCs at Coursera and other places. Plus you get the benefit of having a class with other people. I like the free and social aspect much better 🙂
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Hmm, I read it as a teen and loved it. Maybe I wasn’t too critical then, and I think these books were my first foray into science fiction so I don’t suppose I knew what to expect. Time for a reread maybe. It’s kind of embarrassing because I always recommend Foundation when people ask me about science fiction reccos, and I probably should guide them to something I read more recently.
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Nish, if I had read them as a teen I probably would have liked them too because I would not have noticed the lack of women and it wold have seemed all so new and exciting. I think the books are a good recommendation though, especially for people who want to try SF but have not had much experience reading it.
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I feel completely the opposite about the novel (series). I didn’t read it for the first time until 2008, and though there are some dated concepts, I was riveted to the pages. Yes, there are a lack of strong woman characters, although that changes somewhat with the second and third books in this trilogy, where a woman and later a teenage girl become VERY important to the story. I don’t fault you for not wanting to read on, time is short and we all have books we want to read, but I will contend that you have not actually read “Foundation” until you have read the trilogy, because the whole of the story is those three books together.
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Carl, the books remain popular and clearly you liked them quite a lot. I’m glad to know there are more women later in the books and while you make it tempting to read further, I think I’ll just let them be. We can’t all like the same books, how boring would that be? 🙂
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Very.
And like I mentioned below, rather than encourage you or anyone on this series, I think there is better Asimov to be had, and that is with me being very fond of the Foundation books.
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Because of the issues with lack of females and because, this first novel especially, is a bunch of short stories loosely strung together, it is not the book (series) I recommend when wanting to point people to Asimov. His novels Pebble in the Sky and The End of Eternity are much more solid stand alone novels as is the collaboration he did with Robert Silverberg based on one of his short stories, The Positronic Man.
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Thanks for the other recommendations Carl! I will definitely look into them sometime 🙂
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Son of a spacer? I’ll have to remember that one. It’s a lot better than Blasted
Ass-teroid. Which is what I usually say.
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Grad, LOL, I dunno, blasted ass-teroid is pretty darn good 😀
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my thoughts exactly !! sooo 1950s, also, when the Foundation starts a trade expansion across the galaxy, they produce and sell house appliances to “help women do the housework” — gawd !!!
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Jaie, pretty ridiculous and sad all rolled into one.
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it’s crazy how authors seldom can remove themselves from their own era, even when writing sci-fi.
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It is, but in a way it is understandable. We are all influenced by the times we live in. We hope SF writers could imagine beyond it, but that’s not always the case. I’m slowly rewatching Star Trek Next Gen and I am often astonished by some of the plotlines and conversations and how colonial, sexist, and condescending they are. And that was a progressive show for it’s time!
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Now you know! Isn’t it a weird book? Some neat concepts, but I’m still a bit puzzled about why it resonates with so many people. I’m also glad to have read it, but it says something that I haven’t rushed out to see how the rest of the trilogy develops.
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Isabella, definitely weird. I know you read it for the online SF class, did it resonate with the class or was everyone a bit puzzled as well?
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Tee hee! By space, that Asimov, he really had an insight into the female psyche, didn’t he?
I too have read nothing by him, but I am tempted to dabble a toe. I think I’d follow Carl’s recommendations above though, rather than trying this one.
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Helen, oh he totally knows what women want! 😉
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STEPHANIE, I LOOKED TO THE WEBSITE MOOC AS YOU SUGGESTED, HOWEVER THEY WERE LOOKING FOR A PROJECTED PROGRAM ENDING IN A DEGREE. THIS IS MORE THAN I AM INTERESTED IN, AT THE PRESENT TIME. THANK YOU, FOR THE FEEDBACK ON MOOC COURSES.
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waddlesbluhealer, oh no, you can just take classes here and there with no degree in mind at all. I took a class on historical fiction and one on T.S. Eliot. Both were free and neither of them were part of a degree program or even for credit. The only thing is you have to take them during the weeks they are being taught, they are not self-directed (most of the time) like the tapes from the great courses.
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There’s not much that dates faster than SF. I’ve been to a fair few SF conventions in the past and I would say they are about 98% male.
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Pining, some of it holds up really well, but you’re right, much of it does not. Most conventions are male, but women are making headway!
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