Given the low activity of this blog here, Sallie and I decided to post a little something of the books we finish to keep it going. As with everything in this blog it probably won’t last more than a month, but hey, we’ll think of something else afterwards.
I read the Foundation trilogy, by Isaac Asimov, when I was in prep high school, and either due to my factory deficient memory or my lack of mastery of the the English language, I remembered very little.
So I read the books in chronological order this time:
- Prelude to Foundation.
- Forward the Foundation.
- Foundation.
- Foundation and Empire.
- Second Foundation.
- Foundation’s Edge
Here are three reasons why the Foundation books are special:
1. Time. The original stories are written with big time jumps between chapters (generations between chapters) which creates a sense of history that takes you from caring about individuals to caring about the world (Terminus).
2. Arguments. Asimov likes mysteries and shocking revelations, but I found that were other books (ahem, Ender’s Game) prepare for a single big reveal Asimov takes a lot of care to create several arguments that explain the mystery. Each argument is a surprise and is fully described, only to then have the story reject it by presenting another way that the mystery can be explained. In some of the books he does this three or four times during the climax.
3. Technology. Once you take into context when the story was written (1940’s) the way Asimov’s description of advanced technology is impressive.
I didn’t read the last book (Foundation and Earth) because the general reviews agree that it is very bad. And unfortunately, the overal saga is not complete… why you had to die on me sir?
- Federico
2 comments:
Yo solo he leido los primeros 3... estan chidos.
Mmm, interesante. No los he leido. Ahorita estoy tratando de leer cosas tipo "piensa positivo" a ver si atraigo buena vibra.... pero siempre es bueno tener recomendaciones para los siguientes libros.
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