/lit/ - Literature

>>21595362
Interesting. I have never read Foundation (or any Asimov, really), would you recommend reading beyond the trilogy? also, what are your general thoughts of the trilogy as fiction?

>>21568171
Foundation by Asimov

>>21556686
> I am part owner of a book store
Can I ask how the shop has been going in general? Any trends over the years?

> Most book stores base their stock off of what people buy and what people order
So what is a new store with no sales history meant to do? Just stock what nearby stores stock and go from there?

> Most of the classics do not sell well since the used market is overflowing
I have noticed that some of the true classics (e.g: 1984, Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, Tale of Two Cities) are always stocked in shelves but the author's remaining works are usually absent. I suppose this is because normies are told (often rightfully so) that these books are good starting points. Of course, once they're hooked they'll have to order the rest in?

>As an aside, I really miss the banned book threads, I made good money from them as they always insured a bunch of people showing up for those "banned" books in the coming weeks so I always ordered a nice stock of any books mentioned in those threads.

Lol nice business tactic, anon, I like it.

>>21537005
What would you suggest from Heinlein to be better than Asimov's Foundation trilogy?
I know they both wrote lots of books but surely if you claim he is better you must believe some of his books to be better than Asimov's magnum opus.

>>21509749
Foundation series (Asimov)

>read second Foundation
>Asimov mentions 5 or 6 times how Arcadia (14yo) has womanly charms
based

>>21465895
It’s Foundation, the Asimov book. Some of the easiest reading in all of fiction. And my guess is it’s because the list is just a rough outline, not a strict schedule. I routinely write a list and give myself a set number of time, but never really bother to force myself to meet a deadline, just use it as a reminder to read everyday. Obviously I can’t speak to his exact method but that’s how I do it. Plus, I could read the whole foundation trilogy in the time it takes to read 2 books by Camus, because for the latter I want to go slower and think about it more.

>>21443786
A Canticle for Leibowitz, St. Leibowitz #1 - Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)

A Canticle of Leibowitz is three novellas that have minimal overlap due each one taking place roughly six hundred years after the previous one. Its structure is due to it being a fix-up novel composed of previously serialized works that were revised to form a novel. As a general rule, I don't like fix-up novels, though I didn't know this was one until after I read it.

The three parts are concerned with with the Abbey of St. Leibowitz and its residents, though outsiders are also present, and there a few times where the narrative goes elsewhere. The titular Isaac Edward Leibowitz has been deceased for roughly six hundred years and serves no role other than he founded the abbey to preserve human knowledge and was martyred. Sometimes I found the story be so farcical that Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz seemed like a more appropriate reference.

This is very much an idea novel, to the exclusion of almost all else. I suppose it can be read for its post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout setting, but I don't know who would read it for the characters, as they're seemingly only for the functional purpose of delivering the narrative. The central idea, there are several, to me is that humanity is doomed to its own intentional self-destruction, over and over again. It's thoroughly fatalistic, but there are also elements of optimistic wishful thinking that are still with us today, particularly that are currently viable escapes from Earth. I also believe it to be Sisyphean, which may be what I dislike the most about it. The very concept of continually losing progress after much effort and suffering, over and over again, is disagreeable to me.

I'm not able to relate to the effusive praise or awards I've seen for this book, though I also feel the same way about Isaac Asimov's Foundation, of which it bears at least a passing resemblance. There are ideas, passages, and commentary that I enjoyed, but overall I wasn't able to engage with this is in any meaningful way. One of the main reasons for this is that I found it to be too concerned with allegory. They're of the Catholic sort, but there are many secular ones as well. I don't want to emphasize the Catholicism because despite itnearly omnipresent from beginning to end, I felt it was more a thematic choice to support the idea of cyclical history than to be religiously oriented fiction.

I won't be seeking out more from this series or author. The novel is worthwhile, but it's style doesn't suite my tastes. I don't have any issue with saying that others should try reading it and seeing what they think. If you enjoy a low-action novel about religion, long-term preservation of knowledge and tradition, philosophical contemplation, and ideals being more far important than people or anything else, then this may be something you'd enjoy.

Rating: 3/5

>>21435596
>>21435540
What the other poster is saying is pretty true, Asimov is definitely a fossil and his prose and characters never advanced beyond serviceable, but the Foundation trilogy, End of Eternity, and a lot of his short stories are still a lot of fun to read. They're short with taut plots and fun twists.
It's only when you read something longer by Asimov, like The Gods Themselves or the robot murder mystery novels, that his flaws become egregious.

>>21435540
It's boring as shit obsolete 50s sci-fi. Asimov was not a good novelist, even if you make an argument that he was a good essayist. It's not "bad", it's just completely archaic on a conceptual level. Having a somewhat interesting setting is one thing, but you also need characters that are well-developed and well written, and Foundation has neither of those things.

It's very telling, that when they tried to yassify Foundation for the TV show adaptation in 2021, the most interesting parts of it ended up being the new original characters and plotlines written specifically for the show - because everything that has to do with the Foundation proper is boring as shit, just like the books themselves.

>>21431350
He's obviously a well-read individual, and by well-read I mean he's read a lot of books, not necessarily good ones. I can certainly see some traces of Asimov's works, like the Foundation or Robot series, something that's shaped his technocratic worldview. I think some C Clarke too, as well as Phillip K Dick, based on his obsession with Mars. Furthermore, I definitely know he's watched a lot of Star Trek, so either he's basing his ideas on Star Trek directly. Or what the writers of Star Trek based them on, which is the aforementioned authors, meaning he based it indirectly off of them.
So to summarize it, the first post was quite correct, it's a lot of Sci-fi literature, whether directly or indirectly.

>>21415108
Asimov Foundation might be a good pick

>>21415554
If you are more into the sci fi element of his writing Asimov and Stanislaw Lem are probably his closest kinsman there. Especially if you read outside of what they are well known for (though the first 3 foundation books are great and some would argue that Lem isnt famous for anything). If you are more into the mythologized metaphysical concepts I can think of no better author than William Blake. His works are full of that kind of mystical philosophical mythology and I think he is a better stylist than PKD.

>>21405734
Roadside Picnic is a great, short, and relatively easy read. Would definitely recommend it.
Personally, I just finished reading the first book of the Hyperion series (Dan Simmons) and enjoyed it a lot as well. The page count is a bit longer, but the way it's broken up you can easily read it in chunks if that's too much for you. Either way, it's an easy and enjoyable read, so it shouldn't be too hard to get into either. Asimov's Foundation series is a bit longer, but the first book especially is broken up into shorter story chunks as well. Also a great series.
Sci-fi in general isn't too challenging or slow to read.

If you're cool with short stories as well, check out Lovecraft.

With Christmas coming soon I want to give my father a present. He loves science fiction, especially Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. Do you have any recommendations for new sci-fi novels similar to Asimov’s? Keep in mind he is a 55 year old man so nothing too faggy

>>21400067
>I was talking about prelude to foundation and forward to foundation
>Foundations edge and foundation and earth aren’t prequels
Got 'Prelude' and 'Forward' on my bookshelf, but read them many years ago. as I recall, there are three books that make for a prequel trillogy. I remember liking it as a teenager (and I had a better taste in books back then, these days I read erotica and Litrgps), mostly due to the worldbuilding though, the story and the characters were so-so.

Funny thing, one comment written by Asimov stuck with me, I don't where did I read it. He said that once, long after writing the original trilogy, he was asked in an elevator by a young person whether he would write what happened before the original trillogy, as that would be interesting to him and other readers. To which Asimov replied...that he barely even remembers what the entire foundation was about, because it was THAT long ago. But he went and wrote the trilogy anyway. Hilarious.

>>21320366
Never really read asimov except for listening to an audiobook of the Foundation. It was okay but nothing remotely as good as something as Childhoods End by A.C.Clarke for example.
To me the Strugatski brothers wrote by far the deepest most philosophical sci fi put there, they're just too deep for stupid movie adoptions that's being shilled as praised by the Hollywood media machinery we all live in.

>>21311554
>>21311604
>probably because frank herbert writes the kind of dull, turgid prose that would put anybody with two brain cells to rub together to sleep
I think for Tolkien the problem might've been the poetry, rather. I like Dune, and really enjoyed the prose actually; the sometimes affected way of speech imo gave the story a sense of classical drama type seriousness . But all the songs and poems were just subpar, and especially compared to Tolkien, who spent years crafting the linguistic intricacies of his universe's cultures and peoples. I get what Herbert was going for; he wanted to imbue his universe with similar atmosphere/folklore, but the execution was just bad, he should've commissioned custom poetry from an actual poet instead.
>>21311019
Consider the plot of Foundation (it was explicitly inspired by Asimov having read Gibbons' 'Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire' as a teenager): A majestic but doomed empire faces certain collapse, and ensuing barbaric chaos, if not for a community of persecuted initiates, whose calling of saveguarding the ancient knowledge (under the aegis of a wise old man, often pictured in a regal chair) is the only chance at possibly bringing order and progress to the post-collapse civilizational-primordial soup, lest it remain in perpetuate violent chaos of barbarism and warlords. To me, that sounds like catnip for any catholic.

Finished Foundation's Edge today. Kept laughing every time Asimov brought up mentioning how bi a certain female character's ass was

>>21274254
>The Secret History
Enjoyed it very much
>The Foundation trilogy
Currently on Foundation and Empire. I've read a lot of scifi but never Asimov before, it's nice to see how much he really has inspired later writers
>some works of Descartes

Question about Asimov reading order. If all I've read from him are I, Robot and the first Foundation trilogy would it be okay for me to read Robots and Empire and not be confused or should I read a little more into his robot novels before delving into it. The premise has me interested a lot but something tells me I'm going to be really confused reading it

>>21260289
Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Glass Hotel - Emily St. John Mandel
Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Madel
The Helix and the Sword - John McLoughlin
Shadow & Claw - Gene Wolfe
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinsky
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Negative Space - B.R. Yeager
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock
Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
This Thing Between Us - Gus Moreno

Currently reading Sword & Citadel, second half of The Book of the New Sun, less than 100 pages left.

Planning on either reading And the Mountains Echoed or The Brothers Karamazov next.

>>21247293
I'm almost done with Foundation (the first book) and I don't recommend it at all. It's unimaginative next to most sci-fi out there, and the plots are asinine. Asimov was a Reform Jew who did not have a drop of soul in him.
Although, the fourth chapter is about a group of merchants subverting the local religion, in order to secretly estabilish control. That got a serious laugh out of me.

>>21247198
Foundation series by Asimov. This literally influenced most if not all science fiction that came after. Yes, if you haven't read it yet, read it. Otherwise Ringworld by Larry Niven is good, and anything by Vernor Vinge.