[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 103 KB, 800x1311, Isaac Asimov_1951_Foundation.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3628380 No.3628380 [Reply] [Original]

This is a classic?

After somehow assiduously avoiding Asimov's seminal "masterpiece" for over 10 years since I began reading sci-fi, I decided to dip into this ponderous tome.

To my surprise and disappointment, I found "Foundation" to be an exceptionally terrible "book", totally undeserving of the praise it has received here. As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, the writing style is of a very poor quality indeed. It is not only very dull and dry, but it is also totally lacking in any kind of style or art. The dialogue is simply dreadful, the character development is nonexistent, and the story is pointless and not at all well structured. The fact that this alleged "novel" is really a collection of short stories is readily apparent, as there is no cohesion and very poor correlation between sections. This is not memorable writing in any way and it has no redeeming qualities as a work of literature. In fact, the only time I should ever like to mention it again is as an example of poor writing, atrocious story-telling, and science-fiction that is totally wanting for any kind of inspiration.

>> No.3628394

>>3628380
What did you expect?

>> No.3628396

Galaxy! You must be joking!

>> No.3628402

Yeah its a shit book that aged even worse,people only think its good because hurr durr clasic bs

>> No.3628406

>>3628380
the book is more about ideas,like:
is human behaviour so predictable?
is history goin' to endlessly repeat itself?
are these scientist actually "good"?

>> No.3628423

Congrats OP, you've discovered what science fiction readers knew for decades.

Don't feel special, non-SF readers knew the same thing. I'm guessing you were one of the people who spouts off about Asimov in the SF threads in a vain, counterproductive effort at appearing intelligent.

>> No.3628443

>>3628406
That it is ostensibly about ideas rather than character doesn't really excuse its absolute lack of any literary merit though? But the book is genre fiction aimed at teens, and hasn't aged too well, besides.

>> No.3628477

Ok champ, Asimov is no Linebarger or Delaney but his first three foundation books spin a solid and entertaining story. But do go on bashing Asimov, it's condidered a tradition in sci fi.

oh and remember
>opinions

>> No.3628484

Maybe you should realize that he wrote in that style on purpose. Its the Anti-purple prose.

>> No.3628506

I read it when I was 12 or so and I have continued to reread it through the years. Bonded with the school jock (my countrys best 400m dash junior athlete at the time) over how much we loved the books. Sure, it's part nostalgia and Asimov is not a great stylist.

But the books where entertaining. You felt for the protagonists, the mule, hari seldon and his plan, the geopolitics and secrecy of the 2nd foundation, the plan, the time vault, the manifest destiny of mankind. These books contained new ideas, big ideas, great scope and vast stretches of time.

>the 4th and 5th books don't exist though

>> No.3628509

>>3628484
Writing badly on purpose, the mark of only the truly great writer.

>> No.3628510

I think you may have missed the fact that the main character is human society itself. Each section is written as a short story illustrating an important conflict and resolution that could derail the re-establishment of a galactic empire. I mean, the trilogy spans millennia, were you hoping for a unifying character that learns about loss and love through introspection and eventually comes to accept and embrace his place in the universe? Because, if you were, maybe you shouldn't be reading fiction about societal change and political positioning that makes the repeated statement that an individual human life is inconsequential.

Go read I, Robot. It is good engineer fiction and deals more with personal issues.

>> No.3628514

>>3628506
I think this is the main point, really. Likewise, reading I, Robot as adult is a terrible experience, reading it as a kid might make you a future engineer.

>> No.3628521

>>3628514
I'm not sure what point you think I agreed to...

>> No.3628537

>>3628510
I, Robot is as terrible as Foundation. In Foundation, Asimov packages magic (prophecy) in scientificist language and manages to produce a millenia spanning "civilization" were all the characters are cardboard cutout mid-20th C white males. What I would like my fiction to be is mature, insightful, imaginative and believable. But again, Foundation is written for teens, so it is unfair to judge it by mature literary standards.

>> No.3628538

>>3628521
Obviously that the 4th and 5th books don't exist. I think we can all safely agree to that.

>> No.3628542

>>3628521
That the books were entertaining and inspiring to 12 year olds.

>> No.3628545

>>3628537
What do you want insight into?

>> No.3628567

"Despite the Foundation Trilogy's lack of conventional cliffhangers and, for the most part, either heroes or villains, the ‘Foundation’ novels are deeply thrilling—suspenseful, engrossing, and, if I may say, bracingly cynical. For the absence of conventional cliffhangers doesn't mean an absence of unconventional cliffhangers.

In the first book and a half there are a series of moments in which the fate of the galaxy seems to hang in the balance, as the Foundation faces the apparent threat of extinction at the hands of barbarian kings, regional warlords, and eventually the decaying but still powerful empire itself. Each of these crises is met by the men of the hour, whose bravery and cunning seem to offer the only hope. Each time, the Foundation triumphs. But here’s the trick: after the fact, it becomes clear that bravery and cunning had nothing to do with it, because the Foundation was fated to win thanks to the laws of psychohistory. Each time, just to drive the point home, the image of Hari Seldon, recorded centuries before, appears in the Time Vault to explain to everyone what just happened. The barbarians were never going to prevail, because the Foundation’s superior technology, packaged as religion, gave it the ability to play them off against each other. The warlord’s weapons were no match for the Foundation’s economic clout. And so on." - Paul Krugman

>> No.3628573

>>3628509
>>3628484
Does this mean Isaac Asimov is the Norm Macdonald of writers

>> No.3628589

i bet everyone hating on foundations is one of the retards who started reading right there, when that's the dumbest thing you could do.

start with the robot series, then galactic empire and then come back here to tell is asimov sucks.

>> No.3628604

>>3628380
Fine, fine, then don't bother with any of the sequels. Why get so worked up about this?

>> No.3628647

>>3628589
There isn't any great change in the style or quality of Asimov's writing. If someone doesn't like Foundation, why would you think reading anything else by him would change their opinion? And OP actually qualified the opinion s/he reached after reading it, contrary to you, who only managed a bit of standard namecalling.

>> No.3628685

>>3628443
aimed at teens who have some basic knowledge of medieval history and a few other subjects.
it's not too complicated but it has requirements to be appreciated.

>> No.3628691

One-star Goodreads review thread?

>> No.3628705

>>3628647
it's sci-fi. if you expect literary value you're (guilty of name calling again, sorry) retarded.

so we'll assume you're reading it for entertainment aswell as for a general interest in sci-fi and ideas aswell as thoughts concering that topic...

you also need to keep in mind that asimov was a pioneer and that his works were written over decades, starting in the thirties where mankind new jackshit about such things as artifical intelligence and space-travel. on top of that he was very young (early twenties) when he wrote the short stories include in foundation. he also couldn't write whatever he wanted cause the publishers of the magazines demanded things of their own that he had to do, or they wouldn't buy the short stories.


alright, so why is it bad to start with the foundations series?

because asimov created a huge universe full of genius that should be absorbed as a whole. reading foundation you had a glance in a tiny little part (written by a kid in the early 40s) at the last fourth of the whole.

start reading at the beginning (robot series), find out that it isn't yours, then you have a right to complain.

reading foundation and complain, you're not gonna be taken seriously.

it would be like reading page 450-480 of the fellowship of the rings and based on that complaining that tolkien is the worst fantasy author in existance.

>> No.3628711

These books are perfectly fine. We're talking about golden age SF here. We'd barely moved past pulp at this point. Asimov helped usher in a new era of conceptual science fiction. Is it a little stiff? Sure. But it does exactly what it means to.

>> No.3628734

>>3628506
did you suck that dude's dick?

>> No.3628746
File: 385 KB, 850x564, 1320713714555.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3628746

>>3628734
no
we talked about how funny it was that we sat through 2 years of school in languages class without talking to eachother because he thought I was some street wanna be gangsta and I thought he was a knuckle head jock.

Talking about asimov made us realize we were both sci fi nerds. It is a nice story.

no dick sucking involved at all, I swear

>> No.3628747

>>3628711

Not to mention that a lot of supposedly "great" writers could learn a thing or two from his plotting. Foundation was so interesting precisely because Asimov was able to maintain suspense, and he was able to maintain suspense because there were all sorts of twists and turns and new revelations which were actually planned out from the beginning, made sense when you thought about them, but were completely unexpected.

Something like what Lost could have been, if they had planned out an intricate Russian-dolls series of reveals, instead of just mashing everything together.

>> No.3628851

>>3628746
that's actually kinda beautiful

>> No.3628864

>>3628443
>genre fiction
>aimed at teens
check your genre stigma

>> No.3629079
File: 188 KB, 627x477, 1363750561966.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3629079

It's a good book

I love the hivemind ... The great question...
Is hivemind a bad or good thing... This series does a good job making a case for it.....

I love the other end of it the herm girl with balls that's alone and reproduces as clones ...on the other extreme end of it.

And us in the fucking middle ...
O it's a good question....


This a great series for later on books.. Has a good star and a bad middle bit..
It need to be finished still.. That is the part that sucks.. It is a Incomplete work.

(some books in the middle suck with the obvious evil guy traveling with them .. And fucking wolves were retarded but a great book indeed )

>> No.3629189

>>3628402
>people only think its good because hurr durr clasic bs
Honestly -- no, they think it's good because the last time they read it they were 13, and this kind of book really appeals to an impressionable 13-year-old.

>> No.3629201

>>3628864
Asimov was aimed at teens. That was the market he was forced to work in at the time.

>> No.3629750

I didn't like it either. It was actually kinda terrible. But the first story in it was decent, the one where Seldon's alive.

>> No.3629913

>>3628380
>an exceptionally terrible "book"
Your use of inverted commas intrigues me. Do you consider it more of a pamphlet?

>> No.3629917

>>3629913
It would appear so
>this alleged "novel"
He's even sceptical of its name
>I found "Foundation"
Is it really called Foundation? Who knows!

>> No.3629931

>>3628380
>assiduously avoiding
>seminal
>ponderous tome
Ouch, this is painful reading. Worth it though for
>the writing style is of a very poor quality

>> No.3629946

>>3629931
....although having googled it...
> the new bard Asimov floods pages with convoluted dialog that fails to eschew obfuscation
...I'm going to assume it's deliberately horrible. Well played, Amazon reviewer.

>> No.3629950

Foundation is an amazing book, 9/10. I've read it a dozen times. Stop saying it sucks.

>> No.3630143

I can't take op seriously when he obviously spent way too much time trying to appear highly educated by using fancy vocabulary in his opening post.
Like everyone is saying OP, it's not about individual characters or individual stories. It's the world. It's the future. It's the ideas. Those are the things that make it a classic to read. He is predicting a future that is hundreds of thousands of years away and if history repeats itself then the future is a mirror of the present and that past.

>> No.3630154

>>3628514
>reading I, Robot as adult is a terrible experience

I still enjoy it.
Of course I never read any others in the Robot series so maybe that's it.

>> No.3631540

>>3629950
It sucks.

The writing is dry and tasteless.

Setting a book 10,000 years in the future is ridiculous and just shooting yourself in the foot.
Even setting a book ten YEARS in the future is risky because society changes so swiftly. It takes a great knowledge of history and a talent of projection.

this is why Infinite Jest is that much greater

>> No.3631595

>>3628542
Do you think my little brother whose turning 13 would like these books? He's into fantasy/ world building books and i want to eventually get him reading 'good' literature as he get olders.
I just bought him a series from the lit wiki that he likes, not sure where i should take him from there...

>> No.3631599

>>3631540
It's not trying to be an accurate prediction of what's going to happen. It's a science fiction story.

>> No.3631621

>>3631599
Freed from the bounds of reality, you have pure escapism.

>> No.3631628

>>3631621
>>3631540

>Science Fiction needs to accurately predict the future in order to be good

Get a load of this faggot.

>> No.3631635

>>3631628
I'm not saying you need to 'accurately predict the future', but an attempt should be made at realism.
Setting your book 10k years in the future (with tomorrow's technology) is preposterous.

>> No.3631643

>>3631635

And? Asimov did the best he could to "make an attempt at realism" 10k years in the future.

>> No.3631658

>>3631643
>hurr durr we have SPACESHIPS, ENCYCLOPEDIAS, and TIME VAULTS

Comon.. we can do better than this.

>> No.3631664

>>3631658

But it's completely useless to make "an attempt at realism" with Science Fiction, because it will invariably be way fucking off from the truth.

>> No.3631671

>>3631664

>> No.3631678

>>3631671

>I don't like science fiction
>uses circular logic to back it up

It's okay to have opinions too, friend.

>> No.3631685

>>3631678
I'm a sci fi geek, bro.

I've read everything from The Skylark of Space and Star Maker to 2312.

Don't fucking tell me about what sci fi should be.

>> No.3631691

>>3631685

>science fiction should attempt realism in predicting the future
>it's impossible for science fiction to realistically predict the future
>ergo all science fiction is bad

>> No.3631717

Foundation does suck. But it's really historically important to the field. Asimov (in combination with others - most notably Heinlein, Clarke, and John Campbell) was hugely influential on the field. They brought the genre to a much more respectable level (as dry as it is, Foundation represents something much more intelligent and respectable, and also more well-written, than what had prevailed in the genre before the time Asimov started). They were also important in that they were massively popular and directly influenced 2 or 3 generations of science fiction writers. And some of the stuff they wrote is still good (mostly their short stories - all of those writers except Campbell have at least one short story that's a stone-cold, bona-fide classic).

>>3631685
The fact that you're a sci-fi geek doesn't make you correct, bro. The function of science fiction is not primarily predictive, and realism in science and futurist aspects is only one mode of science fiction - much of the best work in the genre hasn't made the slightest motion towards predictive plausibility. Look at the New Wave. Hard science fiction is only one subgenre; it's not definitive for all SF.

>> No.3631731

>>3631685
god could you be a bigger douche

>> No.3631768

I read the originally 3(4) novels in my teens and thought they were awesome at the time. Just recently I downloaded all 10, and was disappointed. Dialog sucks, Characters got none or little inner life.
Maybe the series should be read when your in your teens, early twenties, as for most sci-fi.

>> No.3631782

>>3631768
>I read the originally 3(4) novels in my teens and thought they were awesome at the time. Just recently I downloaded all 10, and was disappointed. Dialog sucks, Characters got none or little inner life. Maybe the series should be read when your in your teens, early twenties,

yep

> as for most sci-fi.

not really

>> No.3631840

>>3631782
I think we need some 'sci-fi that also works as good literature' recommendations. Good dialogue, characterisation, writing style. Something more than 'serviceable', at least.

(except short stories, which IMO don't really need great characterisation or character development if they have a really good central idea)

>> No.3631884

>>3631840
The best sci-fi in my opinion isn't about what it could predict us about the future, because we don't know and it goes damn fast. I think biogenetics.
I like Stanislaw Lem, because he has a totally different take on things.
Sci-fi is just another story told in some imaginative future.

>> No.3632197

>>3631717
Couldn't agree more. I only finished the Foundation books because they were short and gave a quaint look at science-ideas from back in the day, but they have some value as the starting point of a longer conversation.

The stuff about recurrence of identity groups at war, communication methods controlling social possibilities, and the contradiction between the avenues for control opened up by a mechanistic view of human nature and the vagaries of chance/evolution is all nice to have in mind as arguments other, better authors address (sometimes indirectly).

The series is like a genre pamphlet.

>> No.3632232

>>3628537
Yeah, that Asimov cis scum didn't check his privilege.

>> No.3632245

>>3628380
>It is not only very dull and dry, but it is also totally lacking in any kind of style or art. The dialogue is simply dreadful, the character development is nonexistent
But that's not what the book is about you dense fucking idiot.

>the story is pointless
congrats on not getting the point of the book at all

>> No.3632799

>>3632232
Instead of putting out hundreds of shitty books, Isaac Asimov should have put out a few very good books.
But, I guess if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick