That’s because that’s how it was written. Foundation series - Wikipedia
I’m not a huge fan of Asimov’s fiction even though I’ve read bushel’s of his non-fiction. I would suggest The Caves of Steel though.
I read it when it was first published. I just kinda assumed that the old coot’s crackers had finally snapped.
When I read it my first thought was that there was a book contract he was trying to get out of (well, actually, my first thought was “This is crap”, but you know what I mean), but I’ve heard the “Deliberately written badly as a joke or exercise in how not to write a novel” thing and and I still have to say I’m unconvinced.
My second thought (after the obligatory “this is crap”) was similar: that he hated the publisher and decided to gather every bad space opera / pulp fiction cliché he could think of, toss them in a blender, and hit “mangle.” I later learned that he was suffering from reduced flow to his brain, which seems a more likely explanation. Whatever the cause, it’s a desperately bad book.
(David Gerrold did something similar in one of his books on the original Star Trek: he assembled every bad plot device that had been used and built an episode outline from them. As you might expect, the crisis was resolved by Spock driving an intelligent computer crazy with illogic.)
No love for* Farnham’s Freehold*? I rank that one up there with his best stuff.
FoieGrasIsEvil is a new Heinlein reader. If you give her that one she may drop the whole reading Heinlein idea for good.
I found it to be a depressing work that tried to address too many societal issues in one story. I found it too dark and stack it in the very small pile of his works that I will not pick up again.
It is complex and if you like it, well, tastes vary, but a new reader might be better off postponing that one until after some of the more optimistic works.
Sorry, Oak. Farnham’s Freehold is third-rate at best. Right down there with *Sixth Column. *Not quite as bad as I Will Fear No Evil, but close.
What a coincidence for this to be the first Heinlein you’ve read, because it was my first Heinlein that I ever read as well–nearly 30 years ago, when I was just 13 years old. I was given a gift subscription to the “Science Fiction Book Club” and this book with its collection of three stories was in the initial order I received.
Interestingly enough, I was just thinking about this collection this morning, and wondering if it were too dated for my teenaged son to enjoy, especially The Door Into Summer, which, though it’s one of my favorite stories, was very dated even in 1981. I would think it would be even more dated today following the advances in PCs over the last few decades. What did you think, FoieGrasIsEvil?
For my son’s birthday a few weeks ago, I instead picked him up a copy of Starship Troopers, but he hasn’t started it yet. I’d recommend that you as well, along with Stranger in a Strange Land and Glory Road.
Check out S M Stirling’s alternate solar system. Only two books so far: The Sky People is set on steamy Venus, where cosmonauts & astronauts found humans, pre-humans, pterodactyls & sabre tooth cats. Followed by In The Courts of the Crimson King: Mars, of course.
From the acknowledgements in the first book, found here (along with sample chapters):