Asimov

Dustaz

Hmm.

I loved the first 2 or 3 Foundation novels, then the series turned into boring rubbish.
I liked the Caves of Steel and the The Naked Sun, but having just read the Robots of Dawn and being thouroghly bored by it i have a horrible feeling that the next one will be rubbish too.

It seems to me that the stuff he wrote in the 50s is far superior to the stuff he wrote in the 80's. Anyone agree/disagree?

Also, could i safely skip the rest of the 80's pre-empire stuff and go on to the early empire novels?


Edit: Just remembered/saw the name of the naked sun

Hellrazer

Have to agree with you there Dustaz.His older stuff is much better.The early robot novels are quite good but Im more of a fan of his short stories.The first 2 foundation novels were as you said ok but it see like he tried to drag them out too much.The empire novels are supposed to be stand alone so you should be able to read the first-I did and didnt miss too much.

plastic membrane

Some of the first SF books i ever read were The Stars Like Dust and The Naked Sun, which i loved. Foundation has some great ideas, which is what Asimov was all about really. Some of his writing was a bit pants though.

m1ke

i've read all the foundation and robot books. Some of the 80s stuff like Prelude to foundation is brilliant ! some of the best stuff out of his imo.

Caves of steel / naked sun / robots of dawn / robots and empire are all great books when you read them in that order which is the order i read them in, maybe as standalones they mightn't all be that great but still all very worthy and great reads...

scipio_major

Like all series Foundation suffered because it went on. But remember he originally ended it after Second foundation. It's all those fans out there that put preasure on his publisher to put preasure on him to do the last two (Foundations' Edge and Foundation and Earth). The last one as far as I can tell was a way of tieing foundation into the rest of his universes. I found them all to be highly readable and usually enjoyable.

His writing style is more suited to the shorter works in my view. You won't do badly at all to pick up the first volume of the Complete Stories. And then the second volume.

Fade to Credits
Scipio_major

(His favorite Assimov Novel is Fantastics Voyage II: Destination Brain which hides a great story and some interesting characters behind possibly the worst title ever conceived)

Manach

Agree with all above, still re-reading his early short-stories collection, though my favourite novel of his is from the 70s "The Gods themsleves"
As well, he was an excellent science populariser, with his series of essay's giving a good grasp of complex science topics.

Clintons Cat

check out "the planet that wasnt" a series of semi related science lectures
Above all Asimov was a teacher who loved to explain the most complicated physics and chemistry in straight forward easy to grasp languge,His love of the subject matter shines through medival astronomy to the ozone layer to the importance of the sea and stellar radiation to the creation of life on earth.
Good stuff

simon_partridge

I enjoyed them all really, although I found it slightly irksome that by the last book he suddenly revealed (30 years after it was first conceived) that the whole Foundation concept was just a waste of time and that in fact humans would all be merged into one along the Gaia model (not a nice notion IMHO!)

The other thing I've noticed is that when later sequels come out they are always twice as fat as the originals - Asimov did it with the later Robot/Foundation books and it's happened with Harry Potter with the 4th release as well. I've no idea why.