If I had realised that the book was based on the film, I probably would have seen the film first. However, now that I have read the book, I will review it. Even if it is now a few years out of date (dating sci-fi is always a dangerous thing to do).
In the far distant past, a tribe of mankind's ancestors are affected by a strange alien crystal monolith, which gives evolution a nudge in a certain direction. In the (for the sake of argument) near future, a black monolith is uncovered on the moon. Two years after this, a ship is sent on a mission to fly-by Jupiter, using it as a sling-shot to grant it the extra momentum required to reach its target; Saturn.
This is a story told in three parts, and two of them, at least, I found interesting. The first section, following Moon-Watcher the man-ape as his tribe is affected by the monolith was interesting enough to keep me reading eagerly to find out what happened. It was perhaps a little slow, containing a lot of unnecessary detail, but it was not bogged down by them, and it got its points across very well. The second was more fast-paced, more intriguing and had a character I found it easier to relate to as he was swept away from Earth to a mission on the moon. The suspense as he made his way to the moon was very well done, and the pacing such that I didn't get bored before anything happened.
The third and final section, though, following David Bowman and life on the ship Discovery, I found quite boring. Dave himself didn't have much character, and the story of his life onboard ship I found dull and unnecessary: I have seen writers give much clearer and better descriptions with much less text and the story would have been better if this had been cut back. Perhaps the dull tone was there to be in keeping with the monotony of life on the ship; but it also has to tell a story, and for a long while nothing happened.
When finally things did start to happen (as I stuck with it knowing that they must) I found the attempts at suspense crude and obvious, the pacing (again) flawed and slow, and the peril did not feel real enough for me to be at all disturbed by it. When the famous scenes with Hal and Dave came about, I was reading dispassionately, and I wasn't particularly interested in the fate of Dave, Hal or any of the other characters. The ending, at least, redeemed the book a little, but even then it was a bit too surreal and strange for me to really get behind it. Perhaps it would have worked better on screen, but from what people have told me, they didn't get that far in the film... I have to wonder if anything actually happened in this movie.
All in all, I was not overwhelmed by 2001 a Space Odyssey. It was bland, quite interesting in parts, but not the science fiction classic that the film's cult following would have led me to believe.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Review of the 2009 film 'Watchmen'
My first cinema trip of the year (it's been a slow starter, to be sure) was to see Watchmen, yet another superhero flick. I have to say that after watching it, it became immediately obvious where some of the inspiration for the Pixar superhero spoof The Incredibles (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705) came from. I should also say that I have never read the graphic novel, so my opinions might be different to those of someone that had.
The 'masks' started as a way of fighting back against masked gangs, but they became a superhero group. None of them, bar one, had any actual super powers; aside from intense physical training, fight-skill and gadgetry, these are supposed to be normal people taking on the masks. But they fought crime, delivered their own brand of vigilante justice, and the masked heroes became the expected day-savers. Later, though, as the second generation of masks came to fame, the public grew angry at the vigilantes, and eventually the masks were outlawed and the heroes went into retirement. The plot begins when one of the first generation of masks is murdered, and Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the only mask who never revealed his true identity to the other masks, investigates in the belief that someone is seeking out masks. All this on the background of the cold war, with the doomsday clock sweeping ever closer to midnight...
This was an incredibly well-produced and well-directed film. Everything in it fitted together supremely well, and the filming was exemplary. The special effects were brilliantly done, and while some of it documented unrealistic events, they didn't overshadow the importance of plot or characters. Equally, the costumes were all wonderful, and very much of the time; the 'classic' costumes belonging to the first-generation masks looked like they were made in the 50s, while the later costumes were better produced and looked more like they belonged in their own timezone. There was a lot of comic-book violence, with a lot of gory scenes in various places around the movie... all looked extremely realistic, terrifying and sickening. All in all, not a film for children.
The film also did a very good of mixing the fantastical elements with the realistic. Aside from Doctor Manhatten (Billy Crudup), a superman explained by a freak accident in a physics laboratory, there is very little that could not fit into the world as we know it. Night Owl's (Patrick Wilson) flyer (Archie) and glasses, and Rorschach's mask all stretch the limits of what was possible then, and indeed now, but there was a surprising amount of realism about it all.
What I found to be the best thing in this film, though, were the characters; all of the actors seemed comfortable in the roles, and while they were given limited space for back story, each of them appeared to have a real past, even if it was never explored. While Rorschach, Silk Spectre and Doctor Manhatten were given a reasonable amount of flashbacks, telling of their relevant past, the other characters all seemed to have just as much depth, complicated emotions, human reactions and thought processes... they were all very real, down to the slightly self-conscious, humorous slant they put on their being masked superheroes.
While I could accept Doctor Manhatten's super-powers as they were given a reason, albeit an implausible one, I was very conscious that the other characters were not supposed to have any innate abilities. Their strength and speed was supposedly the result of training and confidence... however, at various times throughout the movie I found the superheroes tipping over into super-human. I can forgive a lot in the name of plot, and in the end I forgave this as well, but I feel that the makers of this film should have chosen either to have outright super-powers, or kept the abilities of these heroes to within the normal tolerances of very fit and well-trained humans.
All I can say about the ending is that I felt it let the film down a bit. There was some very pretty filming sequences, but of all the film the conflict the characters were supposedly going through seemed to have the least effect; when it should have had most. Only Rorschach's outbursts had the same punch.
Overall, though, Watchmen was a brilliant film and I would heartily recommend it as both an excellent example of a superhero drama, and as an excellent example of the transition from graphic novel to screen.
The 'masks' started as a way of fighting back against masked gangs, but they became a superhero group. None of them, bar one, had any actual super powers; aside from intense physical training, fight-skill and gadgetry, these are supposed to be normal people taking on the masks. But they fought crime, delivered their own brand of vigilante justice, and the masked heroes became the expected day-savers. Later, though, as the second generation of masks came to fame, the public grew angry at the vigilantes, and eventually the masks were outlawed and the heroes went into retirement. The plot begins when one of the first generation of masks is murdered, and Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the only mask who never revealed his true identity to the other masks, investigates in the belief that someone is seeking out masks. All this on the background of the cold war, with the doomsday clock sweeping ever closer to midnight...
This was an incredibly well-produced and well-directed film. Everything in it fitted together supremely well, and the filming was exemplary. The special effects were brilliantly done, and while some of it documented unrealistic events, they didn't overshadow the importance of plot or characters. Equally, the costumes were all wonderful, and very much of the time; the 'classic' costumes belonging to the first-generation masks looked like they were made in the 50s, while the later costumes were better produced and looked more like they belonged in their own timezone. There was a lot of comic-book violence, with a lot of gory scenes in various places around the movie... all looked extremely realistic, terrifying and sickening. All in all, not a film for children.
The film also did a very good of mixing the fantastical elements with the realistic. Aside from Doctor Manhatten (Billy Crudup), a superman explained by a freak accident in a physics laboratory, there is very little that could not fit into the world as we know it. Night Owl's (Patrick Wilson) flyer (Archie) and glasses, and Rorschach's mask all stretch the limits of what was possible then, and indeed now, but there was a surprising amount of realism about it all.
What I found to be the best thing in this film, though, were the characters; all of the actors seemed comfortable in the roles, and while they were given limited space for back story, each of them appeared to have a real past, even if it was never explored. While Rorschach, Silk Spectre and Doctor Manhatten were given a reasonable amount of flashbacks, telling of their relevant past, the other characters all seemed to have just as much depth, complicated emotions, human reactions and thought processes... they were all very real, down to the slightly self-conscious, humorous slant they put on their being masked superheroes.
While I could accept Doctor Manhatten's super-powers as they were given a reason, albeit an implausible one, I was very conscious that the other characters were not supposed to have any innate abilities. Their strength and speed was supposedly the result of training and confidence... however, at various times throughout the movie I found the superheroes tipping over into super-human. I can forgive a lot in the name of plot, and in the end I forgave this as well, but I feel that the makers of this film should have chosen either to have outright super-powers, or kept the abilities of these heroes to within the normal tolerances of very fit and well-trained humans.
All I can say about the ending is that I felt it let the film down a bit. There was some very pretty filming sequences, but of all the film the conflict the characters were supposedly going through seemed to have the least effect; when it should have had most. Only Rorschach's outbursts had the same punch.
Overall, though, Watchmen was a brilliant film and I would heartily recommend it as both an excellent example of a superhero drama, and as an excellent example of the transition from graphic novel to screen.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Review of 'Chocky' by John Wyndham
I am a few years older than the target demographic for Chocky, but a mark of a good children's book is accessibility to adults. My mum had spoken highly of it, as had one of my best friends, so I sat down to read it. As a children's book, it is an incredibly easy read... the narrative flow is simple and comprehensible, and the book is quite short. However, it was very accessible to me as a sometimes-adult reader, and it was another book that made up for my struggling through the Martina Cole at the beginning of the year.
When Matthew starts talking to himself and asking unusual questions, his parents think it is a phase he is going through. When he reveals the existence of Chocky, at first they think that it is an imaginary friend... an unusual phase for an eleven year old boy, but still something reasonable, explainable and above all fictional. Eventually, however, they have to face the possibility that Chocky is something else entirely, as Matthew demonstrates skills and abilities that no child of his age could easily pick up, and that no one has taught him.
The science fiction in this story is very subtle, and discovered only gradually over the course of the story. This made incredibly easy to immerse in the world, and meant that all the elements of strangeness, while quiet, stood out quite clearly as the narrative progressed. The main character, Matthew's father has a very down-to-earth attitude, which makes it very easy to follow his trains of thought and it is very easy to relate to his point of view. It is also very easy to relate to the character of Matthew; a sensitive, intelligent and above-all quite normal boy... with Matthew, John Wyndham has bypassed many of the usual pitfalls of adults writing about children, and Matthew comes across as a very real representation of an eleven year old boy.
As usual, I find it a struggle to come up with a balanced review; if I have enjoyed a book, its bad points fall behind... if I did not enjoy it, its good points usually escape me. The problems I might be able to pick out of this book all amount to the fact that it was written a few years ago, and times have changed. I find it quite easy to step my thinking back in time, but others might not. A feminist review might find the mother character a little irrational and annoying (in a sixties sit-com way), but from looking at my own mother (who would be about the same age at the time the book was written), I can see how the attitudes and thoughts of the time could have bred a woman (and family) that acted very much this way. A physicist or theoretical mathematician might question the logistics of the science fiction elements, but it's a children's books and the characters and story take precedence, so this doesn't really bother me.
In short, Chocky is a very good children's science fiction, and adults will also find it an easy and entertaining read. If you never enjoy anything that you construe to be 'dated' then you might want to give it a miss, but otherwise, I would recommend this to nearly anyone, even if they usually don't enjoy science fiction.
When Matthew starts talking to himself and asking unusual questions, his parents think it is a phase he is going through. When he reveals the existence of Chocky, at first they think that it is an imaginary friend... an unusual phase for an eleven year old boy, but still something reasonable, explainable and above all fictional. Eventually, however, they have to face the possibility that Chocky is something else entirely, as Matthew demonstrates skills and abilities that no child of his age could easily pick up, and that no one has taught him.
The science fiction in this story is very subtle, and discovered only gradually over the course of the story. This made incredibly easy to immerse in the world, and meant that all the elements of strangeness, while quiet, stood out quite clearly as the narrative progressed. The main character, Matthew's father has a very down-to-earth attitude, which makes it very easy to follow his trains of thought and it is very easy to relate to his point of view. It is also very easy to relate to the character of Matthew; a sensitive, intelligent and above-all quite normal boy... with Matthew, John Wyndham has bypassed many of the usual pitfalls of adults writing about children, and Matthew comes across as a very real representation of an eleven year old boy.
As usual, I find it a struggle to come up with a balanced review; if I have enjoyed a book, its bad points fall behind... if I did not enjoy it, its good points usually escape me. The problems I might be able to pick out of this book all amount to the fact that it was written a few years ago, and times have changed. I find it quite easy to step my thinking back in time, but others might not. A feminist review might find the mother character a little irrational and annoying (in a sixties sit-com way), but from looking at my own mother (who would be about the same age at the time the book was written), I can see how the attitudes and thoughts of the time could have bred a woman (and family) that acted very much this way. A physicist or theoretical mathematician might question the logistics of the science fiction elements, but it's a children's books and the characters and story take precedence, so this doesn't really bother me.
In short, Chocky is a very good children's science fiction, and adults will also find it an easy and entertaining read. If you never enjoy anything that you construe to be 'dated' then you might want to give it a miss, but otherwise, I would recommend this to nearly anyone, even if they usually don't enjoy science fiction.
Review of 'Axiomatic' by Greg Egan
Axiomatic is a book of short stories, so reviewing it becomes very difficult; do I sit down and review each story in turn, pick out a few favoured or disfavoured stories or do I just review the book as a collection? I choose to take a path somewhere between the latter two options.
Axiomatic is a very fine collection. Greg Egan is obviously very skilled in the art of the short story. Before I read Diaspora, I read the first short story in this book, and I really enjoyed it. It instantly hooked, explained events and the world over the course of the story and finished neatly in the course of the few pages allotted. This proved to be characteristic; with each story, Egan introduces his cast, world-builds and gives a plot to follow, each ending satisfactorily in a few thousand words.
While the title of the book might give the impression of a series of stories similarly structured and paced, the actual stories follow varying patterns, all of them interesting. The characters vary considerably, but all of them impress a strong sense of self within a page of reading them, and appear entirely self-consistent within their world. The worlds vary, and the topics vary. Egan explores many fields of science. He has a tendency towards hard SF, but he deals with it as well as he did in Disapora, and does not waste time explaining scientific detail over page-long expositions when the medium does not allow it. Character-driven hard SF takes complicated ideas back into the realm of the possible, and Egan did stunningly well in this for both Diaspora, and in this collection.
His characters vary from normal people in extraordinary situations, normal people in situations that are normal for their time (but nearly inconceivable in ours) to extraordinary people dealing with normal and extraordinary events. They are good, bad and neutral, they all feel very real and they all fit perfectly within their setting.
Obviously some of the stories are better than others, but people might disagree over which were the best. There is some continuity of narrative style, but that probably just proves that Egan wrote all of them in a smallish time-span, and is neither a negative nor positive point. Occasionally the stories deal with controversial viewpoints, or things that just didn't sit quite well with my own experience and upbringing. Again, though, I cannot fault the collection for this because I was made to think about my own world-view and experience, and that in itself is a valuable thing, and probably marks a good writer (even if I did not always agree with the conclusions).
Now to short-review a few of my favourites.
The Infinite Assassin follows a character walking into a strange disturbance of parallel worlds. The story starts in confusion, and gradually everything is explained until the plot rises to a brilliant climax and finished equally brilliantly. It was a thoroughly excellent and impelling read.
Eugene deals with a revolution in made-to-order babies and an attempt by one scientist to create the most intelligent child ever born. While the story itself is fairly slow-paced and descriptive, giving a lot of back-story into the characters and discussing their moral standpoints, the ending is intriguing, almost funny in its insight, but also very thought-provoking.
The Safe-Deposit Box deals with an altogether stranger topic; a man exists who wakes up each morning in a new host body, and attempts to carve out a life and his own personality while spending each day with different people, unable to have anything that is truly his own. It is a fascinating look at the adaptability of consciousness, and a very interesting world-view.
Into Darkness introduces a future world where a wormhole has become unstuck, and appears almost at random on the surface of the Earth. The wormhole goes one-way through time; from past to a few minutes in the future, and within the limits of the wormhole's area of effect, you can only travel one way. It becomes very easy to become trapped against a wall, and crushed by the inexorable pressure to move forward. The Runners go in to try and help who they can; to save children and other vulnerable people that are moving through the wormhole. The idea itself is fascinating, and the conclusion of the story almost frightening. This story really shows off Greg Egan's talent for making hard SF accessible to the world.
The stories I didn't enjoy as much dealt more with the concept of consciousness; implants to affect viewpoint, jewels that completely mimic the brain until a switch is made so that the jewel takes over. I did very much enjoy these stories, and they were definitely very skilfully told, but my own preferences tended towards the physical sciences, rather than the stories that discussed the 'magic' of consciousness. This is entirely just personal preference, though, so I would encourage other readers to give each story a chance. They are all brilliant in their way.
Being a book of short stories, Axiomatic was incredibly easy to read. Each little episode was terribly difficult to put down, and I found myself hungry for more after each story. If you want some excellent SF short stories to read, you could do much worse than Axiomatic.
Axiomatic is a very fine collection. Greg Egan is obviously very skilled in the art of the short story. Before I read Diaspora, I read the first short story in this book, and I really enjoyed it. It instantly hooked, explained events and the world over the course of the story and finished neatly in the course of the few pages allotted. This proved to be characteristic; with each story, Egan introduces his cast, world-builds and gives a plot to follow, each ending satisfactorily in a few thousand words.
While the title of the book might give the impression of a series of stories similarly structured and paced, the actual stories follow varying patterns, all of them interesting. The characters vary considerably, but all of them impress a strong sense of self within a page of reading them, and appear entirely self-consistent within their world. The worlds vary, and the topics vary. Egan explores many fields of science. He has a tendency towards hard SF, but he deals with it as well as he did in Disapora, and does not waste time explaining scientific detail over page-long expositions when the medium does not allow it. Character-driven hard SF takes complicated ideas back into the realm of the possible, and Egan did stunningly well in this for both Diaspora, and in this collection.
His characters vary from normal people in extraordinary situations, normal people in situations that are normal for their time (but nearly inconceivable in ours) to extraordinary people dealing with normal and extraordinary events. They are good, bad and neutral, they all feel very real and they all fit perfectly within their setting.
Obviously some of the stories are better than others, but people might disagree over which were the best. There is some continuity of narrative style, but that probably just proves that Egan wrote all of them in a smallish time-span, and is neither a negative nor positive point. Occasionally the stories deal with controversial viewpoints, or things that just didn't sit quite well with my own experience and upbringing. Again, though, I cannot fault the collection for this because I was made to think about my own world-view and experience, and that in itself is a valuable thing, and probably marks a good writer (even if I did not always agree with the conclusions).
Now to short-review a few of my favourites.
The Infinite Assassin follows a character walking into a strange disturbance of parallel worlds. The story starts in confusion, and gradually everything is explained until the plot rises to a brilliant climax and finished equally brilliantly. It was a thoroughly excellent and impelling read.
Eugene deals with a revolution in made-to-order babies and an attempt by one scientist to create the most intelligent child ever born. While the story itself is fairly slow-paced and descriptive, giving a lot of back-story into the characters and discussing their moral standpoints, the ending is intriguing, almost funny in its insight, but also very thought-provoking.
The Safe-Deposit Box deals with an altogether stranger topic; a man exists who wakes up each morning in a new host body, and attempts to carve out a life and his own personality while spending each day with different people, unable to have anything that is truly his own. It is a fascinating look at the adaptability of consciousness, and a very interesting world-view.
Into Darkness introduces a future world where a wormhole has become unstuck, and appears almost at random on the surface of the Earth. The wormhole goes one-way through time; from past to a few minutes in the future, and within the limits of the wormhole's area of effect, you can only travel one way. It becomes very easy to become trapped against a wall, and crushed by the inexorable pressure to move forward. The Runners go in to try and help who they can; to save children and other vulnerable people that are moving through the wormhole. The idea itself is fascinating, and the conclusion of the story almost frightening. This story really shows off Greg Egan's talent for making hard SF accessible to the world.
The stories I didn't enjoy as much dealt more with the concept of consciousness; implants to affect viewpoint, jewels that completely mimic the brain until a switch is made so that the jewel takes over. I did very much enjoy these stories, and they were definitely very skilfully told, but my own preferences tended towards the physical sciences, rather than the stories that discussed the 'magic' of consciousness. This is entirely just personal preference, though, so I would encourage other readers to give each story a chance. They are all brilliant in their way.
Being a book of short stories, Axiomatic was incredibly easy to read. Each little episode was terribly difficult to put down, and I found myself hungry for more after each story. If you want some excellent SF short stories to read, you could do much worse than Axiomatic.
Review of The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
After a prolonged absence in which I was mostly writing for my novel and getting caught up with the 'real world stuff', I return to my review blog to tell you all about what I've been reading recently. Starting with this...
The Foundation Trilogy was always one of those pieces of classic science fiction I was told I had to read from an early age. I never quite got around to it until about two months ago, when I borrowed the trilogy from my mum and started devouring them page by page. They deserve every bit of praise they ever receive, even if the first book starts quite slowly.
A very long time into the future, Hari Seldon develops the field of psychohistory; an interesting social science, which uses statistics and implied complex mathematics to predict, with startling accuracy, trends in culture and probable future courses. Asimov explains this science as well as is possible without it actually existing; he always explains that it wouldn't be possible in a population of millions, or even billions... but with the galactic population numbering in the multi-trillions, it becomes possible to predict mob mentalities. And thus, Hari Seldon predicts the fall of the Empire, and thirty thousand years of chaos and barbarism before the rise of the next. In an effort to reduce the length of this barbaric period, Seldon sets up two foundations... plotting out the course of their future with a series of crises they must overcome on their inexorable rise to the beginning of the next Empire. The novels follow the story of the first Foundation, set up on a small planet at the edge of the galaxy called Terminus.
The first book, as I have said starts slowly. Perhaps this is not quite fair; the very beginning is as instantly intriguing and interesting as one could expect from any novel, and it draws the reader into the world of psychohistory. However, the first book is a slow progression, waiting for the Foundation to overcome the inevitable crises with equal inevitability; it's just a question of seeing what happens and how it is resolved. This is not a weakness, because the results are always interesting, but it does lend a certain security for the reader, which is not perhaps as powerful as a plot where events are assumed to be random and unpredictable.
Another minor issue I had with the first book was that it was very episodic. Each section follows a different character and just as you are becoming accustomed to one character, another takes his place as the lead role, and the story moves on. However, this is probably a limitation of telling a story that spans 300 years, and so I can forgive it.
The second book follows two crisis stages. In the first, a strong general has appeared in the Empire, under the last strong Emperor, set on conquest of the Foundation. In the second crisis, it begins to look as though Seldon was not as omniscient as he appeared through the first book and a half. Psychohistory is a tool for predicting the behaviour of civilisations, moves and movements, and motives of entire cultures; when it comes to individuals, the tool is much less effective. And so, when a rather singular and completely unpredictable individual known only as 'The Mule' appears, the Seldon plan is set off course by some degrees, and it becomes impossible to tell what will happen next. Suddenly, the actions of individuals are important again.
This turn in the book means that the story keeps on getting more and more interesting. From the relatively small victories and stories in the first book, the first tale in the second book is considerably more epic, following a wider cast of characters. In the second tale, the characters are suddenly more than just tools of the wider plot and the whole story becomes easier to relate to, and a whole lot more interesting. The twists and turns in the plot are the work of a real master story-teller, and at the end of the book I was left in awe of the way everything was set up so quietly and perfectly.
The third book continues in form, with intriguing and intense plot lines and increasing excitement. With the longer plots, there is more time to grow to like the cast for each of the sections, and they remain prominent for longer than in the first novel.
The conclusion of the last book completes the trilogy very nicely, although I can see why many fans, and Asimov himself, considered it unfinished. In some ways, I would have been happy had he stopped there, but the book does not complete the thousand year's interregnum, so the reader is left with a sense of the yawning time gap ahead.
Plot and storyline is definitely the huge strength of these books. However, the individual characters that are involved are also very strong, and each and every one of them was incredibly likeable – or dislikeable- in their own way. While some of the cultural trends and attitudes may seem very dated now, for its time it also had some very progressive elements. As long as the reader is prepared to accept that the writer belonged to a slightly different time (as one does when reading Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or Dickens) then none of these things should interfere with the enjoyment of the rich and well-woven world that Asimov has created for this story.
The Foundation Trilogy rightfully takes its place among the science fiction classics, and I look forward to reading more Asimov in the future. I recommend this to any science fiction fan who has not yet read it.
The Foundation Trilogy was always one of those pieces of classic science fiction I was told I had to read from an early age. I never quite got around to it until about two months ago, when I borrowed the trilogy from my mum and started devouring them page by page. They deserve every bit of praise they ever receive, even if the first book starts quite slowly.
A very long time into the future, Hari Seldon develops the field of psychohistory; an interesting social science, which uses statistics and implied complex mathematics to predict, with startling accuracy, trends in culture and probable future courses. Asimov explains this science as well as is possible without it actually existing; he always explains that it wouldn't be possible in a population of millions, or even billions... but with the galactic population numbering in the multi-trillions, it becomes possible to predict mob mentalities. And thus, Hari Seldon predicts the fall of the Empire, and thirty thousand years of chaos and barbarism before the rise of the next. In an effort to reduce the length of this barbaric period, Seldon sets up two foundations... plotting out the course of their future with a series of crises they must overcome on their inexorable rise to the beginning of the next Empire. The novels follow the story of the first Foundation, set up on a small planet at the edge of the galaxy called Terminus.
The first book, as I have said starts slowly. Perhaps this is not quite fair; the very beginning is as instantly intriguing and interesting as one could expect from any novel, and it draws the reader into the world of psychohistory. However, the first book is a slow progression, waiting for the Foundation to overcome the inevitable crises with equal inevitability; it's just a question of seeing what happens and how it is resolved. This is not a weakness, because the results are always interesting, but it does lend a certain security for the reader, which is not perhaps as powerful as a plot where events are assumed to be random and unpredictable.
Another minor issue I had with the first book was that it was very episodic. Each section follows a different character and just as you are becoming accustomed to one character, another takes his place as the lead role, and the story moves on. However, this is probably a limitation of telling a story that spans 300 years, and so I can forgive it.
The second book follows two crisis stages. In the first, a strong general has appeared in the Empire, under the last strong Emperor, set on conquest of the Foundation. In the second crisis, it begins to look as though Seldon was not as omniscient as he appeared through the first book and a half. Psychohistory is a tool for predicting the behaviour of civilisations, moves and movements, and motives of entire cultures; when it comes to individuals, the tool is much less effective. And so, when a rather singular and completely unpredictable individual known only as 'The Mule' appears, the Seldon plan is set off course by some degrees, and it becomes impossible to tell what will happen next. Suddenly, the actions of individuals are important again.
This turn in the book means that the story keeps on getting more and more interesting. From the relatively small victories and stories in the first book, the first tale in the second book is considerably more epic, following a wider cast of characters. In the second tale, the characters are suddenly more than just tools of the wider plot and the whole story becomes easier to relate to, and a whole lot more interesting. The twists and turns in the plot are the work of a real master story-teller, and at the end of the book I was left in awe of the way everything was set up so quietly and perfectly.
The third book continues in form, with intriguing and intense plot lines and increasing excitement. With the longer plots, there is more time to grow to like the cast for each of the sections, and they remain prominent for longer than in the first novel.
The conclusion of the last book completes the trilogy very nicely, although I can see why many fans, and Asimov himself, considered it unfinished. In some ways, I would have been happy had he stopped there, but the book does not complete the thousand year's interregnum, so the reader is left with a sense of the yawning time gap ahead.
Plot and storyline is definitely the huge strength of these books. However, the individual characters that are involved are also very strong, and each and every one of them was incredibly likeable – or dislikeable- in their own way. While some of the cultural trends and attitudes may seem very dated now, for its time it also had some very progressive elements. As long as the reader is prepared to accept that the writer belonged to a slightly different time (as one does when reading Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or Dickens) then none of these things should interfere with the enjoyment of the rich and well-woven world that Asimov has created for this story.
The Foundation Trilogy rightfully takes its place among the science fiction classics, and I look forward to reading more Asimov in the future. I recommend this to any science fiction fan who has not yet read it.
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