XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis
From: bredband.net@ojevind.lang
"Steve Morrison" skrev i meddelandet
news:0oSdnWyCV859hx7XnZ2dnUVZ_judnZ2d@posted.toastnet...
> Öjevind Lång wrote:
[snip]
>> The original Foundation trilogy depicts the Galactic Empire (and later
>> on the Foundation) as some sort of mid-20th century USA minus religion.
>> Almost everybody has very cursorily disguised Anglo-American names (Hober
>> Mallow, Salvor Hardin, Homir Munn, Hari Seldon, Jord Fara, Arcadia
>> Darell, even Jan Smite); female emancipation has not happened and almost
>> all women are housewives (the exception being a handful of novelists,
>> academics and teachers and, I imagine, the occasional sour middle-aged
>> spinster scientist of the Susan Calvin type, and, at the other end of the
>> social spectrum, housekeepers and waitresses); the sexual emancipation
>> has not taken place; the schools are American 1940's schools; the
>> economical system is outdated even by early 20th century standards;
>> everybody speaks and thinks like Americans of the time (except some
>> stereotyped, even parodical, British aristocrats, Roman generals,
>> barbarian chiefs, olde worlde kings and country yokels), and so on.
>
> He made worse slips toward the end; in one scene, Arcadia Darell claims
> she keeps a *baseball bat* under her bed! What's more, there was a
> reference near it to the cost of something or other in *dollars*, not
> Foundation credits.
I suppose one could somehow excuse the first slip by saying that they still
play baseball in the distant future, but if so, he should at least have
spelled it "basbul bat" or something like that to maintain the sense of
distance. The second slip is clearly irredeemable.
>>>> True, but the idea of introducing a rogue factor which upset the flow
>>>> of the
>>>> planned future, in the shape of the Mule, was actually suggested by
>>>> John W.
>>>> Campbell, the editor of "Astounding Science Fiction".
>>>
>>> Ah, I didn't know that.
>>
>> Asimov himself generously mentions it somewhere. He seems to have been an
>> arrogant person in some ways, but he did like to give credit where credit
>> was due.
>
> He mentions it in his autobiography, He and Campbell had a prolonged
> tussle over it, which Campbell won, of course. Asimov admitted (in his
> autobiography) that Campbell had been right.
Yes, after two or three books, how interesting can a tale of historical
development be if the development always proceeds according to the
blueprint? It's a pity that Asimov later on sort of went back to his
original Plan.
>>>> And if I have been
>>>> correctly informed, Asimov later on became nervous about this
>>>> irrational
>>>> anomaly and made up a story showing that the Mule was actually aslo
>>>> part of
>>>> the Plan.
>
> Not part of the Seldon Plan, but a native of Gaia who somehow escaped
> into the wider galaxy.
Oh, I see. I still think it's a crappy idea, though.
>>> Didn't know that either. Do you remember the name of the story? Though
>>> I prefer early Asimov to late Asimov :-)
>>
>> I most emphatically agree. :-) As a matter of fact, I haven't read the
>> story in question myself; someone posted the information in aft or rabt.
>
> I agree as well, with a few exceptions: /The Gods Themselves/ and /The
> Bicentennial Man/ in particular.
I agree about "The Gods Themselves"; I don't believe I have read "The
Bicentennial Man".
In "The Gods Themselves", Asimov, unusually for him, gives three very
convincing psychological portraits; he's very seldom good at psychological
portraits. Of course (heh), the portraits in question are of three aliens...
Still, he has a couple of heart-wrenching psychological portraits of human
(or nearly human) beings in his short story "The Ugly Little Boy". An early
story.
Öjevind
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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