From: wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu   
      
   In article <10kbehb$11og5$1@dont-email.me>,   
   William Hyde   wrote:   
      
   >I think that one of the reasons "Foundation's Edge" disappointed some   
   >people was that Asimov had changed his mind about Empire while writing   
   >"Second Foundation", or perhaps earlier.   
      
   I think a bigger reason was that FE wasn't edited by John W. Campbell,   
   if indeed it was edited at all.  If you liked the earlier stuff   
   (fixups of stort stories and novellas that Campbell bought and argued   
   over with Asimov), the "flabby" later books are what made people say   
   Asimov had succumbed to the Brain Eater.   
      
   Asimov told the story on himself that he went to a meeting with his   
   editor at Doubleday intending to pitch another book and the editor   
   handed him the largest advance he'd ever seen and told him he was   
   going to write a Foundation novel.  There were a lot of things wrong   
   with Campbell but he wanted to buy material that would sell magazines,   
   whereas by the time _Foundation's Edge_ was published, Doubleday could   
   have sold almost as many copies of the Manhattan phone directory if it   
   said "by ISAAC ASIMOV" on the cover.   
      
   -GAWollman   
      
   --   
   Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,   
   wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is   
   Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."   
   my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)