I've been rereading the Foundation books lately. I'd forgotten how good the original trilogy was! I'm almost finished with Foundation's Edge right now, which is kind of annoying because this is where it starts to suck REAL bad. Asimov was running out of stuff to say, but he said a lot anyway. The whole Eternals legend on Gaia was total crap, from several points of view, totally worthless. But overall, I do love this series. And seemingly unlike most fans, I actually like the second trilogy books "Foundation and Chaos" and "Foundation's Triumph". ("Foundation's Fear" didn't happen. I mean, seriously, nothing happened in the book, and it sucked, so what's the difference?) For the second time I find myself wanting to write a story continuing the series AFTER Foundation and Earth. Unfortunately, there are about a dozen major threads that ALL need to be wrapped up. But I have ideas. Anybody else read these books? Like 'em? Comments?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I like them. And I actually really enjoyed Foundation and Earth. Sure, it has its problems, but it's not all that bad really. I wish he'd written more, instead of going back to do prequels about Hari Seldon. Prelude and Forward were good, but show many of the same problems with prequels that some of us have expressed about Enterprise. Like, Hari Seldon effectively ran the Empire for a couple of years? You'd think something like that would have been mentioned before!
Posted by Hunter (Member # 611) on :
Always loved the orginal Foundation series. Attmepting to include the Robot threads really didn't work. There is a book by a Donald Kingsbury called Psychohistorical Crises which is quite obvioulsy based off the Foundation series which is good and has an interesting take on a possible outcome for the Foundation
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:The whole Eternals legend on Gaia was total crap,
Omega, did you ever read Asimov's "The End of Eternity"? That's a really cool book, IMO, and deals with time travel. Basically, it's the idea of "time police" taken to the ultimate level and controlling almost all aspects of Humanity's history from the 25th century (Asimov's timeline) onwards.
The police in that story were called Eternals, and the organization called Eternity. I don't remember exactly what was said about them in "Foundation's Edge," but I'm positive that's what they were referring to.
There was one great scene around the middle of the book where the main character, Andrew Harlan, almost meets himself. It's a really cool puzzle that almost, but not quite, creates a paradox. Very thought-provoking in some ways. I'd highly recommend getting it if you haven't read it already.
I loved most of Asimov's stories -- true classics. I read them all in order for the first time just after he died, so I can't comment too much about the problems concerning prequels -- personally, "Prelude" and "Forward" are my two favorites of "Foundation," mainly because of the complexity of character that was missing from his original trilogy (which was still brilliant for its concepts and even the plots, though). And the ending of "Forward the Foundation" still chokes me up every single time. The simplicity of ending the book with the customary Encyclopedia Galactica entry, but for the death of Hari Seldon, was really poignant for me.
Other than those, I really loved Asimov's robot novels. There's something about R. Daneel Olivaw that really made for some great stories. I'd have to say that my favorite was his third one, "Robots of Dawn" (the one set on Aurora). But again, all three of them were excellent, and I don't think I've ever read any truly comparable science fiction/detective novels before or since. Even "Robots and Empire" had some pretty good material, though it was really long-winded.
Anyone been paying attention to the rumors/leaks about the upcoming movie/remake of Asimov's "I, Robot" collection? I'm really, REALLY torn about this. First, I loved those short stories (and I've been buying his bigger collections over time, including "Robot Dreams"), and how those separate short stories were woven together into the history of developing early robots with good old Susan Calvin.
But from what I remember hearing, the movie is going to be redeveloping the overall plot rather strongly. And am I imagining things, or was Will Smith going to be one of the main characters, too? I'm half dreading the release, whenever it somes...
I'd much rather see a movie based on, say, the Elijah Bailey and Daneel Olivaw novels, or maybe the Foundation trilogy. (Actually, I'll bet that if the movie studios wanted to get paranoid and conservative, there could be some good action filler inserted into parts of the original Foundation short stories, what with the various attacks that took place. Heck, they could have a whole war movie go on with The Mule's invasions...)
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
No doubt at this point someone will mention the Bicentennial Man film, which - although taking a few liberties with the original story - I ended up enjoying in a vaguely guilty kind of way.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
They say the script for the Foundation Trilogy of movies, is done.... First draft anyway, heh.
Omega, did you ever read Asimov's "The End of Eternity"?
Yup, good book! I plan on stealing the general theme if I can ever be assed to actaully write this story. Oh, and it wasn't what the Eternal legend on Gaia was refering to. The legend was almost totally different from the book, as Asimov actually says in the "Afterward" to Foundation's Edge. It was just a crappy explination for why there's no alien life in the Foundation galaxy, when the Second Trilogy has a much more satisfying reason. So now I need to find an explination for why Gaia is an idiot, and knows nothing even about its own history.
And the Bicentennial Man movie was actually about as good as could have been expected. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but I wasn't complaining.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I really liked the Foundation trilogy. The planet Coruscant from Star Wars is DEFINITELY taken directly from Trantor's description.
I'm intrested in the Robot books but have zero idea where to start: a little help?
You guys ever read Alfred Bester? Sars My Destination and The demollished Man are two of my personal favorites.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Asimov's robot novels:
I'd recommend starting out with the "I, Robot" collection of short stories. It's not directly connected, but it's a great, fun way to get more familiar with the whole principles of Asimov's Laws of Robotics (if you aren't already).
Anyway...
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire (involves Daneel but not much of Baley -- still good!)
Enjoy! Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Last I heard, "I, Robot" had Alex Proyas attached, so I'll be watching it, at least. I mean, I sat through that film based on boring old goth themes, even.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
It's also apparently going to be crazy crazy expensive. Like, a severe chunk of Vancouver's GDP.
Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Why can't the Canadian Film Hotseat be somewhere else less-BCey? I mean, someday I will have to live there. It is too bad.
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
So what's wrong with filming in Vancouver?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Re: Foundation movie
Well, I loved the original trilogy, but I really can't see how they could translate to the big screen well. I mean, the Dune mini-series seemed a bit slow at times already, and those were livelier books in the action sense at least.
The writer has part of the problem laid out already:
quote: The adaptation required Rogers to pull out pieces of action from a largely theoretical work. "Isaac Asimov is a real intellectual, so chapters would start with 'That was a thrilling escape from the space pirates, wasn't it? Yes, it was. Now about economics.' As a writer, I need the space pirates. I just can't have the economics discussion here. So there was a lot of trying to stay in the spirit of Asimov [while] at the same time expanding the text."
![[Smile]](smile.gif)