The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club: Foundation

[Hueij]

many hard-core trilogy fans see it as a betrayal of the underlying ideas of the original stories.

Foundation was my first try to read English/American literature in the original language. I read the Dutch translation so I knew what it was about. It took me about three months to get to the end and after that I never read a translation any more. Whatever you may think of Asimov, at least he got me into reading English.

Back to topic: can't we stick to the three original books and forget about the sequels? I hate to see my heroes come down...

[St Leo]

Best Series:
1. The Guide
2. Known Space (minus Coldest Place)
3. Dune
4. Dirk Gently
5. Uh, Foundation? KSR's Mars? Discworld? Middle-Earth? Niven's State?

I still think that Foundation as a book is better than Dune is a book. Dune's strength is in its sequels that come a bit closer to a grand conclusion than the Foundation ones do.

As for Brin, Benford and Bear...give me the two Stephens (Lawhead and Baxter) any day. Very cool writers

Greg Egan uber alles.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by St Leo
2. Known Space (minus Coldest Place)

Give the man a break, that his first published story! Of course, he should burn in hell for his Dream Park stuff, but that's a whole different matter...

[Static Universe]

SPOILERS ABOUT DUNE UP AHEAD!!!!!!

Originally posted by JohnT
I never thought of the different Idahos as the same character, rather different people with the same name. Makes it easier somehow.

Interesting idea, and I never quite looked at it that way.

Actually, I seem to recall Idaho not getting the memories of Paul Atreides, but getting the memories of all the previous Duncan Idahos, along with powers like super-speed.

But it's been at least ten years since I've read Heritics of Dune or Chapterhouse: Dune, so I'm not sure.

[Imran Siddiqui]

IMO, Tolkien's series is the only one that still retains "masterpiece" status, precisely because it's great literature in nearly every way. It's a work people will still discuss 100 years from now, whereas I feel both Dune and Foundation will generally decline in importance.

And like those literary 'masterpieces' just about unreadable a second time .

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And like those literary 'masterpieces' just about unreadable a second time .

I didn't say they'd be reading it a hundred years from now, just discussing it. Sort of like Chaucer.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yep, being forced to read it in school and never reading it again . It's just too big to go through again .

[Jon Miller]

allt he later dune books were weaker

sorta similiar to the later foundation books, a lot of fun, not much substance

Dune was the only masterpeice int he series, IMHO

probably it went in order of how good they were (with chapterhouse last), but I just didn't like what happened to Paul in the second and third books and so have read those the same number of times as chapterhouse

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I have read tolkien more than any other work

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Static23


It's still hard to find new. Amazon has a two week waiting period on it, if they can get it at all.

I think I found it before one of the original trilogy

Jon Miller

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Static23
SPOILERS ABOUT DUNE UP AHEAD!!!!!!

Interesting idea, and I never quite looked at it that way.

Spoiler:

Actually, I seem to recall Idaho not getting the memories of Paul Atreides, but getting the memories of all the previous Duncan Idahos, along with powers like super-speed.

But it's been at least ten years since I've read Heritics of Dune or Chapterhouse: Dune, so I'm not sure.

SPOILERS ABOUT DUNE CONTINUE!!!!!!

Spoiler:

Well, think about it: the gholas might have Idaho's genetic identity, but they surely didn't have the same experiences even if they have the same memories, so they really weren't the same person. For starters, Duncan Idaho the first never doubted his identity. Also, in the Dune Encyclopedia, the Idaho gholas are given their separate biographies which also helped me think this way.

And I didn't make that clear: the BG and HM were after the memories of the Idaho gholas, but they didn't expect him to have either Maud'dib or Leto II's memories.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ok, just read Foundation (gotta love used book stores ).

I loved it, but besides that I must agree with those that say EVEN in the original novel, the great man theory and individualism is there. Remember Hardin can go to war with Anacreon, but he says he must wait so that only one course of action is available, so Seldon's plan can continue. Hardin could have taken another path when he had a choice, but he wished to wait until the one prescribed path arrived. Without him, the Seldon plan likely would have been scuttled, especially if Sermak and the Actionists were in power at that time.

[JohnT]

Appreciate you reading the book for the thread. That's pretty cool!

Great Men don't wait for other Great Men to tell them how and when to act.

Great men don't wait until they only have one possible choice for survival.

Great Men don't subsume what they think is right to what others think is right. Though one can argue that psychohistory is a religion, with Seldon as its prophet and Haldin/Mallow as its faithful believers doing nothing but following their beliefs, (sort of like Communism with the prophet Marx and faithful Lenin/Stalin... but I digress.)

I'm not too sure that the plan would've been scuttled had the Actionists gotten their way. But I'd like to review those sections of the book before I go any further along those lines.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Great Men do wait if it is preordained by someone else that they wait, especially when it has to do with some mystical religious-like prophesy. Like you said, psychohistory is basically a religion, especially when Seldon comes in after the first 50 years and says spills the beans about the Encyclopedia.

I would consider Moses a 'Great Man' even though he refered to God on how to act .

I'm not too sure that the plan would've been scuttled had the Actionists gotten their way.

It seems that if the Actionists got their way then the second lesson, of the spiritual winning over the temporal would not have occured, since the Foundation would be declaring war and the people would not have then backed the Foundation's relgion.

But that's just what I think...

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by JohnT
Appreciate you reading the book for the thread. That's pretty cool!

Great Men don't wait for other Great Men to tell them how and when to act.

Great men don't wait until they only have one possible choice for survival.

Given that Hardin takes the Seldon-appropriate actions in The Encyclodedists before he even knows there's more to the encyclopedia than meets the eye, it's hard to say he doesn't fall into the "Great Man" category. And again in the Mayors, he holds things together when Sermak and apparently many other in the Foundation want to move too fast.