imaginary_space's Reviews (246)

A great, light modern myth or fairytale with a strong narrative voice. If you like these kinds of stories, this book is for you.

What I loved
- The setting: 1920s Mexico and Mayan mythology.
- All the classic fairytale elements: mean non-humans (and not-so-mean ones), a protagonist coming into her own, a rags-to-riches story, quests, humans coming in contact with a mythlogical world etc.
- The writing and narrative voice fit the mythological/fairytale theme very well.
- The fact that the classic fairytale elements were modernized.
- The heroine. I thought she was a believable and likeable character in a fairytale story.
- I had a feeling for how the story would end in general, but I kept guessing how they would get there, which I consider a plus.
- The ending. I suspect some people will not like it, but I loved it. Here's why: The gods are clearly depicted as not caring about humans and a happy end for the blossoming romance between Casiopeia and Hun-Kamé would have been her exchanging one bad master for another. I even think it is made pretty clear throughout the book that this would not be a happy ending for her. I love that the book ends with her out on her own, not with a lover, in the comapny of a colourful character that might become her friend, off on a road trip. That's a great, optimistic ending for me.

I first read Foundation in my teenage years, it was one of my first science fiction books and it blew me away. I kind of wish I had left this book in my past, but here I am.

Let's start with this: I still enjoyed it, there are a lot of good ideas in this book and its value as one of the first epic works of science fiction as well as its influence on the genre is very recognizable.

It is also timeless in most of its ideas, which is why I think it still works today and is worth a read, if you want to get into the scifi classics and are interested in the history of the genre.
The general idea of psychohistory and the overall story was probably much more impressive in 1955, now it's an interesting, if not very realistic, thought experiment in the speculative fiction genre.

The story is mainly presented through dialogue, and actions are mostly described in hindsight. This is interesting, but also not for everyone. There's not a lot of suspense, and the focus is clearly not on the story or the characters, but on the ideas behind those. Which sometimes can come across as rather pseudo-intellectual.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw of the book is this:
If the story is not the focus, and the characters move it forward via dialogue, then I want to be invested in the characters. But I am not. They are all experts in their fields, they are all highly intelligent, educated, and, most of all, confident. They might have different occupations, but basically they are the same. And they see everything coming from five miles away. And they are all men. They seem more like self-inserts of the author explaining his intellectual ideas to us. The antagonists are mostly greedy and dumb and easily outmaneuvered. And they are all men.

Now, don't get me wrong, I totally understand this book was written in the 1950s. But you might think women don't exist at all. In a way that's over the top even for the 1950s, and definitely out of place in a work of science fiction which presents itself as full of new, innovative and progressive ideas. I will get into this more in the end, because before you stop reading, I want to make another point:

A central element of the story is psychohistory and the "Seldon Crisis", named for Hari Seldon, who predicted them down to the exact day. Which is a cool concept, but -

they don't have any impact. The fact that he saw them coming doesn't have any impact. Each time there's a Seldon Crisis, the highly intelligent protagonist of that chapter already knows it and already knows what he will do to overcome it. When they get Hari Seldon's message it basically states 'Hi, I saw this coming and the solution is obvious, so I will not tell you.' It has no impact. There's no twist, no surprise, nothing like that.

Also, there's this really unnecessary mention of this one very straightforward evil guy having "dark eyes and a hooked nose", in a book where the appearance of characters is rarely ever described. I'm just going to leave that here. Even in the 1950, that wasn't okay.

So, this book has a good idea and I grant it one more star for its value as a classic, but it's not a good story or a good book.

That's it for my review, now if you are interested in my thoughts on the women (or lack thereof) in this book, read along.

So, everybody is a man. People in power are men, people without power are men, everybody with a job is a man. Women are mentioned so rarely I actually marked the occasions:

- In one chapter as "wives and children" of the people working for the Foundation.
- One time there's a secertary who forwards a call, this is described in one half sentence, she doesn't get any lines.
- There's a "young girl", she's allowed to put on some jewellery and to say 'Oh!', then she's waved away. But she's sad, because she could not keep the jewellery, because women, amirite?
- Then there's a woman who actually has a name! She's bickering and hates her husband and tells him how inferior he is. But then he gifts her some jewellery and she shuts up, because women, amirite? (I don't kid you, this is actually spelled out in the book. It's not subtle.) She appears again later and we learn she was married to that man by her father. Of course she criticizes him some more, because women.
- There's a man who says his sons died. And that he hopes his daughter 'died, eventually'. ('hope' is actually in italics in the book as well). So ... yeah.
- 'There was no mention of any [...] agreement [...]' - 'Nor was there any mention of what I had for breakfast [...], or the name of my current mistress, or any other irrelevant detail.'
- They are used as an example for the inconvenciences of a siege: The housewives will get mad when all their appliances (stove, washer and all that stuff women use) don't work anymore. It's dismissed with a 'What do you expect? A housewives' rebellion?' (I would read that story.)

This is really irritating. None of the characters ever talks about having a wife. We never even learn if any of them is married. There are no women working anywhere. There are no women living anywhere. There are no women at official gatherings (the named wife of one of the characters is never present anywhere else than alone with him in their living quarters).
Of course this is partly because Asimov never fleshed out his characters. We don't just not learn about their love live, we also don't learn if they have children, what they do for fun, if they have interests outside of being smarter than everybody else etc.