| Esteemed Scholar: | Arktophylax |
| Total Posts in Isaac Asimov |
93 |
| 1. Favorite book and why? |
PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION. Because it seems to me to sum up the entire series in one self-contained stand alone story. All the other books were merely sub plots and tangets which had to be read in the context of the entire series to be understood. Similar to our quest for human origins on just this planet alone Asimov portrays an intergalactic humanity for whom not only biologically primitive origins are a mystery but even cultural and ancient historical knowledge of which planet humanity originated from is lost. Naturally a mythical Edenic home planet of origin is a prevelent theme in the myths of many planets.
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| 2. Least favorite book and why? |
The only objection I have to Asimov's Foundation series with regards to the very interesting concept of an intergalactic humanity out of touch with it's origins is this. If humanity still remembered something as important as the basic laws of science and mathamatics and such why should it have lost the knowledge of it's own genetic evolution? How could the celebrated schools of far off future biology call themselves biologists if they dont even remember where their own species come from? And wouldn't archeologists and anthropologists still retain interest in the first planet even thousands of years into our future? They couldn't possibly have dug up every rock and fossil even after that long. You would think it would be a sacred place or something never ever to be forgotten.
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| 3. Favorite scene in favorite book and why? |
When Harri figures out that the mythical robot gaurdian of the first planet (earth) and of humanity R. Daneel and his trusted mentor Chetter Humin and even the seldom seen but always feared and wispered about strong arm of the Emperor Demerzel are all one and the same personality.
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| 4. Favorite character and why? |
The super-robot DANEEL, cause he's the only sentient being in the entire galaxy who remembers where man came from and remembers all of his history and therefore knows what mistakes have been made in the past and is thus the only one capable of preventing history from repeating itself.
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| 5. Which character do you identify most with and why? |
Dors the robot historian and protector of Doctor Seldon. Because she thinks like a historian and sees everything in terms of human nature as well as historical precedence. Like judgements based on statistical analysis of case histories.
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| 6. If you could see a sequel to one of the author's books, which would it
be and what would it be about? |
Prelude to Foundation. If he were alive I'd ask him to rewrite the entire series. I'd leave that up to Asimov but he would only be able to write about things that stood up to all criticism and such as appear here in intelligent and thought out web pages such as this one. Infact, while he's at it he might as well rewrite the Prelude as well! ;)
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| 7. What do you like about author's writing style? |
He is very good at creating convincing and well thought out conversations between characters and keeping with each character's personality.
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| 8. What are your favorite themes of this author? |
The concept of Psychohistory and the Encylcopedia Galactica Foundation which is something SETI researchers have been after for years. Only this one is being written by us in the far off future! Very interesting concept. Most people believe we'll never do it on our own. That we'll need to first meet some super intelligent ETs to help us to a higher consciousness. But the reality is our consciousness doesn't evolve beyond the capacity of the biological shell it must be carried in. So if were ever going to do it we've gotta evolve physically as well as mentally. We need a Eugenics foundation before we can ever comprehend the reality of an Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation. We're already well on the way with the completed work of the Humane Genome Project.
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| 9. What could be most improved about this authors books? |
Read all of the above. He could use alot of the new info on WIMPS and MACHOS and dark matter and anti-matter and quarks and so on and so forth. Not to mention I think his ideas about the extent to which human societies or cultures once they've gone to be seperated by lightyears of space on different planets will diverge from each other was rather tame in comparison to the reality of it. We know that in less time than the empire existed human societies on just one planet diverged into many radically different languages and customs so different as to be actually alien to each other to the point of such incomprehensibility that it has taken us centuries just to sort it all out and settle our differences. And even now we still have our instinctive racial tensions and emotions. I think planetary seperation would enevitably lead to evolution in radically different directions for humans who never interbreed with eachother for tens of thousands of years just as has happened here on one planets over less than 50 thousand years EVEN WITH much interbreeding throughout the process! Imagaine with NO interbreeding at all!
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