Foundation

Jun. 10th, 2022 03:08 am
lhexan: a fox so disgusted that he shatters the planet (overcoming bad taste)
[personal profile] lhexan
From a comment on Madison Scott-Clary's Patreon account.

I read Asimov's Foundation in graduate school and found it awful. There was a scene that sticks with me in which one professor tells another to calculate the future of humanity based on such and such assumptions, and the other one pulls out a pocket calculator and does so in the space of a paragraph.

Foundation was an unholy combination of Marxism and Great Man theory. It was Marxist in that it claimed humanity passes through a deterministic series of historical phases, each defined by conflict between certain classes. Then it also claimed that each such phase ended with a (calculable) fulcrum requiring a Great Man to resolve correctly.

The only good thing I'm inclined to say about Foundation is that it was (I think) the first novel to portray scientists as heroes.

Date: 2022-12-04 03:09 am (UTC)
ergos: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ergos
Perhaps, if you like reading sci-fi, may I allow you to fall into the Greg Egan rabbit hole.

Here it is : https://www.gregegan.net/

Personally, my favorite book is Dichronaut

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 123 456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Dec. 31st, 2025 03:30 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios