for the record, like almost all big classic sci-fi, these books (dune) are remarkably bigoted and reductive. i still like space stories and political intrigue tho.
alt text: Trade Offer from Sand Worm Leto Atreides. You receive: 4000 years of planet bound subjugation. Spice, eventually. Famine. Sex ninjas from outer space. Golden Path… I recieve: Like 70 something Duncan Idahos. Gentle Hwi.
Foundation by isaac asimov is pretty solid for its time and mostly holds up today
I liked it but there’s two main issues IMO
Leans really heavily into the “If you’re smart you should get to do whatever you want”
A complete lack of women characters which is particularly telling combined with point 1
It’s almost the definitive novel of classic Science Fiction, and I mean that in a lot of good and bad ways.
Interesting, i havent read it yet but i’d read about the plot generally, what people thought about it, and what kind of person the author was. I could definitely see how these would manifest in his writing based on what i’ve read. Im still gonna read it bc the premise is fascinating but im glad im going into it with a more critical mind. Thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
Even his male characters were paper thin. IA was more into how the sci-fi ideas affected everyone than individual characters.
I have only watched the Apple TV show and the main character is a woman. I’d have never known lol.
I haven’t watched it, but I have read the main series and the prequel novel Asimov wrote late in life. I believe that one takes place around the first season of the show (Seldon making his early psychohistory investigations and finding the Empire is doomed). He does start including women there. Second half of the second book also has a prominent female character.
Keep in mind that those early works were done as short stories for Astounding Science Fiction under the guise of John Campbell. He’s responsible for guiding the golden age of SF. Much of it was good in terms of stories and ideas, but he didn’t give two shits about female characters. In fact, he never pressed anyone to have characters of any gender to be thicker than cardboard. Finding an interesting character in that era is rare.
Tangentially related, but reading some of the more progressive books that contemporary were seen as promoting freedoms sometimes leaves the opposite impression because of how big the difference is between old times and now. But I saw that with the books from the beginning of XX^th century, Asimov is a bit less different if I remember correctly