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peregrinwho's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
A classic in sci-fi, and one I wanted to try after falling in love with the world in the tv show. Boy is this different. It's such a departure in fact, that I don't think it's right to compare the two, so I will be judging this strictly on its own.
The world is hardly different from our own back when this was written. The story focuses less on sci-fi and more uses the genre as a conduit to cover large swathes of time. If you don't care about characters and just want to explore the idea of psychohistory/mob psychology then this is very focused on that. It will, however, be so focused that everything is delivered in a bunch of smug monologues explaining why everyone else in the story is stupid. Interesting at first, I became fatigued by it near the end and found myself wanting a moment to breathe to enjoy the world set up for us. We're hopped through decades at a time and thus have to have the state of things explained to us repeatedly. It's a hard task, and one that's done well, but something to keep in mind. I'm going to continue to see where this goes. Hopefully there's more than one woman in the next book (doubtful) and there will be at least one scene where the room isn't clouded with cigar smoke (doubtful).
The world is hardly different from our own back when this was written. The story focuses less on sci-fi and more uses the genre as a conduit to cover large swathes of time. If you don't care about characters and just want to explore the idea of psychohistory/mob psychology then this is very focused on that. It will, however, be so focused that everything is delivered in a bunch of smug monologues explaining why everyone else in the story is stupid. Interesting at first, I became fatigued by it near the end and found myself wanting a moment to breathe to enjoy the world set up for us. We're hopped through decades at a time and thus have to have the state of things explained to us repeatedly. It's a hard task, and one that's done well, but something to keep in mind. I'm going to continue to see where this goes. Hopefully there's more than one woman in the next book (doubtful) and there will be at least one scene where the room isn't clouded with cigar smoke (doubtful).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia
Minor: Racial slurs, Suicide, and Misogyny
columbo's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Crazy how this was written in the 50s. Like there's aspects where it really shows, obsession with nuclear power, the plots about states falling into "barbarism" after an empire's collapse, and the only hope is science and ingenuity paving the way to another empire - a return to status quo, not a shining future. Still, played out over a series of vignettes over the history of the Foundation, each story was clever, interesting, and still contains good commentary.
Content Warnings
Moderate: War, Xenophobia, Gun violence, and Suicide
maeverose's review against another edition
Dnfed at 67%
TL;DR: I found it boring and it does in fact read like it was written in the 40s for a male-only audience.
I wanted to read the books after watching season one of the show because I really liked it, but unfortunately I found this book to be pretty boring. I really like the changes that they made for the show, tbh I think those changes make for a much more interesting story. Obviously I can’t fairly compare it to the books being as I couldn’t even finish the first one, but I already know based on what I did read that I personally prefer the show, and I’d rather not waste my time reading the books if I’m just gonna be bored…
As for my thoughts on what I did read: This book is all politics. Yes the show has a lot of politics as well but at least there are some breaks from it… Plus in the show I felt much more invested in the characters and therefore the plot. I felt zero connection to the characters in the book because we didn’t get to know them at all. They’re also almost all old men. I did know going in that there were no female characters but it just feels so strange to read a book where you hardly know if women even exist because they’re never mentioned… It’s also super dialogue heavy. There’s very little description of the environment, people’s thoughts, or what’s actually happening visually. Which I think added to my boredom. Not that I expected poetic writing but some description would’ve been nice.
Sorry to all the cishet dudebros out there who will get mad at this review lol (except I’m not actually sorry..)
TL;DR: I found it boring and it does in fact read like it was written in the 40s for a male-only audience.
I wanted to read the books after watching season one of the show because I really liked it, but unfortunately I found this book to be pretty boring. I really like the changes that they made for the show, tbh I think those changes make for a much more interesting story. Obviously I can’t fairly compare it to the books being as I couldn’t even finish the first one, but I already know based on what I did read that I personally prefer the show, and I’d rather not waste my time reading the books if I’m just gonna be bored…
As for my thoughts on what I did read: This book is all politics. Yes the show has a lot of politics as well but at least there are some breaks from it… Plus in the show I felt much more invested in the characters and therefore the plot. I felt zero connection to the characters in the book because we didn’t get to know them at all. They’re also almost all old men. I did know going in that there were no female characters but it just feels so strange to read a book where you hardly know if women even exist because they’re never mentioned… It’s also super dialogue heavy. There’s very little description of the environment, people’s thoughts, or what’s actually happening visually. Which I think added to my boredom. Not that I expected poetic writing but some description would’ve been nice.
Sorry to all the cishet dudebros out there who will get mad at this review lol (except I’m not actually sorry..)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence and Suicide
Moderate: Fatphobia, Gore, Misogyny, Violence, Ableism, Confinement, Sexism, War, Xenophobia, and Colonisation
Minor: Animal death
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