Reviews

Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

rocky_jenkins's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Loved this book. 

derhindemith's review against another edition

3.0

It was good. Bit of a deus ex machina at the end, but I like the general conclusion that he comes up with to solve the problem he created.
As far as an Edgar Rice Burroughs-style exploratory novel, it was much better than the Lovecraft ones I read, so there's that…

clralmeidag's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

extrasmallburger's review against another edition

5.0

I absolutely loved this book, but in conjunction with all of the others. I really like how the last two followed specific characters while the other initial books set the stage for such an epic story. Everything felt truly believable and really clever while still being quite fantastic and out there. More than anything, this entire story just has such an amazing sense of scale in both time and the size of space. I also feel slightly less afraid of robots, which is always a plus :)

trid1977's review against another edition

2.0

I grew tired of the bickering between the characters. And the constant reminders of I/We/Gaia

tvrandhavane's review against another edition

4.0

Asimov is a scientist before he is a writer. And it reflects in this book. He poses problems to the characters, the characters discuss each possible solution objectively with their pros and cons. The characters question basic assumptions of things that are rooted deep in their background and come up with shortcomings just like scientists do. This book also contains a healthy debate about individualism. I really enjoyed reading this scientific side of Asimov.

The story is also fascinating with enough suspense and action. The ending was predictable but satisfying. One notable problem was that the chapter titles were spoilers and spoiled the suspense when discovering new/old worlds. For this reason, the book gets 4 stars instead of 5.

thebeardrew's review against another edition

3.0

The end of the Foundation story was pretty cool, and this story finally connected the foundation to the robot series. Even though that was pretty cool, I have some large complaints about this book.

It took forever for this book to get to something interesting. Most of the book felt like filler, empty space, while they hopped from world to world.

The while premise of looking for the Earth lost it's interest pretty quick. They had zero knowledge of pretty basic ideas, like the moon, or musical instruments, simply because it was 20,000 years into the future.

Lastly, this book was a little sexist. Every female character hooked up with one of the two main male characters at some point. And the main female character gets put in charge of parental duty when the group finds a kid.

inalamh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

duparker's review against another edition

2.0

I like sci fi, not a huge fantasy person, but in this case I fantasized I was done with this book about a quarter of the way through.

_rx_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0