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grindeych 's review for:

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
3.0
challenging mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What a weird read... Essentially a trilogy of connected but seperate stories. First an existential story of a man driven by spite to the creator to find a flaw in his new source of infinite energy, then a funky slightly gender-bendy story in a "para-universe" about a thrupple in a universe with totally different physical properties, then a love story wherein the solution to the problem is found.

The last, and longest, story falls the flattest, with a heap of written-by-a-man-syndrome and some eugenics-y stuff going on that I couldn't parse any views on if that was good or bad. The last story is also the least related to the second (and best) part of the book. One of the central pov characters sends a message which the reader read 80 pages ago in part 1, but then nothing is achieved by their communication and its barely referenced. On one hand i like the bleakness of that and its in keeping somewhat with the end of that story, but its also disappointing and means that the concepts built throughout the middle of the book have no relevance to the ending.