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A review by docmon2025
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
2.0
I haven't read much classic science fiction, and have set out to try to rectify that. This title comes up a lot in that context. But I didn't appreciate this story perhaps as much as others do. I think part of that is that it is a product of the time in which it was written. Also, the story stalls out and the ending feels anti-climactic. I finished the book out of curiosity and simply the reputation of the book.
The book moves slowly. Forty years ago, an author had the luxury of developing characters and setting up the story. Today, we expect a faster-paced story. Characters had discussions about what was happening (instead of things happening) and much time was spent on the history of the project they were working on. It feels like a lot of time passes before anything really happens, although I won't say the story doesn't start right away.
The story leans heavily on dialogue, but the dialogue often didn't seem to be relevant to the larger story. My bigger problem was that the dialogue doesn't feel authentic. It felt like the characters were reciting lines, and often they were rather melodramatic. Because of that, it was hard to ever get fully engrossed in the story.
This novel is more like three connected but separate short stories. Because we get a new set of characters in each part, we have to start all over again with some characterization and set up. So it slows down again with each new part.
Part 2 is odd, especially at first. The aliens are so well crafted as *alien* that I had trouble relating to the characters. I was just observing. Eventually, things start happening, just when I thought I might skim, and connecting to the end of part 1.
Part 3 seems to jump ahead in time a bit. This part involves mostly new characters. We only see one character again from the beginning.
One side note: the Lunar culture is portrayed as having already shed many cultural conventions of those living on Earth, including wearing clothes. I've noticed this trend in books written at the same time. There seems to have been this idea that in the future certain cultural conventions would just be set aside by most of the population because they served no practical purpose. There was no sense of the force of culture itself, the hold that culture has on the psyche. Those that grew up on the moon were raised by those who grew up in an Earth culture, or who were themselves raised by those from Earth, and so would still be raised within an Earth-based culture. In two generations, they would not feel so separate as to feel no need for clothes simply because their environment is controlled. The clothes we wear are part of every Earth culture. They do not have a solely practical purpose. They define you as part of a culture. People don't shed culture so quickly. Clothing would adapt and evolve but not be abandoned. It makes this all seem a little ridiculous.
Part 3 was the most ambiguous and slow moving of the three. There was something happening, but in increments. Small steps, a hint in one conversation, a small revelation in another. Many conversations seem unrelated or shrouded in mysteries that aren't really resolved. It really just got tedious and I just wanted to be finished. Sorry, not my cup of tea, I guess.
The book moves slowly. Forty years ago, an author had the luxury of developing characters and setting up the story. Today, we expect a faster-paced story. Characters had discussions about what was happening (instead of things happening) and much time was spent on the history of the project they were working on. It feels like a lot of time passes before anything really happens, although I won't say the story doesn't start right away.
The story leans heavily on dialogue, but the dialogue often didn't seem to be relevant to the larger story. My bigger problem was that the dialogue doesn't feel authentic. It felt like the characters were reciting lines, and often they were rather melodramatic. Because of that, it was hard to ever get fully engrossed in the story.
This novel is more like three connected but separate short stories. Because we get a new set of characters in each part, we have to start all over again with some characterization and set up. So it slows down again with each new part.
Spoiler
Part 1 seems to be the set up of the problem. The scientists discover the communication with the other universe and that it can supply endless free energy. We meet the scientists involved in the discovery and the discovery by one of them that this energy might not be so free after all.Part 2 is odd, especially at first. The aliens are so well crafted as *alien* that I had trouble relating to the characters. I was just observing. Eventually, things start happening, just when I thought I might skim, and connecting to the end of part 1.
Part 3 seems to jump ahead in time a bit. This part involves mostly new characters. We only see one character again from the beginning.
One side note: the Lunar culture is portrayed as having already shed many cultural conventions of those living on Earth, including wearing clothes. I've noticed this trend in books written at the same time. There seems to have been this idea that in the future certain cultural conventions would just be set aside by most of the population because they served no practical purpose. There was no sense of the force of culture itself, the hold that culture has on the psyche. Those that grew up on the moon were raised by those who grew up in an Earth culture, or who were themselves raised by those from Earth, and so would still be raised within an Earth-based culture. In two generations, they would not feel so separate as to feel no need for clothes simply because their environment is controlled. The clothes we wear are part of every Earth culture. They do not have a solely practical purpose. They define you as part of a culture. People don't shed culture so quickly. Clothing would adapt and evolve but not be abandoned. It makes this all seem a little ridiculous.
Part 3 was the most ambiguous and slow moving of the three. There was something happening, but in increments. Small steps, a hint in one conversation, a small revelation in another. Many conversations seem unrelated or shrouded in mysteries that aren't really resolved. It really just got tedious and I just wanted to be finished. Sorry, not my cup of tea, I guess.