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A review by countkarnstein
Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov
4.0
I DID IT!
I’ve always wanted to go through Asimov’s works and challenged myself to reading them all in ‘Asimov’s Recommended Reading Order’. This entailed reading the Robots series, then the Galactic Empire series, then the prequel Foundation series, then the actual Foundation series, then the sequel Foundation series. Oh and I read a third party series set in a prequel I, Robot setting as well by Mickey Zucker Reichert. I did grab some other written books in the I Robot world and may consider other writer’s contributions to the Foundation setting but for now I am done. What a journey.
I’d never read anything by Asimov before. I’d seen films and stuff credited to him but not much else did I know about his writings. Then I watched the first season of Foundation and I dug it a lot. Enough to finally stop me from kicking the tires and start this.
Honestly, I was not much of a murder mystery fan and so the start of the robot series was painful. It took me those books to come to dig his characters, ideas, and the setting. Eventually I even started to like the mystery style. It became comfort food. So much I read the Mickey Zucker Reichert series and bought up other writers robot books (that I haven’t read yet).
Next up was galactic empire and I was worried they’d be too old to enthrall me. Nope. I loved this series probably most of all.
Thirdly now we onto the three foundation series’. Started out fantastic. I was excited already going in because it had already taken me through so many novels to get to this place. However I hit a snag when the actual classic trilogy hit me. Sorry folks it sucked. I know it’s old but maybe I thought it’d be galactic empire good at least but no. I think the buildup from all those books made perhaps my expectations too out of reach. Ah well, it knocked me out of Asimov for a while and so the last books after that original trilogy took me a while to pick up. They were a good all around wrap up to the whole series. I appreciated the closure.
My recommendation perhaps? Mostly follow Asimov’s recommended reading order, but maybe do the original foundation trilogy first and hope that doesn’t deter you from continuing. I really loved and enjoyed all the rest!
I’ve always wanted to go through Asimov’s works and challenged myself to reading them all in ‘Asimov’s Recommended Reading Order’. This entailed reading the Robots series, then the Galactic Empire series, then the prequel Foundation series, then the actual Foundation series, then the sequel Foundation series. Oh and I read a third party series set in a prequel I, Robot setting as well by Mickey Zucker Reichert. I did grab some other written books in the I Robot world and may consider other writer’s contributions to the Foundation setting but for now I am done. What a journey.
I’d never read anything by Asimov before. I’d seen films and stuff credited to him but not much else did I know about his writings. Then I watched the first season of Foundation and I dug it a lot. Enough to finally stop me from kicking the tires and start this.
Honestly, I was not much of a murder mystery fan and so the start of the robot series was painful. It took me those books to come to dig his characters, ideas, and the setting. Eventually I even started to like the mystery style. It became comfort food. So much I read the Mickey Zucker Reichert series and bought up other writers robot books (that I haven’t read yet).
Next up was galactic empire and I was worried they’d be too old to enthrall me. Nope. I loved this series probably most of all.
Thirdly now we onto the three foundation series’. Started out fantastic. I was excited already going in because it had already taken me through so many novels to get to this place. However I hit a snag when the actual classic trilogy hit me. Sorry folks it sucked. I know it’s old but maybe I thought it’d be galactic empire good at least but no. I think the buildup from all those books made perhaps my expectations too out of reach. Ah well, it knocked me out of Asimov for a while and so the last books after that original trilogy took me a while to pick up. They were a good all around wrap up to the whole series. I appreciated the closure.
My recommendation perhaps? Mostly follow Asimov’s recommended reading order, but maybe do the original foundation trilogy first and hope that doesn’t deter you from continuing. I really loved and enjoyed all the rest!