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A review by dee9401
Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
2.0
I read this when it came out in the early 80s and picked up a first edition hardcover of it for $6 from my local used bookstore. I’m pretty sure I loved it when it came out. I was on the waiting list at our local library and got it within a few weeks of release. I really enjoyed reading and then rereading The Foundation Trilogy so I was looking forward to reading this one again.
Sadly, it didn’t stand up to the test of "my" time. There's a lot of sexism, typical of scifi, even though we're starting to get a little later on in time (1982). The female archetypes used are so pathetic. We have a manipulative, scheming woman who's always wrong; a power-hungry older woman who thinks she's always right; and two "girls" whose real strengths are not based on their gender/biology but on things outside their control. Wow, I didn't notice that as a child, which is just sad on my part. As a child, I devoured Asimov’s Foundation books, and also ones like Colossus (D F Jones), A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller), and Friday (Heinlein). The stories were fast moving adventures, with lots of technology and crystal clear ideologies. I never really thought about what I was reading, but some of it I must have internalized. Reading with a more critical eye at a much later date, I'm surprised at a lot of the writing. Not all writers did this, so one can’t just say it was “the times.” But, many authors, especially science fiction ones, kept creating and recreating these stereotypes and philosophies. It’s no wonder we have things like “Gamergate” today.
The ending of this book also seemed to come out of nowhere in the final pages. And, it ended with a major hanging thread, explicitly meant as a hook for a sequel. Worse, the author's afterword was simply a tawdry hawking of his other books.
I did enjoy the opportunity to think about how well books survive over time. Science fiction books tend, in my opinion, to get dated very quickly, especially those with technological components. The whole Foundation series seems so “old-fashioned” now but at the time, it was at or beyond our scientific ken. Books like Neuromancer also fit into this. When it was published, it was trailblazing. But, I read it many years later, and the technology portions seemed quaint. On the flip side, the interpersonal relations, the human components, can go to great lengths in making a book timeless. I can still read books from the late 18th and early 19th century and relate to the people and activities in them (e.g. Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Byron, Percy Shelley, etc.).
Sadly, it didn’t stand up to the test of "my" time. There's a lot of sexism, typical of scifi, even though we're starting to get a little later on in time (1982). The female archetypes used are so pathetic. We have a manipulative, scheming woman who's always wrong; a power-hungry older woman who thinks she's always right; and two "girls" whose real strengths are not based on their gender/biology but on things outside their control. Wow, I didn't notice that as a child, which is just sad on my part. As a child, I devoured Asimov’s Foundation books, and also ones like Colossus (D F Jones), A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller), and Friday (Heinlein). The stories were fast moving adventures, with lots of technology and crystal clear ideologies. I never really thought about what I was reading, but some of it I must have internalized. Reading with a more critical eye at a much later date, I'm surprised at a lot of the writing. Not all writers did this, so one can’t just say it was “the times.” But, many authors, especially science fiction ones, kept creating and recreating these stereotypes and philosophies. It’s no wonder we have things like “Gamergate” today.
The ending of this book also seemed to come out of nowhere in the final pages. And, it ended with a major hanging thread, explicitly meant as a hook for a sequel. Worse, the author's afterword was simply a tawdry hawking of his other books.
I did enjoy the opportunity to think about how well books survive over time. Science fiction books tend, in my opinion, to get dated very quickly, especially those with technological components. The whole Foundation series seems so “old-fashioned” now but at the time, it was at or beyond our scientific ken. Books like Neuromancer also fit into this. When it was published, it was trailblazing. But, I read it many years later, and the technology portions seemed quaint. On the flip side, the interpersonal relations, the human components, can go to great lengths in making a book timeless. I can still read books from the late 18th and early 19th century and relate to the people and activities in them (e.g. Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Byron, Percy Shelley, etc.).