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larsinio 's review for:

The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov
2.0

Its asimov's first full length book and it shows. 2 stars because its just OK.

TSLD is a space hopping adventure in a big world thats seemingl ypopiulated with only a few characters. The scope felt big and small at the same time. Most of the book is spent trying to figure out new layers to the conspiracy. Dune-esque but certainly very far from Dune in terms of quality

As with other asimov books, TSLD handily fails the bechtel test. In fact i feel like Asimov made an effort to put as many stereotypes about women in there - clothing, perfumes, irratibilility, etc. Its definitely distracting.

The world building, descriptions, etc are pretty bland and detract from the book.

Asimov inserts a lot of real science throughout the book - how to plot coordinates in three dimensions, how stars work, etc. I appreciated some of this, but its a momentum killer. It seems like it was directly lifted from some other Asimov writings. He could have figured out a way to incorporate it better into the dialogue and plot. Sloppy.

The ending was so dumb, and just made me mad.