I think a lot of Asimov can be rewritten much more powerfully by removing the editorial+magazine constraints he was working under, taking his extensive commentary on his own learnings/intentions as a guide. He’s surprisingly *not* as much of a product of his time as it seems.
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In fact, he’s a lot more modern than many contemporary authors who might superficially seem more modern by having more diversity/gender-balance out of the box etc. That stuff is trivial to update. But lack of good bones can’t be fixed. The best Asimov stories have great bones.
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On to reread of Currents of Space
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Hehe Asimov foresaw a space future with sporks and food in jellied briquet form factors like those horrifying 1950s jell-o recipes for “salads”
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Now halfway through Currents of Space. It’s much better than I remember. Kyrt was the OG spice. Florina is a better Arrakis. The oligarchy of Sark is more interesting than Attreides-Harkonnen intrigues. I only wish it had been 3x as long.
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The 3 Empire novels are like a sports training montage. They gesture at vastly more material than is in either robots or foundation. I want more of this filler. I’ll take 10 more empire novels.
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I think all the Asimoverse novels by other authors authorized by Asimov’s estate have focused on fkeshingboutbor bridging gaps in the grand arc. I haven’t read any but none seem to fill in more Empire stuff.
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Currents of Space is also a transparent retelling of the antebellum South story. Kyrt = cotton. There’s interesting language alluding to King Cotton and also foreshadowing “the spice must flow”
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There’s also some gesturing towards silk as a closely guarded Chinese secret, with the counterfactual twist that if Chinese had discovered silk couldn’t be made outside China fit mysterious reasons, they’d have stopped protecting it.
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By contrast, Dune’s spice is a mushroom allegory I think, with some vague gesturing at oil. Much less precise. Asimov is not given enough credit for drawing from all sorts of sources. The main Foundation arc is fall of Rome but he clearly drew from many other sources.
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Asimov’s MacGuffins also tend to have serious detail. Kyrt is not just a random commodity. It’s nature shapes the tale. The resolution of the plot has parallels to things like nylon disrupting silk. He drew on his chemistry training to make good MacGuffins. See also thiotomoline.
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Dune’s “spice” isn’t bad. It is required for hyperspace navigation and is responsible for various mystical powers in the heroes, but I prefer Asimov’s weirdly nerdy fake science detailing.
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The main awkward thing about Currents is a race inversion (the Florinians — equivalents of black slaves on cotton plantations— are white and Sarkite plantation oligarchs are dark skinned and there’s a half-assed attempt to frame the story as explicitly not having a race motive.
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It doesn’t work, but he tried! In 1952! And managed a story that would probably upset both sides of culture war today while drawing on US slavery history in a critical and sophisticated way where more recent stuff like Firefly goes for the easy uncritical antebellum romanticism.
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He wrote these 3 novels in a 2 year burst of inspiration. Remarkable. And found his own humanist political voice that’s clearly distinct from John W. Campbell’s or Heinlein’s.
Flawed human by today’s standards but he clearly tried to write boldly progressively for 1950-52.
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This is why, despite his technical inadequacies, he’s a seminal writer. Made the bold genre reinventing leaps called for by the times.
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