Conversation

So basically a furiously productive phase from 1939 to 1957 (ages 19 to 37), then a really long 25y sabbatical into nonfiction till ~1982 (ages 37 to 62), then a mature late life burst age 62-72 wrapping up his peak work neatly in a bundle with 6 keystone novels.
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Robots of Dawn is not great. Lots of kinda unnecessary sex-fetish stuff. Too much exposition. And looking now from a technique perspective, R. Giskard is a bit of a deus ex machina. He ties up every loose end in Asimoverse and is way too powerful. More so than Daneel.
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Still, it’s elegantly done and Giskard is a well-crafted character. Despite being basically the closest thing to a god in Asimoverse, he’s kinda interesting. On to reread of Robots and Empire, the main keystone book.
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The cover of robots and empire, 1986, is kinda silly. But definitely very 80s. AFAIK the robots depicted have no relationship with the story.
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Didn’t pick up on this in previous read, but this book repeatedly emphasizes Baley’s uncanny future prediction instincts that weren’t mentioned in previous books. I think Asimov was kinda retconning protopsychic second foundation genes into Baley. I bet he’s Raych’s ancestor.
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This is a character continuity glitch. In previous books. Baley is a bit of a present focused type. He picks up distant future arguments from others.
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Some of this connective is a bit too on the nose. Giskard infers basic premises of psychohistory watching Gladia whip up a crowd on Baleyworld and concludes emotional contagion makes bigger crowds easier to control than smaller ones or individuals. Talk of autocatalytic effects.
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There’s some clear influence of 80s chaos theory in Asimov’s last books. Quite explicit in the Foundation preludes. Late retcon as opposed to 80s authors who used stuff like Prigognine’s physics as a starting point.
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The Ljje-Daneel bromance is really overdone in this book. Very heavy handed. I’d forgotten the deathbed scene, but this book really sets Lije Bailey up as the of prophet of psychohistory. Like Moses to Seldon’s Jesus or something.
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The plot of Robots and Empire involves the three mile island disaster as the trigger for Earth’s turn away from fission power. It was written in 1985, 6 years after the accident and a year before Chernobyl.
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If the book had been published just a little later, Chernobyl would have made way more sense as the historical reference point. Funny how such plot choices date a book and the future it imagines.
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Finished. The ending still packs a bit of an emotional punch on the reread. Much of the book is long dialogues between Daneel and Giskard as they solve the mystery, but with way more philosophical commentary than I remember. This is basically the theology book of Asimoverse.
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