isaac asimov – Cannonball Read 17

Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? The Foundation Trilogy

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

July 17, 2024 by HC 1 Comment

Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? is a self-imposed project in which I read pre-1990 science fiction novels and categorize them as “classis sci-fi you should read,” “classic sci-fi you should read if you’re all hardcore about it,” or “classic sci-fi you don’t have to read.” For background on my project, please see the introduction to my review of 1984. Foundation Synopsis Foundation was written by prolific sci-fi author Isaac Asimov in 1951. Like his I, Robot, the text consists of interrelated short stories set […]

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November 21, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Machine Gunners – 4/5 I picked up this book because it was on the Guardian’s top 1000 novels list and since I had never heard of it, it sounded interesting. It IS interesting, and it’s more interesting that the title might otherwise suggest to you. There’s some irony in the title because the would-be “machine gunners” are a group of raggedy London kids during the blitz. This group is mad as hell that the blitz has otherwise disrupted their childhood, and the novel does […]

November Odds and Ends

The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake

The Dark Tower by CS Lewis

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk

The Feathers of Death by Simon Raven

The Drowned Cities by Paulo Bacigalupi

Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

November 15, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Hot Rock – 3/5 Stars A farcical kind of heist book. John Dortmunder is getting out of prision and his old pal immediately brings him a caper to work on. Together with three other specialists, the friends will be stealing an emerald from a museum that has cultural and sentimental value for two warring African nations. One of the nations currently possesses the emerald, while the other is hiring the thieves. Paid a salary, plus the promise of a large reward, Dortmunder begins to […]

His name was Gaal Domick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

June 22, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a series of short stories starting off a novels series that comprises seven novels by Isaac Asimov and then three additional novels by David Brin. The stories take place in a “long empire” that has lasted some 10,000 plaus years but seems to be dying now. The first story, which was written last, discusses the ways in which the empire itself has sought to silence any analytic mention of the entropy of the empire itself and we watch as an academic who has […]

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

April 20, 2018 by narfna Leave a Comment

I really liked this book, in the way that I always enjoy thoughtful science fiction. Every once in a while, I enjoy a book designed solely to make you grapple with a question, and think, “what if?” The focus here isn’t on Asimov’s characters (though it DOES have actual characters in it, unlike the work of some 1950s sf authors). It’s actually impossible for this to be a character-centric book due the premise. Instead, the arc is on the Foundation itself, on tracing the decline […]

Every successful society is alike in that they die the slow death of excess and comfort.

September 7, 2016 by ingres77 8 Comments

Isaac Asimov was a ludicrously prolific author from the Golden Age of science fiction. He, along with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, has reached pantheonic levels of influence and esteem, and the Foundation series is perhaps his most cherished and well-read work. He ended up tying all his major works into a shared universe centered around this series, so it can be said that you can’t understand Asimov’s writing without first reading this book. And I thought it was okay. To be sure, there […]

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