I only read the first one and didn’t really like it. From what I remember (not much) it’s just full of “plot twists” where some smoking guy randomly appears and tell the protagonists “haha, I predicted you’d do this” and then “hah, I predicted you’d know that I’d predict your next move and you’d do something different!”.
I don’t know, I like the setup and the beginning but after a while it seemed silly to me.
It’s kinda competency porn. The heroes solve problems by being clever and predicting their opponents moves. The generational aspect, where it follows multiple characters over long periods of time, is also interesting. I really like the series, and now that I think of it it’s probably no coincidence that I also like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
I think it’s a touch more nuanced than that but yes the plot does follow Hari Seldon’s creation of a school of thought and study called psychohistory.
The main plot is that humanity would be plunged into 30,000 years of dark ages full of bad shit but Seldon believes following his plan it can be shortened to only 1,000 years of real bad times for the schmucks born then.
Like you said, one of the themes the books talk about is the paradox of knowing the future and if you can or can’t change it. If you know the future and do something to change it to be different from what you predicted - does that mean you did or did not actually know the future?
Personally I didn’t care for the series specifically because I thought the concept was really goddamn stupid, but finished it anyways simply because I thought it was well done despite the premise grating on me from beginning to end.
Masochistic tendencies aside, I think that’s in effect a pretty solid endorsement?
Read the first if nothing else just to see if you buy the premise.
As long as you remember that Asimov straight up hated women when he wrote the first novel, got engaged and realized women are slightly more than baby making machines and slowly improved from there.
I only read the first one and didn’t really like it. From what I remember (not much) it’s just full of “plot twists” where some smoking guy randomly appears and tell the protagonists “haha, I predicted you’d do this” and then “hah, I predicted you’d know that I’d predict your next move and you’d do something different!”.
I don’t know, I like the setup and the beginning but after a while it seemed silly to me.
It’s kinda competency porn. The heroes solve problems by being clever and predicting their opponents moves. The generational aspect, where it follows multiple characters over long periods of time, is also interesting. I really like the series, and now that I think of it it’s probably no coincidence that I also like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
If you like generational stories, I suggest Ken Follet’s Kingsbridge and Century series of novels.
I think it’s a touch more nuanced than that but yes the plot does follow Hari Seldon’s creation of a school of thought and study called psychohistory.
The main plot is that humanity would be plunged into 30,000 years of dark ages full of bad shit but Seldon believes following his plan it can be shortened to only 1,000 years of real bad times for the schmucks born then.
Like you said, one of the themes the books talk about is the paradox of knowing the future and if you can or can’t change it. If you know the future and do something to change it to be different from what you predicted - does that mean you did or did not actually know the future?
Personally I didn’t care for the series specifically because I thought the concept was really goddamn stupid, but finished it anyways simply because I thought it was well done despite the premise grating on me from beginning to end.
Masochistic tendencies aside, I think that’s in effect a pretty solid endorsement?
Read the first if nothing else just to see if you buy the premise.
As long as you remember that Asimov straight up hated women when he wrote the first novel, got engaged and realized women are slightly more than baby making machines and slowly improved from there.