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Exactly this. The "characters" of foundation was pretty much just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each others on how amazingly t
by theshrike79 3y ago
Exactly this. The "characters" of foundation was pretty much just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each others on how amazingly their plans worked.
There's nothing for people to follow or root for, the characters are just vehicles for the story, they don't grow or have a much of a personality.
- brookst 3y agoYep, re-read the series a few years ago and was disappointed. Some amazing big ideas, without much to care about.
- dagw 3y agoI feel that 'Civilisation' was supposed to be the main character in the book, and you should be rooting for 'Civilisation' to survive and grow. The humans that come and go are bit players that are only relevant to the extent they help or hinder this main character.
- zellyn 3y agoI love how you put that! As a voracious reader of Asimov/Clarke/etc. as a kid, I can confirm that your description fits a depressingly large fraction of that era of SciFi. That kind of SciFi is at its best when the ideas (which are often the only thing that really matters) are so strong, they carry it all — Nightfall, Rendezvous with Rama — and at its worst when it's a bunch of “just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each other” (God, I love that description!). Even when the rest of one of his books is good, Heinlein can't resist inserting at least one pompous character just like that, and I can never believe it's not him! The more recent deluge of female/non-binary/asexual/etc. characters and authors in SciFi is such a breath of fresh air.