The Hugos: Foundation's Edge

Smart dude, that Isaac Asimov.

Him giant brain win heap big Hugo award 1983. Me think it worth 3 stars on goodreads!

I mentioned already that I liked his robot detective stories when I was a kid, right? Please don't think I'm the lowest common denominator. (I am. I really am.)

For a more insightful review than mine, go here.

Foundation's Edge was not a favourite, nor did I actively dislike it. It's not in my library anymore, but it's readily available if I need it again someday.

It's pretty good, worth my time and probably yours. The whole series, if you please. It's not going to make a lick of sense on its own.

Asimov, Arthur Clarke, and Robert Heinlein were known as 'The Big Three' of science fiction. This might be unfair, but to me Asimov is the third guy. (The Hugo people felt exactly the opposite in 1983, with Clarke's '2010' and Heinlein's 'Friday' nominated but never the bride. Sniff.)

There's few thrills and very little juiciness in this leisurely paced, lecture-filled mystery adventure thousands of years in the future.

Fourth in the lengthy but excellent 'Foundation' series, which has concerned itself with the collapse and rebuilding of a galactic human civilization based on either physical strength or mental force in competition. All under the auspices of the scientific predictions or "psychohistory" of a dead man's hologram. (Hari Seldon, shown here being enigmatic.)

'Foundation's Edge' postulates the formation of a galaxy-encompassing group mind where peace and harmony may be achieved by means of everybody sharing consciousness with everything else.

Yeeurgh.

Do YOU want to feel what a carrot feels while you eat it? I personally have no wish to experience deep sea angler fish sex. Or worse, LOWER life forms! Don't make me use Kardashian neural impulses or swap mentalic energy with Tiger Blood Sheen!

I'm not convinced sharing our every stupid thought is the true road to universal peace.

(PROVE ME WRONG, TWITTER!)

You wouldn't want to live in my head and frankly I don't have enough couch space in there, not even for the weekend. Stop asking!

Asimov's Galaxia model may be superior to rule by brute force.

Or simply a fine excuse for doddering old scholar Janov Pelorat to do the nasty with group-mind aficionado and local hottie Blissenobiarella. (Bliss for short.)

Group-mind girls just LOVE big brains!

And when you're doing it with a group mind, it REALLY is the nasty.