Foundation - too dated? (issaac Asimov)

[j d worthington]

Ah. Thanks for the clarification on that. We may be speaking at cross-purposes. I suppose I'm using the term "idealism" in a somewhat different sense, of having a moral center to writing, a worldview that recognizes that some things are more ethically-based than others, and therefore likely to be more beneficial, rather than the more limited "ideal" not necessarily grounded in reality.

(At least, that's how I read your comment -- that the idealism you're mentioning is more esoteric and not necessarily related to observable reality; rather an abstract philosophical point. Please correct me if I'm wrong....)

 

[iansales]

One point I'd like to address, though, is that Space Opera was actually something that came along quite a bit before Isaac's Foundation stories -- different people have been credited with inventing the form, but the most famous (and one who certainly deserves serious consideration as the one who gave us the space opera as we know it) is E. E. "Doc" Smith, which his Skylark of Space series, back in the 1930s.

Ha. I get to correct JD

The term "space opera" was coined by Wilson Tucker, and was originally derogatory and referred to hackeneyed "spaceship yarns" - a play on "horse opera" for bad westerns. The definition has changed many times since then. At one point, for example, it meant "Bat Durston" westerns in space. Smith probably called what he wrote "hard sf", although it doesn't fit the current meaning of that term. (You probably knew this, though.)

Oh, and the earliest fiction that meets the current definition of space opera is probably Edmond Hamilton's.

The Space Opera Renaissance by David G Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer charts the history of the sub-genre. Some of its contents are pretty dire (the Edmond Hamilton, for example; and an early Jack Williamson); and I disagree with the editors' attempts to deny that New British Space Opera ever existed... But there is some excellent fiction in the anthology - and the best of it, strangely enough, is New and British

 

[j d worthington]

LOL! Touché! Yes, that's true... Hamilton certainly did stories of this sort, and I believe you're right that they were actually earlier than Smith's.

By the way, as a point of interest, I understand that Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars is considered a "proto-space opera"; have you ever read it? I've not, and would be curious to hear your take on it if you have....

 

[iansales]

By the way, as a point of interest, I understand that Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars is considered a "proto-space opera"; have you ever read it? I've not, and would be curious to hear your take on it if you have....

I've come across mention of the book, but I've not read it. I'm not entirely sure I want to - the Hamilton and Williamson stories in The Space Opera Renaissance made my eyes bleed

 

[j d worthington]

I've come across mention of the book, but I've not read it. I'm not entirely sure I want to - the Hamilton and Williamson stories in The Space Opera Renaissance made my eyes bleed

LOL! Hmmm. You should see HPL's comments on Ed Hamilton's fiction some time....

 

[iansales]

I vaguely recall reading a later work by Hamilton many years ago - published under the Venture SF imprint, IIRC. Can't remember the title, or in fact anything about the book; but I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as the story in The Space Opera Renaissance.

 

[j d worthington]

I'll 'fess up to a liking for Hamilton myself -- but, then, I have a fondness for quite a lot of the sf of that period, for all its flaws. There was a naive intensity to it that I find charming. Not great (or even necessarily good) literature, a lot of it, but I do tend to enjoy it, nonetheless.

If you've not read it, the Asimov-edited anthology Before the Golden Age presents a very good idea of the spectrum of writing, from the Burroughsian stuff by people like S. P. Meek or Charles R. Tanner, to things like Leinster's "Sidewise in Time" or Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror" or Cliff Simak's "World of the Red Sun". It's a good view of the shifting paradigm of sf of the period, and a huge book....

 

[iansales]

I think I've read that. I've certainly read an Asimov-edited anthology of Golden Age sf. It included a story by Rocklynne which fitted Tucker's original definition of space opera...

 

[ObiJohn]

I also found Foundation ponderous when I read it.

I dont think this is because of the technology, but rather because sci-fi literature is better written these days.

If you're looking for a glitzy, superficial story, with shiny technology to drive the plot (if there even is one), and characters with dialog and attitudes which could be plucked straight from any daytime TV "drama", then yes you probably would enjoy sci-fi other than Asimov.

If, on the other hand, you want a story with philosophical depth, and a plot which serves the underlying ideas, ideas which make you think and which stay with you long after you've laid the book to rest, then you can't get much better than Asimov.

It's very similar to classical music. Someone who does not have any fundamental appreciation for the complexities and mastery of the art almost always find it boring and even laughable. When it is done well, it appears to the unsophisticated that it lacks substance. A Bach fugue typically sounds "pretty" but "boring" to someone uneducated in baroque music. But to someone who takes the time to study it, the mathematical relationships between the voices, which still manages to sound "pretty", is pure and utter genius.

I cannot draw a better analogy than the above. Asimov is so gifted at his craft that it can seem unsophisticated, or even "ponderous" as you put it, to the casual reader. When truly you realize what he has done with a story, how every element was carefully crafted to fit together like a grand fugue, you simply cannot possibly take a flippant statement like "sci-fi literature is better written these days" with any seriousness.