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16 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Prelude to Foundation

Forward the foundation

The Foundation

Foundation and Empire

The Second Foundation

Foundation's Edge

Foundation and Earth

There are also references to the Foundation series in other Asimov books to tie it all into the same universe.  So, the Robot series and the Spacers should also be read to help get some background.

I've tried the first Foundation book, but for "hard" science fiction it was too full of problems to take seriously. For example, how can a society which possesses interstellar spaceflight not have nuclear energy - and be envious of other planets that do?

Also why do Seldon's "crises" seem to come up in conveniently round numbers of years?

In fact the unquestioned assumption that the "year" should be a universal measure of time crops up a lot in science fiction. This is one reason I could never get into Star Trek Voyager: Kes (whose people, the Ocampa, only live about 9 years) sometimes talked about what would happen to her body in "the second year" or "the third year"; why would she enumerate time in multiples of the orbital period of a planet the other side of the galaxy which her people have never heard of? For a while I comforted myself with the idea that perhaps she was talking about her own planet's "years" (which may be about 10 Earth years) but it's made clear eventually that her years are the same as those understood by the Voyager crew. The only solution left is that "years" is actually an artefact of the ship's universal translator - which it now seems translates complex ideas as well as words. Well OK - I could just about buy this but...

...in the episode where we saw people in the delta quadrant using seven segment LED displays, the final threads of credibility were gone for good! 

Edited by Jamie123
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44 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

I've tried the first Foundation book, but for "hard" science fiction it was too full of problems to take seriously. For example, how can a society which possesses interstellar spaceflight not have nuclear energy - and be envious of other planets that do?

Also why do Seldon's "crises" seem to come up in conveniently round numbers of years?

In fact the unquestioned assumption that the "year" should be a universal measure of time crops up a lot in science fiction. This is one reason I could never get into Star Trek Voyager: Kes (whose people, the Ocampa, only live about 9 years) sometimes talked about what would happen to her body in "the second year" or "the third year"; why would she enumerate time in multiples of the orbital period of a planet the other side of the galaxy which her people have never heard of? For a while I comforted myself with the idea that perhaps she was talking about her own planet's "years" (which may be about 10 Earth years) but it's made clear eventually that her years are the same as those understood by the Voyager crew. The only solution left is that "years" is actually an artefact of the ship's universal translator - which it now seems translates complex ideas as well as words. Well OK - I could just about buy this but...

...in the episode where we saw people in the delta quadrant using seven segment LED displays, the final threads of credibility were gone for good! 

How do you feel about the book or film, The Martian? 

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2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

I've tried the first Foundation book, but for "hard" science fiction it was too full of problems to take seriously. For example, how can a society which possesses interstellar spaceflight not have nuclear energy - and be envious of other planets that do?

Also why do Seldon's "crises" seem to come up in conveniently round numbers of years?

In fact the unquestioned assumption that the "year" should be a universal measure of time crops up a lot in science fiction. This is one reason I could never get into Star Trek Voyager: Kes (whose people, the Ocampa, only live about 9 years) sometimes talked about what would happen to her body in "the second year" or "the third year"; why would she enumerate time in multiples of the orbital period of a planet the other side of the galaxy which her people have never heard of? For a while I comforted myself with the idea that perhaps she was talking about her own planet's "years" (which may be about 10 Earth years) but it's made clear eventually that her years are the same as those understood by the Voyager crew. The only solution left is that "years" is actually an artefact of the ship's universal translator - which it now seems translates complex ideas as well as words. Well OK - I could just about buy this but...

...in the episode where we saw people in the delta quadrant using seven segment LED displays, the final threads of credibility were gone for good! 

The nuclear energy thing was actually explained in the books.  But it was a poor explanation given what he said about hyperdrive.

The round number of years was for story-telling purposes.  This is one that the reader can suspend his disbelief on.

The keeping of time was explained in the last two books.  In this series only humans inhabit the galaxy.  They started from earth and it was just one of those legacy items that just kept going.

Star Trek also standardized time for storytelling purposes.  They would from time to time say "your earth hours" or "your earth years".  But that got tedious.  It distracted from the flow of the story.  So, we suspend our disbelief on things like this. BTW, they also addressed differences in time-keeping every once in a while.

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1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

The keeping of time was explained in the last two books.  In this series only humans inhabit the galaxy.  They started from earth and it was just one of those legacy items that just kept going.

It's a while since I read it, but wasn't there some disagreement between the characters about which solar system the human species originated from? They mentioned several possibilities, of which "Sol" was one.

Maybe Earth itself no longer exists, or maybe its orbit has shifted so it is no longer obvious that this was originally the definition of a year.

(On second thoughts ignore that last speculation - I'm picking for spoilers here!)

Edited by Jamie123
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42 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

It's a while since I read it, but wasn't there some disagreement between the characters about which solar system the human species originated from? They mentioned several possibilities, of which "Sol" was one.

Maybe Earth itself no longer exists, or maybe its orbit has shifted so it is no longer obvious that this was originally the definition of a year.

If you only read the first book, you wouldn't have come across it.  By that era (that of the last couple of books) "Earth" was so far back in legend that only some historians even knew the word as a name.  It was simply another word for dirt.

They looked for Earth.  The historian had "some ideas".  Based on this, he knew of a planet called Gaia.  He learned that this was an alternate name for Earth in a different tongue long forgotten.  So, they went to Gaia and discovered it was not Earth.  I believe it was a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri.  Then they found earth and that it had been completely destroyed (rendered uninhabitable).  The nuclear fallout still being present was completely false science.

One of the things the historian mentioned was that the planet had to have exactly 24 standard hours per rotation. He asked the question,"Have you ever wondered why our bodies are attuned to that amount of time per cycle no matter which planet we're on?"  He explained that it had to do with humanity's ancient home.  Likewise he talked about the standard year being what the earth originally had as it's orbital period around it's star.

I did note that given the extreme time frame of the storyline, he didn't take into account orbital decay and slowing of planetary rotation.  It would be insignificant in our history.  But the extreme time period we're talking about where earth was forgotten into legends so obscure that only a few even knew it was their ancient home...

Edited by Guest
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6 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

In fact the unquestioned assumption that the "year" should be a universal measure of time crops up a lot in science fiction. This is one reason I could never get into Star Trek Voyager: Kes (whose people, the Ocampa, only live about 9 years) sometimes talked about what would happen to her body in "the second year" or "the third year"; why would she enumerate time in multiples of the orbital period of a planet the other side of the galaxy which her people have never heard of? For a while I comforted myself with the idea that perhaps she was talking about her own planet's "years" (which may be about 10 Earth years) but it's made clear eventually that her years are the same as those understood by the Voyager crew. The only solution left is that "years" is actually an artefact of the ship's universal translator - which it now seems translates complex ideas as well as words. Well OK - I could just about buy this but...

...in the episode where we saw people in the delta quadrant using seven segment LED displays, the final threads of credibility were gone for good! 

When you're watching speculative Sci-Fi TV things like that have to be taken for granted because they're not important to the story, and realism will always take a back seat to plot requirements and viewer clarity.  Every single alien species would have a different idea of units of measure so it would get old real fast if we had to frequently spend time on unit conversions between them and the Starfleet crew.  With only 45 minutes of air time to work with, stuff like that just gets in the way.  It might satisfy the viewers who like the realism of harder Sci-Fi but the point of Star Trek is to tell stories, not to simulate the future.

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16 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

I've tried the first Foundation book, but for "hard" science fiction it was too full of problems to take seriously. For example, how can a society which possesses interstellar spaceflight not have nuclear energy - and be envious of other planets that do?

Also why do Seldon's "crises" seem to come up in conveniently round numbers of years?

In fact the unquestioned assumption that the "year" should be a universal measure of time crops up a lot in science fiction. This is one reason I could never get into Star Trek Voyager: Kes (whose people, the Ocampa, only live about 9 years) sometimes talked about what would happen to her body in "the second year" or "the third year"; why would she enumerate time in multiples of the orbital period of a planet the other side of the galaxy which her people have never heard of? For a while I comforted myself with the idea that perhaps she was talking about her own planet's "years" (which may be about 10 Earth years) but it's made clear eventually that her years are the same as those understood by the Voyager crew. The only solution left is that "years" is actually an artefact of the ship's universal translator - which it now seems translates complex ideas as well as words. Well OK - I could just about buy this but...

...in the episode where we saw people in the delta quadrant using seven segment LED displays, the final threads of credibility were gone for good! 

asimov was more conceptual, while he kept up with astronomical science of the day pretty well, he didn't come up with many explanations of the nitty gritty of machines or sci fi physics too much.
Why would race or culture who has hyperspacial travel capabilities not have nuclear power? well in a lot of sci fi universes atomic physics tends to be pretty low on the tech totem pole so theoretically it could be to some race like how making obsidian arrowheads is to us in these times.... altho why such a culture would want it beyond for academic historical reasons i can't think of any plausible scenario.

You may want to try the novel "A mission of Gravity"

Edited by Blackmarch
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correction i can think of a reason why a high tech race would want something low tech- high tech computer virus or something that only affects certain components of whatever is unique to that tech that disables or destroys it... in which case a lower tech alternative would become much more desirable especially if things are getting desperate. (thank you Niven, lol)

 

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  • 9 months later...

'Heartstone' by C J Sansom(2010) - almost finished. This is part of a series centred around a London lawyer in Tudor times. I would recommend anyone interested to begin with the novel 'Dissolution'(2003) and go from there. Much drama, mystery, political intrigue(the central character is linked to the Court) and early modern English atmosphere. Grim in places, but not nearly as much as the author's more modern story, 'Dominion'.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally got around to reading the Sanderson books in the Wheel of Time series.  If I had not known there was an author change, I'd think that the editor had changed.  The narratives of the battle sequences were SO much better, SO much more engaging.  The feeling you got from the verbiage was more intense than anything Jordan had written before.

I also wonder just how much Jordon wrote of it, and how much Sanderson wrote.  While the overall philosophies still stayed within the WoT world, there were some LDS themes in there that were also found in his Stormlight Archives series.

After finishing them I thought I had just gotten done with a 48 hr work day.  I was just tired.  I was somewhat disappointed that (someone) died.  Not because I was involved with the character, but because the death made no sense.  It simply wouldn't have happened that way.  It would have been much more believable to have several other main characters die.  But none of them did.  And there was much more purpose for her to live than anyone else.

And then, the one death that made the most sense, which everyone was expecting, didn't happen.  That denied us a really good death scene.  I was hoping for one to rival the Wrath of Kahn (which I believe was the most poignant death scene in cinematic history).

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1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I also wonder just how much Jordon wrote of it, and how much Sanderson wrote.

OK, I didn't read all your post cuz, um, SPOILER ALERT! Dude!  (No, I haven't gotten around to them yet.)

My understanding from back just after Jordan died and I was desperate for the rest of the story is that Jordan knew he wouldn't be able to finish, had outlined the rest of the story, and had verbally told the story to his family, who recorded this event (whether audio or video, I can't remember).  Jordan's wife made the final decision on selecting Sanderson to finish the books.  I assume all that was given to Sanderson.

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39 minutes ago, zil said:

OK, I didn't read all your post cuz, um, SPOILER ALERT! Dude!  (No, I haven't gotten around to them yet.)

My understanding from back just after Jordan died and I was desperate for the rest of the story is that Jordan knew he wouldn't be able to finish, had outlined the rest of the story, and had verbally told the story to his family, who recorded this event (whether audio or video, I can't remember).  Jordan's wife made the final decision on selecting Sanderson to finish the books.  I assume all that was given to Sanderson.

Ok. I believe I removed any real spoilers.  I made every comment as generic as I could.  But I'm surprised that you were even interested because you said you don't read fantasy anymore.

Yes, I'm aware of the stories around Jordan/Sanderson.  But the level of detail simply couldn't have been conveyed.  Sanderson said

Quote

I haven't tried to copy Jordan's style.  Instead, I've modified my own style to fit the Wheel of Time world.

That means that entire scenes weren't entirely scripted.  The idea of what happened and who did what were outlined.  But the actual wording and narrative were Sanderson's.  He also said he had problems with sticking to the outline because he was so involved in fan-fic, that he found it too tempting to put something in there because fans would love to see this or that.  And he had to go back and stick with the outline Jordan had given him.

Still, the actual wording of conversations and some lines of reasoning would be written by Sanderson.  The skeleton was still Jordan.  But the flesh and blood were Sanderson's.

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24 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

because you said you don't read fantasy anymore.

When and where did I say that?  Cuz if I said that, we need to track it down and find out what I was on at the time.  Fantasy, Sue Grafton, and L.E. Modesitt's science fiction are the only fiction I read anymore.

 

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15 minutes ago, zil said:

When and where did I say that?  Cuz if I said that, we need to track it down and find out what I was on at the time.  Fantasy, Sue Grafton, and L.E. Modesitt's science fiction are the only fiction I read anymore.

Honestly, I can't find it.  Maybe I read it wrong or I got you mixed up with another poster, because I DID find some of your posts saying that you did read fantasy.

oops.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

"One Hundred Years of Solitude", Gabriel García Márquez ...multi-generational story of a family, with mystical aspects. I read the English translation, the original is in Spanish.

"Shipping News", Annie Proulx ...movie is pretty good too. Poor clumsy Quoyle, who's life in general seems jinxed, gets a break (sort of) writing for a small town newspaper in Newfoundland, which gets him involved in the small town happenings. One of my favorite parts is where he buys a small boat, as the whole town gets from place to place, via personal watercraft, so he decides he needs a boat. Being Quoyle, he buys a boat that is not nearly meant for ocean travel, to which one of the townspeople tells him, 'that's not a boat, that's a coffin'. Of course, the boat sinks the first time out, and Quoyle clings to a floating cooler that just happened to be there...and then the cooler turns out to be The Clue that a murder had taken place. (ha). A local salt, gets a 'feeling' that Quoyle is in trouble and saves him from the cold waters of Newfoundland.

"Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck ...a poor family in depression-era USA trying to make it. Really, a masterpiece.

"Dandelion Wine", Ray Bradbury ..."a collection of life events tinged with a degree of fantasy" (wikipedia)

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  • 8 months later...
On 7/21/2016 at 1:06 AM, tesuji said:

One of the most edifying and entertaining lit novels I've read was The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Manzoni.

Ah, yes. Io non sono andata a cercare i guai: son loro che sono venuti a cercar me. ("I didn't go looking for trouble; trouble came looking for me.")

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