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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   2940 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm about halfway through Churchill's Savrola. It's basically a political conflict between authoritarian President Molara and democratic agitator Savrola, with a woman in the middle. It's actually engaging, though the dialogue can be quite stilted. The focus is on the game of ambition and the necessary qualities to win in it, and the characters seem divided on either side between the people who matter and the people who need a firm hand. Probably it is more fascinating than it otherwise would be because of who wrote it, but I think I would like it anyways.

Was it worth it? The struggle, the labour, the constant rush of affairs, the sacrifice of so many things that make life easy, or pleasant—for what? A people’s good! That, he could not disguise from himself, was rather the direction than the cause of his efforts. Ambition was the motive force, and he was powerless to resist it. He could appreciate the delights of an artist, a life devoted to the search for beauty, or of sport, the keenest pleasure that leaves no sting behind. To live in dreamy quiet and philosophic calm in some beautiful garden, far from the noise of men and with every diversion that art and intellect could suggest, was, he felt, a more agreeable picture. And yet he knew that he could not endure it. "Vehement, high, and daring" was his cast of mind. The life he lived was the only one he could ever live; he must go on to the end. The end comes often early to such men, whose spirits are so wrought that they know rest only in action, contentment in danger, and in confusion find their only peace.

Finished with The Decipherment of Linear B. Very interesting to see the brass tacks of how ancient scripts get deciphered in cases without bilingual texts or even knowing what language it is.

Now on The End of Eternity. First 2/3 were entertaining enough but nothing especially amazing. I think it might be picking up though. Asimov continues to write like an autist; fortunately, that means he can write autists well.

HE MET THE girl in a corridor one day and stood aside, eyes averted, to let her pass.

But she remained standing, looking at him, until he had to look up and meet her eyes. She was all color and life and Harlan was conscious of a faint perfume about her.

She said, “You’re Technician Harlan, aren’t you?”

His impulse was to snub her, to force his way past, but, after all, he told himself, all this wasn’t her fault. Besides, to move past her now would mean touching her.

So he nodded briefly. “Yes.”

“I’m told you’re quite an expert on our Time.”

“I have been in it.”

“I would love to talk to you about it someday.” “I am busy. I wouldn’t have time.”

“But Mr. Harlan, surely you could find time someday.”

She smiled at him.

Harlan said in a desperate whisper, “Will you pass, please? Or will you stand aside to let me pass? Please!”

She moved by with a slow swing of her hips that brought blood tingling to his embarrassed cheeks.

He was angry at her for embarrassing him, angry at himself for being embarrassed, and angry, most of all, for some obscure reason, at Finge.

I'm a big Asimov fan, but that was one of his weakest. Hopefully if you're there it's just because you ran through all of his good novels first?

I've read a couple but nothing systematically. Which would you recommend?

The original "Foundation" trilogy is the place I'd start, if you're okay with the old-sci-fi "Sense of Wonder, Big Ideas, What's Characterization?" style. For the first whole book the plot jumps from generation to generation fast enough that when he does give you a fascinating character you have to resign yourself to soon saying goodbye and at best hearing about that character again later as a historical figure.

"The Caves of Steel" (followed by "The Naked Sun", "The Robots of Dawn", and "Robots and Empire") would be option B. Sci-fi/mystery crossovers, maybe not as good overall but not nearly as weak on character development.

There's a two-book prequel series to the Foundation trilogy, which was my favorite of all the fiction he's written, but which I wouldn't recommend reading until after the above 7 books.

I think that covers all the strong recommendations for novels.

His collaborations with Robert Silverberg were good, but they were all just fleshing out earlier novellas, and honestly you could just read the novellas instead to get 90% of the quality in 30% of the time.

He got started with short stories, and some of his best stuff is in them, but any particular anthology is a mix of quality, except that his last couple ("Gold" and "Magic") I found disappointing.

His "Empire" novels ("The Currents of Space", "The Stars, Like Dust", and "Pebble in the Sky"), weren't best-of-the-century things like the Foundation trilogy was, but I did like them better than The End of Eternity.

He had a couple kids' book series. I remember loving "Lucky Starr" and being disappointed by "Norby", but I read "Lucky Starr" in elementary school and I wouldn't dare guess how it would hold up to an adult. Perhaps Norby was just as good but I found it in middle school or high school and had aged out of the intended audience.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention "The Gods Themselves" - I wouldn't even put it above the "strong recommendations" line myself, but in some ways it was one of the most unique and interesting books of his I've read, and I've known other people to say it was his best, and it's perhaps a safer recommendation (stand-alone work, not "you should read these other seven books first!") than my own favorite.

I was always one of those guys who loved his non-fiction much more than his Sci-Fi. Asimov always stayed true to the reputation people often pinned to him as “the greatest explainer of the age,” and he was truly remarkable when it came to that. When I read the Foundation trilogy though, it just kept coming through to me, over and over and over and over and over again just how sterile his writing seemed to feel; and it wasn’t at all to my liking.

IMHO the Foundation trilogy gets much more humanized halfway through, and even for the first half "sterile" is an overstatement, but you're at least directionally correct, I must admit.

I'd agree his non-fiction was better than his fiction, it's just harder to recommend because there's so much to choose from! Hundreds of books instead of dozens, in so many fields that it's hard to say that a fan of one subject would equally appreciate the others. "Asimov's Guide to the Bible" was perhaps the most in-depth example I can think of to recommend, but by far my favorites were (the anthologies of) his pop-science essays.

Thanks, I'll add some of these to the list.

I remember loving Lucky Starr and being disappointed by Norby

I vaguely recall enjoying the Norby books, though I remember almost nothing about them except the weird telepathy punctuation (was it italics with guillemets?).

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