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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

>what struck me most on re-reading was how completely boring it would be to be faithful to it

Agreed.

The inspiration behind the Foundation series, setting out to shorten the Dark Ages after the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is great.

However, if you try reading those short stories again today, you're quickly reminded that early in his career, Asimov was already great at world building, but terrible with characters and dialog.

Add in the mismatch between the cultural norms of the 1940's (when the early Foundation stories were written) and the cultural norms today, and a rewrite was always going to be required.

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Asimov's first real published story was in 1939 (his high school "published" a story earlier).

The Foundation stories were written in 1941-1950. In 1951 Asimov stopped writing fiction for thirty years.

So it's not "early Asimov" by any means.

When he came back to write Foundation sequels his characters and dialog hadn't improved.

Asimov was always an author only of ideas. His best dialog was the terrible and deliberately corny dialog in the Azazel fantasy-comedy stories, very much done in imitation of P.G. Wodehouse's cleverer banter.

Excerpt from one of the 80's foundation books:

“Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence ?” Pelorat said, “If you list it like that.”

“List it any way you please,” said Trevize. “I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.”

Cringe.

> it's not "early Asimov" by any means

He wrote the first Foundation story when he was only 21.

That certainly qualifies.

His retcon from the 80's wasn't any better in terms of dialogue

"Search by the Second Foundation" (the second half of the book "Second Foundation") was one of the very last science fiction stories he wrote, apart from the spate of novels in the 80's.

It gets confusing because once he was famous, magazines would call him up asking for a story and he'd give them one that he'd written between 1939-1951 that had been rejected. They'd accept it because he was now a legend.

So Second Foundation, at least, is not early Asimov. It's arguably late Asimov. And it's exactly as wooden as the other parts of the original trilogy.

That said, I've read every bit of fiction he ever wrote and loved most of it, so...

I think the OP would agree that it was "early Asimov" but you can't blame the writing on that. The OP was making the point that his writing never improved.

Having said that there were cringeworthy aspects of the first Foundation book that improved over the subsequent books. I recently reread the series and came to the shocking conclusion that he must have been a virgin (or at least not exposed to women) in the first book.

I agree that Asimov, late or early, lives or dies on his ideas, and never was a great writer - he doesn't do lovely prose, naturalistic dialog, or vivid, multi-dimensional characters. But I don't see anything particularly bad about the dialog you've quoted.

> When he came back to write Foundation sequels his characters and dialog hadn't improved.

OK, great, it's not just me. I was about to respond, "wait, did he ever get good at characters and dialog? I've read a lot of Asimov, and at no point have those ever not been distractingly bad."

I read the first 5ish foundation books fairly recently and they were great, especially the odd numbered ones. Asimov never did become a genius of dialogue and character, but the characters and dialogue in foundation 1 are both very good and I don’t understand why some people in this thread dismiss it. The first foundation book is one of the best

Look, Foundation has great concepts, but if you think it has even good characters and dialogue, you...need to read fiction with good characters and dialogue.

> The first foundation book is one of the best

Best of what, though?

> you...need to read fiction with good characters and dialogue.

Suggestions?

In my case, it’s been 20+ years since I read Foundation (IIRC only the first three books)

Literally anything? Never let me go? The wizard of Earthsea? I have a hard time seeing how can anyone not agree with the parent's assessment. Foundation is interesting because of the idea/plot it presents. But the characters themselves bring little to the table. In a way the Foundation series is a good piece of conceptual art, but sci-fi novels.

I would argue that 1Q84 (don't read it!, it sucks) is the exact opposite. Interesting characters but lacking an overarching setting/plot.

> setting out to shorten the Dark Ages after the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is great.

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

An awesome book but can you imagine what it would get turned into these days?!

An excellent Babylon 5 episode!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deconstruction_of_Fallin...

(For very fuzzy definitions of “these days”)

That is a good book.

Agree as well.

I loved the premise of the books, but I just couldn't find myself to care about any of the actual characters.

I think the same story, but where at least some of the characters are truly immortal (reasonable for far future sci-fi), would be better.

Basically a mashup between Peter Hamilton and Foundation would be cool, his work does a good job of showing "far future technologies".

I would love to see someone take a stab at the Night's Dawn trilogy.

The world building for the Confederation and the Adamist and Edenist societies as well as the various alien races was very well done.

They might want to rethink the choice of Al Capone, which seems a bit over the top.

I agree; it really could make a surpassingly excellent show.

All the possession contagion dovetails with our COVID concerns, yet is so different as to allow exploration by metaphor.

The instagramish phenomenon Kiera Nightly convinces youths to travel to a remote place where they are tortured until they yield to possession: Reminds me of fyrefest.

The large amount of hilarious dark humor should translate very well. For example, the sadistic edenist who overcomes possession by being the mentally strongest edenist. And the plain sadist who re-possesses his body from his possessor by being more screwed-up than a soul that had endured what amounts to hell.

I just finished this recently after dropping it halfway through because my eyes were in danger of rolling out of the back of my head due to the Capone stuff.

Re-characterising Al leaves quite the role to complete. You can't leave us hanging without suggesting what other /newly/ historical figure could replace them.

The gratuitous hedonism, cruelty, and torture that the returned partake in could certainly be a selling point for say HBO to pick the series up.

I just couldn't find myself to care about any of the actual characters.

I felt the only actual 'character' you where supposed to care about was Civilization itself. Everybody and everything else where bit players and side characters who's fates only mattered to the extend they helped or hindered Civilization.

> I think the same story, but where at least some of the characters are truly immortal (reasonable for far future sci-fi), would be better.

The Empire changes/storyline in the show are potentially setting up Demerzel at least to overtly be in some interesting places across the timeline. [1] They've also taken a fun path to play Lee Pace across most of the Fall, though not directly as an immortal.

[1] Plus, lots of fun debate to be had over which Robot Demerzel "really is" and/or how much in communication Demerzel is in with any/all of the rest of Asimov's most famous Robots that we know survived to (and were observing) the Foundation era.

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