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March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor
Discuss The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein in the comments below.
Fiasco was translated into English in 1988 by Michael Kandel:
Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural disparity rather than spatial distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book.
Previously: Announcement post • Mars, Ho! • Foundation • The Three-Body Problem • Snow Crash
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SoylentNews Book Club - Discuss: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Start Reading: Fiasco
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There's no such thing as an original sin.
-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 13 2019, @03:31AM (9 children)
I recall that being an issue when I read it the first time. But, I persevered. Don't recall what year that was, exactly, but I think I was in junior high school. Had to be junior high, because I read Harsh Mistress before I read Foundation, and that was sophomore year of high school.
So, lay it down for awhile, and come back to it next month. No big deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @08:09AM (3 children)
Ah, Foundation, the mind screw that never ends.
Let's not go there shall we.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by choose another one on Wednesday February 13 2019, @09:09AM (2 children)
> Ah, Foundation, the mind screw that never ends.
It does end, it just ends in a very messy attempt to tie most of his earlier his books in together - something which was unnecessary, inevitably unsatisfactory and (for me) degrades the earlier works. I wish Asimov had never written it.
But we're talking Heinlein here - he was more into a different type of screw...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 13 2019, @10:43AM
A better sequel was Donald Kingsbury's "Psychohistorical Crisis", which had the Foundation series' serial numbers filed off, so to speak. Hari Seldon was, for example, never mentioned by name.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 13 2019, @01:46PM
Given that the original Foundation stories were written in the 1940s [wikipedia.org] and the first publication of the collected storeis as the "Foundation Trilogy" was in 1952, while the subsequent books were all written and published in the 1980s/1990s, it's not surprising that there were significant differences in focus.
I've read them all, and found that the later novels did try to pull too much of Asimov's "robot" stories into them. At the same time, the initial trilogy can and does stand on its own as pretty darn good.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @08:36AM (1 child)
I got my copy back in fourth grade, about '75.
I was the kid in the back of the classroom with this book tucked inside a history book 'cause I had already read That cover-to-cover...twice.
Picked out something new every time I read it. I'm not sure my folks would have approved had they known what I was actually reading. They considered sci-fi at best mostly harmless, at worst, a waste of time. Wrong on both accounts.
I didn't pick out quite all the Aussie-isms till I wandered a few months in NZ and then Sydney. Those infectious speech patterns took me years to fully shake out... and come back all too easy.
I remember Mike not waking hitting young-me pretty hard.
I was an impressionable little kid, and this got me diving deep into sci-fi, good and bad, to this day. Re-reading some E.E.'Doc' Smith stuff now.
But more than anything else I was reading at the time, it got me thinking about what kind of person I wanted to grow into being.
Mannie was a far better role model than what was available.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 13 2019, @10:59PM
I was affected by the loss of Mike as well. It wasn't just that Mike had become people and now was gone, but rather that Manny missed his friend. Heinlein managed to communicate that it hurt Manny that Mike wasn't there anymore, and while Manny wasn't lonely he certainly missed his friend.
This sig for rent.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @09:28AM (2 children)
Another thing Runaway doesn't know! Is anyone keeping track of these? Must be close to 1K by now.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:42PM (1 child)
Don't know why you want to be an ass - you're not very good at it. Maybe you should set your sights lower. You might be a good callous.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 13 2019, @11:02PM
The writer wants to be an ass because the writer is a pimple who gets enjoyment out of trolling you, and you just fed him or her. That's about it.
This sig for rent.