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Anyway, on with the book:-
The book is in three parts.
This story is set in the future of 2070. Due to a chance remark between two scientists, a major scientific breakthrough has occurred. It would appear that unlimited energy can be acquired from a parallel dimension by the manipulation ... Read review
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The Gods Themselves
For 14 years of a career stretching from 1939 to his death in 1992, Isaac Asimov wrote
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little SF and instead produced popular non-fiction in enormous quantities. The Gods Themselves (1972) was his "comeback" SF novel, welcomed by both Hugo and Nebula a...
little SF and instead produced popular non-fiction in enormous quantities. The Gods Themselves (1972) was his "comeback" SF novel, welcomed by both Hugo and Nebula a...
little SF and instead produced popular non-fiction in enormous quantities. The Gods Themselves (1972) was his "comeback" SF novel, welcomed by both Hugo and Nebula awards.It opens in the world of Big Science that Asimov knew well, full of in-fighting and the race to publish first. The Inter-Universe Electron Pump sucks unlimited energy from nothing, making all power stations obsolete and bringing a new golden age. No one--especially not the scientist who got the credit--wants to listen to the doomsayer Lamont who calculates that the pump's side effects may detonate the Sun. Worse, there's no kudos for him: "And no one on Earth will live to know I was right".Part two moves to the dying parallel universe whose hyper-intelligent aliens actually invented the pump and don't care what happens to our Sun. Asimov cleverly focuses on three immature aliens whose intelligence is less daunting and who slowly learn--with very different personal reactions--about their race's weird analogue of sex, about the pump's moral implications, and eventually about the unexpected meaning of maturity. These are the most original, engaging aliens Asimov ever created.Part three is set in a carefully worked-out Moon colony and grapples with the "para-physics" of inter-universe loopholes. Can a politically acceptable replacement for the pump be developed? Solid, workmanlike SF with far more talk than action: one of Asimov's rare standalone novels. --David Langford
Advantages: A very entertaining award winning story Disadvantages: Not to everybodys taste
This is a work from the mind of the master. I well remember the day that I got this book. Asimov had not been writing very much Science Fiction recently and I was haunting my favourite shop for any new works that I could fine by any favourite author. I stopped to talk with the owner who was a friend. I had been buying from him for years and this was his Third shop. A trade representative happened to be with him, showing him this advanced copy, and ... ...also a bit downcast as the official release date was not for a long time. All three of us got to talking and the rep gave his copy to my bookkeeper friend. This copy was clearly written on "Not for sale". Smiling he turned away to look at other books on display. My friend gave me the book, and as he was not selling and I was not buying, I made him a gift of forty pence. Would you believe the approximate price of a new book? This copy went into my ...
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Advantages: A compelling, ever-so-alien environment challenges your imagination Disadvantages: The first and third chapters pale compared to the second
...I can honestly say that The Gods Themselves is my favourite.
The joy of reading, as opposed to, say, watching a film or going to the theatre, is that the images conjured up belong solely to the book's reader. The experience is made even more rewarding when the environments and characters involved in the book are so unusual as to really stretch one's imagination. This only really hit home with me when I read this particular book.
The Gods Themselves ... ...being set on Earth and the second set in a parallel universe. It is in the description of this parallel universe, so *very* different to our own, that Asimov truly excels himself. It's not just a case of it being a doppelganger universe, similar to our own but in which history is changed. This is a completely alien universe, with the story set on a completely alien world, and with apparently alien laws of physics.
The master of sci-fi has really ...
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Advantages: Early suspense hooking the interest of the reader Disadvantages: Excessive description of the surroundings in some parts of the story
The Gods Themselves makes one realize the great difference of reading a book story from watching a film. Hard-to-imagine sceneries can only come up in one's own imagination which cannot be captured by any film director.
At the outset, the story revolves around a certain relationship between two environments, one presumably that of earth and the other of a different planet or dimensional plane. What caught my curiousity, as to continue reading, was ... ...it a direct reference to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
As I finished reading the second of the three-part series, realization hit me that the digest I was holding intentionally excluded the third and final part. And since it was an imported magazine, the anti-climax is still lingering in my head until now, meaning, I still have to get hold of the missing third part. The search for the third part goes on for I am sure that it was truly the trademark ...
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