I'm now old enough to be fully cognizant of the fact that there are a limited numbers of books left to me to read...I'd guess no more than 2,000 at my current pace. So I've found myself (1) being a bit more selective (e.g., "No, I do not have enough room on my plate for the Wheel of Time series) and (2) harkening back to some of the things I read long ago for one last look. In the second category stood Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.
Of course, it's not a Trilogy any more. Asimov himself wrote two sequels to the series (Foundation's Edge in 1982 and Foundation and Earth in 1986), and then wrote two prequels (Prelude to Foundation in1988 and Forward the Foundation in 1993). And what was one to do with 1989's Foundation's Friends, Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov (written by Everybody You Ever Loved in Science Fiction Up Until the 90s)? In the interests of completion, I knew that I would have to read those five books, too--none of which I had previously read, since the Foundation Trilogy and I were friends long before 1982.
And then there was the second Foundation Trilogy (not to be confused with The Second Foundation Trilogy, which I am sincerely hoping will be written one day) by Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin (respectively Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos, and Foundation's Triumph), which come in-between parts of Forward the Foundation and Foundation...so it seemed like they should be a part of The Complete Reading, too.
And then there were all of the OTHER books which have since been suggested as part of the Foundation Timeline...robots and galactic something or other things...but no, I had to draw the line somewhere, and I drew it there. The ten Foundation books. No more, no less.
And so I got going.
I enjoyed Asimov's two prequel books. Even though the official reading list forced me to do a little bit of hopping around into and out of the second Foundation series (not to be confused etc.), which was disorienting. And I slogged through that second Foundation series. There were times (especially during the Benford novel) when I thought I just couldn't take it anymore, but nevertheless, I persisted. And now I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the final (Brin, Triumph) volume, and though it's not on a par with the Asimov works, it's not nearly as painful as the previous two second Foundation trilogy books have been.
Speaking of, as I was reading this morning, I happened upon this bit on page 267 of Foundation's Triumph (purportedly from A Child's Book of Knowledge, which Hari Seldon is reading):
"Almost equally dangerous is the Gospel of Uniformity. The differences between the nations and races of mankind are required to preserve the conditions under which higher development is possible. One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering . . . Physical wandering is still important, but greater still is the power of man’s spiritual adventures—adventures of thought, adventures of passionate feeling, adventures of aesthetic experience. A diversification among human communities is essential for the provision of the incentive and material for the Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends."
I was pretty impressed by that. So impressed that I decided to write about it. I didn't really want to type out the whole quote, though, so I Googled the first sentence to see if I could find it online. Much to my surprise, this is what I found:
"Almost equally dangerous is the Gospel of Uniformity. The differences between the nations and races of mankind are required to preserve the conditions under which higher development is possible. One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering . . . Perhaps this is why the armour-plated monsters fared badly. They could not wander. Animals wander into new conditions. They have to adapt themselves or die. Mankind has wandered from the trees to the plains, from the plains to the seacoast, from climate to climate, from continent to continent, and from habit of life to habit of life. When man ceases to wander, he will cease to ascend in the scale of being. Physical wandering is still important, but greater still is the power of man’s spiritual adventures—adventures of thought, adventures of passionate feeling, adventures of aesthetic experience. A diversification among human communities is essential for the provision of the incentive and material for the Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends."
It's from pages 206 to 207 (of the 1967 edition) of Alfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World ("Requisites for Social Progress"). Is that some shit or what?
Well, I looked through the front and back of Foundation's Triumph, and after a few minutes I found an attribution for the quoted material (tucked away at the end of the Acknowledgements section), but that didn't really make me feel any better about Mr. Brin. I mean...for fuck's sake. Who in their right mind would read the Acknowledgements at the ass end of a science fiction novel? And would it really have been so hard to give Alfred North Whitehead credit in the text of the novel?
And then I started thinking about John Gardner's Grendel. He certainly stole a lot more Alfred North Whitehead lines than David Brin did, and Gardner didn't given any indication that the lines were not his own. And I love John Gardner, and I think that Grendel is one of the great novels of the 20th century. Why, then, am I so irritated with David Brin?
I guess it's just hypocrisy. Which I regret. But I think that in this case it's not that I should let up on David Brin, it's that I should bear down on John Gardner. Not that that is likely to happen, but at least I can see the hair growing out of the wart at the end of my nose.
Anyway...just sayin'.
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