Foundation, Part 7: Prelude to Foundation

 Nearly a year and a half ago, I undertook to read through Asimov's classic sci-fi series, Foundation, and write about the books. This is one of several sci-fi series that I decided to read, including Frank Herbert's Dune series (which I bailed on after 4 books), Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series (which I also bailed on after 2 books), and James SA Corey's The Expanse series (of which I am currently reading the sixth book and will likely continue). One of the major differences that I see in these series are those that were planned to be series of novels (or even novels to begin with) and those that were not. Corey's series was planned to be a long-running series from the start, and the novels show it. Each novel is more or less complete on its own, but they also build to a broader arc across the novels. The novels serve more as episodes than as simple stand-alones, meaning that you could read just one of the novels without the others, but it would make more sense to read them together.

These other series, though (I am necessarily leaving out a lot of other series and authors I could include, but this is the choice I am making), seem to be caught by surprise by their own sequels. That is, the sequels must pick up after a conclusion has been reached in the predecing book, and not always convincingly. Both Herbert and Asimov get around this problem by jumping hundreds or thousands of years into the future. This way, there is no messy character continuity to keep up and any narrative gaps can be explained by the chronological gap. The exception to this is that Herbert keeps bringing Duncan Idaho back from the dead for some reason.

When I catch myself wondering if I am being overly harsh in judging these authors for returning to worlds that may be personal or fan favorites, and may well have proven lucrative as well, I just keep remembering all of the series I have quit reading for one reason or another. I also think about the nose-dives that some of these series take. Redezvous with Rama, for example, may be one of my favorite golden era sf books, but Rama II was enough to stop me in my tracks. Likewise, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a personal favorite while Forever Peace is merely okay and I haven't yet tried to get into Forever Free. I also think about the series I have loved. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and the book of short fiction that followed remains among my favorite novels. The same is true for Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past series. So it isn't the form of the sequel itself that is bad. There are a lot of writers who can beautifully pull off continuing novels in a fictional world.

To bring this back to my original topic, Asimov must have felt a bit like Arthur Conan Doyle resurrecting Sherlock Holmes after killing him off in returning the galaxy of Foundation. After all, he had written the series to an end in Foundation and Earth that was, if not completely satisfying, at least conclusive. Prelude to Foundation takes up Hari Seldon's rise to prominence on Trantor and his early adventures. Some of it is good and, as a stand-alone novel, it has its charms. However when taken in the context of the rest of the series, it leaves a little wanting.

Prelude to Foundation takes place first chronologically in the Foundation series, but it was written second-to-last. At the beginning of the novel, Seldon has traveled to Trantor and delivered a paper on psychohistory. This immediately catches the attention of Cleon I, emperor of the Galactic Empire. Seldon presentation proved the science of psychohistory as theoretically possible but Cleon thought that this meant that Seldon could predict the future and brings Seldon to him in order to gain his services. Hari resists, explaining that there is no practical application for the science and that it might take his entire lifetime to actually apply it.

Disappointed Cleon lets him go but instructs his right-hand to keep tabs on Seldon so that they can take him back when they can use him. Seldon is rescued from his surveillance by a friendly stranger who then helps to keep him in hiding for most of the rest of the novel.

Seldon ends up traveling to varied parts of Trantor to stay ahead of imperial reach and there is a lot of local flavor type interactions that haven't aged well. Seldon creeps on women and he meets a kid whose speech wouldn't be out of place in a Horatio Alger novel. In the end (no worries, I won't spoil it), Seldon already knows where things will end up in Foundation and Earth, even though this takes place several thousand years after his death.

This is the problem of prequels. There is no real tension in the danger that Seldon faces because I have already read five novels in which he plays a major role and know that he doesn't die yet. Granted, he dies in the opening pages of Foundation, but by then his mark is made and his influence extends millennia. Next, Asimov retcons “foreshadowing” of events that take place far in the narrative future, but which the reader has already experienced if they are reading in publication order. This generally doesn't read well and it seems more like an aging rock group begrudgingly playing the hit they wrote 30 years prior than an authentic narrative embellishment. There are then also the connections that Asimov wants to make between Foundation and his Robot series. This connection seemed unnecessary in Foundation and Earth and it leads to more phony foreshadowing in this novel, too. I haven't read enough of the Robot series to know how this affects that series, but perhaps I will head to those books after this series is done to find out for myself.

Also, and most damningly, Asimov tries to be funny in this book. For all that I admire in Asimov's writing, it is never for his wit. See, on Trantor there is a rival faction to the Emperor and that is Wye sector. More than once, a character will mention the name “Wye” and the interlocutor will proceed to give an unneeded and unasked-for explanation, thinking the first character was asking, “Why?” They are homonyms, get it!

I've shit on this book enough. There are things that I liked about it. Hari Seldon has been a force in this whole series but he has been distant. As I mentioned, he dies very early in the series and he just keeps showing up as a pre-recorded hologram. But here, he is an actual character, and he is one of Asimov's more dynamic and round ones. Beyond this, he is a moral character who wants to both do the right thing and stand by his science. The narrative itself is cohesive and shows Asimov's inventiveness in creating these different sectors with different traditions and styles. There are a couple of genuine surprises that kept the novel interesting and it ended up being an enjoyable read.

I won't say that this is my favorite in the series, but it was serviceable. I have one more book to go before I can put this series to bed and I'm not sure what to expect from it. I suspect that it will be a grab bag, a little like this novel is. I know that it follows Hari's story between the end of this novel and the beginning of Foundation, but I don't know what time period it covers. I am hoping that there will be a bit more explanation of psychohistory and I am really hoping that it doesn't go in a direction that undoes what made Foundation great.

The War of Two Worlds

The second novel in this Poul Anderson book, The War of Two Worlds, plays much like the first one, Planet of No Return.  Space travel is normal and the major conflicts arise between humans and aliens.
The War of Two Worlds is, as the title would suggest, something of a take on H.G. Wells' classic novel War of the Worlds, but the conflict between humans and Martians is twisted a bit.  In Anderson's novel the conflict between Earth and Mars is sparked by a false flag operation by shape-shifting aliens from Sirius.  The aliens, exiled from their own planet, pit Earth and Mars against one another so that they can swoop in and mop up both weakened parties.  The novel is good pulp and imaginative for what it is.  It even seems to forecast some elements that The Expanse picks up regarding these different, alien political factions.

This book got me thinking about a different topic altogether, however, that is now a staple in science fiction: the identity of Martians.
From novels like Anderson's and Wells' to Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, and more, Martians have always been an alien species that are generally humanoid and have identifiable, if not down right sympathetic, motives.  Martians want a home or conquest, or have some other need that must be met. 

More and more, however, the Martians are us.  Martians are humans.  Going back to Kim Stanley Robinson's 1992 Red Mars, those who inhabit the red planet are not aliens from a separate evolutionary line, they are humans who have either traveled there or were born there.  Beyond Ronbinson's Mars trilogy, this holds true for Andy Weir's The Martian, the humans from various regions in The Expanse, and I'm sure dozens of other examples.
Robinson and James S.A. Corey create humans with different body shapes to show their origins but they are all humans.  This move is significant, I think, because it reflects a different ethos regarding our place in the universe.  The actual aliens, the ones who truly come from beyond, are not recognizable by their motivations or body shape, they are truly alien. 
In The Expanse, the aliens represented by the protomolecule have their own powers and motivations that are beyond the characters' ability to understand.  I have drawn the parallel between The Expanse and Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past before, and I think that it holds here as well.  The aliens in Liu's trilogy are equally foreign and are nearly abstract in their differences from humans.
This tendency shows both the unity and the divisions within humanity. 

The Expanse, pt. 3: Abaddon's Gate

This post is going to be a little off-the-cuff because I finished this book about a week ago and I am beginning to lose some of the details.  I won't get too bogged down in the specifics of plot and so forth, but will stick to the broad themes and my impressions.
This is the third novel in The Expanse series and it does begin to feel like it is settling in.  The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, sets the stage for a densely populated and fast-paced sci-fi/adventure/detective story.  These elements seemed to be a little crammed together until I had a realization about the series that I will come back to in a bit.  That first novel was very satisfying and showed a lot of potential.
The second novel, Caliban's War, opened with a bang and started off very strong.  It got a little logy and recycled some plot elements from the first novel in a way that was not quite as satisfying as it could have been.  Familiar characters played their familiar parts in a satisfying way and the introduction of a few new personalities kept it fresh. 
The third novel of the series, Abaddon's Gate, takes a bit of a turn in a way that helped to renew the series' direction.  This book veered away from the lost-little-girl MacGuffin of the first two books to pursue a new course.  In the first two books the reader is introduced to the protomolecule, a piece of alien bioware that was first weaponized by humans and then seemed to become sentient.  At the opening of the third novel, the protomolecule has stationed itself as a gate among the outer planets and seems to react to a ship flying into it.
What follows is a three-way standoff between the forces of Mars, Earth, and the Outer Planets Alliance as they each attempts to cordon off and, ultimately, control the portal.  Holden and his crew, having been framed for sparking a hot war, are the first to enter the gate in their attempt to evade the other forces.  This is as far as I am going with plot summary.
The entry into the gate is the first major departure from a relatively realistic sci-fi world.  So far in The Expanse, the alien protomolecule is the only thing to really push the boundaries of suspension of disbelief.  There are the standard near-relativistic speeds that are currently out of our grasp and other space technologies, but these are part and parcel of most mainstream sci-fi and don't push credulity too much.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is hard sci-fi, but it keeps things pretty restrained. 
Here is the big difference for me: once the Rocinante passes through the gate, it experiences different physical laws of the universe.  The protomolecule is able to alter laws of physics, and this is a major shift from the preceding books.
In this regard, this series reminds me of Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy in which humans make contact with alien civilization who are able to alter physics.  That trilogy, like The Expanse, remains relatively realistic up to this point (Liu includes some medical/cryo tech that strains suspension of disbelief, but I mean this in a general way). 
For both series, the turn from realistic, if still fantastic, sci-fi, also marks a turning point for the characters in the story.  For Liu, this marks, literally, the end of the world as the characters perceive it.  For the characters of The Expanse, the future is less certain.  There are still a lot of books to come after this and this changes the nature of the world within this fiction.  I leave this book more interested to see where the series will go than at the end of the second book.

So, here is the realization that I hinted at earlier.  While listening to an episode of Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders' fantastic podcast Our Opinions are Correct about pulp fiction, I realized what it is about The Expanse that is simultaneously engrossing and a bit frustrating.  This series, it seems to me, takes many of its cues from adventure pulp.  James Holden, so far the central figure of the world of The Expanse, is a no-nonsense captain of a certain type.  He is unflaggingly tied to his sense of ethics and is a steadfast friend to his crew.  He plays a sort of moral center in this world that is largely built on his notions of integrity.  He maintains this sense of morality even as he kills and steals.  The books do recognize his flaws, but he persistently overcomes, and then reverts back to his own personality.  This is an energizing narrative to read.  He gets into jams with his crew, and they fight and cogitate their way out.  The serial nature of the books lends itself to the pulp aesthetic, as well.  I know that there are a lot of books left in the series and though I am not positive that Holden and his crew will continue intact through them all, I sort of suspect that they will, or that most of the characters will remain constant.  At a certain point, I would think that the appeal of the characters and their dynamic is as much a part of the appeal as the sci-fi elements. 
I have more books to go to see if this prediction bears out. 
Of course, none of this is to say that the books are worse, or weaker for it.  This just helps me to contextualize the world in a different way.  The series has been good so far and I will continue to read these for as long as I enjoy them.  In a way, I hope that I am wrong and that I will find in these books what I found in Liu's, but I am okay just enjoying the adventure for what it is for now.

The Three-Body Problem

I learned about Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem trilogy only recently in the sci-fi book club that I help run at the BottleHouse in Cleveland.  To be honest, I didn't know anything about either this author or about Chinese sci-fi before picking up this book.  Although I have been trying to expand my boundaries in this genre, most of my readings still tend to be pretty American, if not pretty white and male.  That may be a topic I can return to later because I want to focus on this first.  Just today I finished The Dark Forest, the second novel in this series, translated into English.  The first book, The Three-Body Problem, begins in Soviet China during the cultural revolution.  The characters in the novel struggle with the oppressive political constraints placed on them from the Communist party while trying to develop their state technology and stay current with the west.  The scientist characters of the novel must constantly temper the direction of their progress to fit with the dominant political ideology.  This is a powerful observation because our conception of an objective science is so pervasive in the United States but we ignore the fact that it is deeply political and politicized, similarly to the way that it is presented in the novel.  While scientific developments in the west are rarely  overtly compared to the tenets of dialectical materialism or some other meta-narrative, scientific avenues are subject to political bias and are subject to falling into and out of mainstream fashion.  There is an illusion of science as a monolith separate from culture that a lot of good science fiction tries to dispel.
In the first novel, scientists in China are able to make contact with a civilization in a nearby solar system.  When the characters learn that the inhabitants of this planet intend on using their superior technology to block further scientific progress on Earth so that they can colonize it, the narrative turns into a mediation on the strategy to overcome the aliens.  This strategy is a part of a long game, though, as the people of Earth learn that it will take the Trisolarans (as they are called) 450 years to reach Earth.
The second novel opens at the close of the modern era at a time when secret strategists are about to hibernate to become "reinforcements" for future generations.  I was worried that this would devolve into a weird time travel narrative, but Liu maintains his focus and reawakens several main characters from the first novel to continue their missions.  They learn, however, that the people of Earth have made some great strides in their technology within the limits still available to them. They have grown confident in their ability to defeat the Trisolarans based on the speed of their ships and the size of the fleets that have been able to build.
While I admit that there are parts of this trilogy-so-far that seem a bit trite or predictable in the world of sci-fi the novels do offer some genuine surprises in their inventiveness.  The first-contact narrative does not go according to the old tropes and there are some interesting turns in the second novel.  It gets bleak at times, but this is part of the enjoyment.  As I mentioned at the top, I just finished the second novel in the trilogy, and I am completely uncertain where the final one will go.  These books have surprised me and they turn on the expected sci-fi tropes.