Foundation and Empire   by Issac Asimov

30.07.04     A book lying around from my brother's room mate.

"The General"

This needs a little explaining: that is the subtitle of the first half of this book. The second half is "the Mule," which I remember reading some 3 years ago or so. I expect that I don't remember the first half of this book for two reasons: firstly, because it wasn't at all as striking a tale as The Mule. Secondly, because this was the first book of the Foundation Series that I read; So, the first little bit was only discovering what that universe was like, and I couldn't really look at it in the light that, (I think,) it was intended to be seen in. For example, it really isn't explained well in that tale what a "Seldon Crisis" is, although it is mentioned that they are in one. Sure, they have a 3 sentence description of it, but not enough, I found, for a new reader to get a sense of it.

Now, onto my actual reactions.

I enjoyed this, as I enjoy most well written space stories, that have such creativity and engaging writing style. This was not the best work of Asimov though; The Characters didn't jump out of the pages, and although I was curious about what would happen, I wasn't guessing, and wondering about how it would turn out. And some other books by Asimov Have all these characteristics.

And I didn't read "The Mule" this time, because I remembered it too well, and there are other books I have, waiting to be read just now. So... If you like the Author, and the Genre, than this is an alright read.