|
|
|
|
|
|
that folds the universe back on itself; and back on its centre in the Seldon Plan. In parallel with this, one may note, Asimov himself has reached out to incorporate much of his literary output in the history of this galaxy, placing his novels The Stars, Like Dust, The Currents of Space and Pebble in the Sky during the period of the growth of the First Empire, and his 'robotic' novels and short stories during a period in which the galaxy was colonised by robots. His own separate works, like the temporally separated acts within the trilogy, are thus caught up in a larger Plan, devoured as it were by the very fiction they create. Nothing could more surely testify to the dominant urge behind Asimov's work being the need to make life coherent. Yet (. . .) he does not enforce coherence in any desperate way: he lets it find itself almost by chance and certainly as much by choice as by imposition. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. N. Manlove, "Isaac Asimov, the Foundation Trilogy (195153; serialized 1942-49)," Science Fiction: Ten Explorations (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1986), pp. 3334 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Four changes in Asimov's future worlds have been traced to changes in the political and social culture. First, the growing awareness of diversity within worldwide communism and the decline of cold war tensions produced a change in Asimov's vision of future galactic politics. While the early novels portrayed clashing blocs of planets, the later novels allowed for the possibility of detente. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Second, the increased politicization of the 1960s seems to have led to a greater emphasis on domestic politics. Although the early novels generally ignored political struggles between domestic factions, the later books portrayed these political processes with greater detail. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Third, the counterculture cry for increased participatory democracy is echoed in a discussion of democratic political systems in the later books, replacing the corrupt empires and theocratic, plutocratic, and oligarchic governments of the early works. In addition to discussions of legislatures and elected executives, Asimov produces in these latest books the ultimate participatory democracy: a vision of the universe in which all matter is intelligent and participates in decisions which affect its future. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Finally, the enormous changes in the role of women over the past 30 years are reflected in the greater role given to women in the later novels. Women in the early Asimov novels are principally daughters or wives of |
|
|
|
|
|