Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition) (49 page)
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Authors: James Gunn
BOOK: Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition)
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Prelude
. . . also offers its readers one of the peculiar pleasures of science fiction the foregrounding of background. Asimov exemplifies that particularly in
The Caves of Steel,
but
Prelude
. . . also provides not only a tour of a planet almost completely enclosed in metal (
The Caves of Steel
carried to its ultimate) and its influence on the inhabitants (they, too, are afflicted with agoraphobia), but also a sense of scope and multiculturalism seldom found in novels of alien planets. In spite of their awareness that Earth is varied in climate, custom, language, religion, and social mores, SF writers tend to make alien planets all of a piece.
Prelude
. . . reveals only five sectors of the 800 on Trantor, but they are so different that the reader senses that difference is the norm.
. . . also offers its readers one of the peculiar pleasures of science fiction the foregrounding of background. Asimov exemplifies that particularly in
The Caves of Steel,
but
Prelude
. . . also provides not only a tour of a planet almost completely enclosed in metal (
The Caves of Steel
carried to its ultimate) and its influence on the inhabitants (they, too, are afflicted with agoraphobia), but also a sense of scope and multiculturalism seldom found in novels of alien planets. In spite of their awareness that Earth is varied in climate, custom, language, religion, and social mores, SF writers tend to make alien planets all of a piece.
Prelude
. . . reveals only five sectors of the 800 on Trantor, but they are so different that the reader senses that difference is the norm.
Prelude
. . . also updates the Foundation universe to fit the scientific knowledge, and speculation, of the 1980s. It contains a recognition of galactic structure, with Trantor nearer the uninhabitable galactic center (with its giant black hole) and Terminus near the outer edge of a spiral arm. And, in a pleasant return to the style of the earlier Foundation stories, each of its chapters is preceded by an appropriate excerpt from the
Encyclopedia Galactica.
. . . also updates the Foundation universe to fit the scientific knowledge, and speculation, of the 1980s. It contains a recognition of galactic structure, with Trantor nearer the uninhabitable galactic center (with its giant black hole) and Terminus near the outer edge of a spiral arm. And, in a pleasant return to the style of the earlier Foundation stories, each of its chapters is preceded by an appropriate excerpt from the
Encyclopedia Galactica.
Asimov's portrait of Selden makes the founder of psychohistory more believable as well as more real. Selden's final scene with Dors includes a revelation of Selden's character: he accepts his need for Dors, and his unwillingness to go on without her, in spite of her admission that she does not, perhaps cannot, love him. Another deftly handled display of emotions occurs in Mycogen, when Raindrop Forty-Three, in a scene reminiscent of Gladia's removal of her glove and touching Baley's cheek, asks Selden to remove his skin cap and allow her to stroke his (erotic and forbidden) hair.
Just as Frank Herbert's
Dune
is a critique of
The Foundation Trilogy, Prelude to Foundation
is a response to
Dune. Dune
suggests that the Galaxy will not be as neat or as rational as the
Trilogy
portrays, that the pattern for the future will not be the Roman Empire but the Holy Roman
Empire.
Prelude to Foundation
intimates that the
Dune
political structure would soon degenerate into barbarism worse than that displayed by the Emperor or the Harkonnens.
Prelude
. . . tries to rationalize Asimov's vision, that is, by presuming the guiding mind of the near-immortal R. Daneel Olivaw aided by the developing science of psychohistory and then the invention of Gaia.
Dune
is a critique of
The Foundation Trilogy, Prelude to Foundation
is a response to
Dune. Dune
suggests that the Galaxy will not be as neat or as rational as the
Trilogy
portrays, that the pattern for the future will not be the Roman Empire but the Holy Roman
Empire.
Prelude to Foundation
intimates that the
Dune
political structure would soon degenerate into barbarism worse than that displayed by the Emperor or the Harkonnens.
Prelude
. . . tries to rationalize Asimov's vision, that is, by presuming the guiding mind of the near-immortal R. Daneel Olivaw aided by the developing science of psychohistory and then the invention of Gaia.
When Doubleday editor Jennifer Brehl approved Asimov's request to write
Prelude to Foundation
she also suggested that the novel after that be "an entirely independent product, with a completely new background." On February 3, 1988, Asimov began writing
Nemesis.
In his memoir he described it as "placed closer to our time than was true of either the robot novels or the Foundation novels. It dealt with the colonization of a satellite that circled a Jovian-type planet that, in turn, circled a red-dwarf star. My protagonist was a teenaged girl and I also had two strong adult women characters. I placed considerably more emotion in the novel than was customary for me."
Prelude to Foundation
she also suggested that the novel after that be "an entirely independent product, with a completely new background." On February 3, 1988, Asimov began writing
Nemesis.
In his memoir he described it as "placed closer to our time than was true of either the robot novels or the Foundation novels. It dealt with the colonization of a satellite that circled a Jovian-type planet that, in turn, circled a red-dwarf star. My protagonist was a teenaged girl and I also had two strong adult women characters. I placed considerably more emotion in the novel than was customary for me."
Nemesis
was published in the fall of 1989 "and was very successful." The "Nemesis" of the title was not the star invisible behind the Oort cloud that astrophysicists have speculated might cause perturbations that would lead periodically to new showers of meteorites, one of which, millions of years ago, may have eliminated the dinosaurs. Asimov's "Nemesis" was a similar, nearby star but obscured by a cloud of interstellar dust. It was a Nemesis because its movement through the solar system might destroy Earth.
was published in the fall of 1989 "and was very successful." The "Nemesis" of the title was not the star invisible behind the Oort cloud that astrophysicists have speculated might cause perturbations that would lead periodically to new showers of meteorites, one of which, millions of years ago, may have eliminated the dinosaurs. Asimov's "Nemesis" was a similar, nearby star but obscured by a cloud of interstellar dust. It was a Nemesis because its movement through the solar system might destroy Earth.
The concept was as old as Camille Flammarion's
La Fin du Monde
(1893-94), H.G. Wells's "The Star" (1897), and Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's
When Worlds Collide
(1933). But Asimov approached it not as a catastrophe story but as an opportunity story. He also dealt with two aspects of the future that he had seldom, if ever, touched upon before in his fiction: an overcrowded Earth and space habitats. In the process he discussed the inability of space travel to relieve Earth's population problems and the problems of faster-than-light travel, which he names "superluminal," and faster-than-light communication.
La Fin du Monde
(1893-94), H.G. Wells's "The Star" (1897), and Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's
When Worlds Collide
(1933). But Asimov approached it not as a catastrophe story but as an opportunity story. He also dealt with two aspects of the future that he had seldom, if ever, touched upon before in his fiction: an overcrowded Earth and space habitats. In the process he discussed the inability of space travel to relieve Earth's population problems and the problems of faster-than-light travel, which he names "superluminal," and faster-than-light communication.
The narrative begins in 2236 with flashbacks to 2220, and later, approaching 2236 a device that Asimov felt should be explained to his readers in an "Author's Note," along with the fact that this novel did not belong to the Foundation or robot series. Habitats, called Settlements, have been built in space. They circle Earth and Mars and inhabit the Asteroid belt, but they do not get along much better than Earth and its hungry, violent, alienated, drug-ridden billions.
The novel deals with the discovery by Eugenia Insignia, an astronomer on the Settlement "Rotor," from the report of a Far Probe, of a distant companion sun, a red dwarf, which is hidden from direct observation by a dust cloud. She tells her superior, Janus Pitt, head of the Department of Exploration and Commerce, about her discovery, and joins him in his proposal to move Rotor, with the aid of hyper-assisted flight (which only Rotor has) to Nemesis so that Rotor can get a head-start on the other Settlements and, using the resources of the star system, build a system of Settlements around Nemesis that is uniform in culture and ecology.
The decision of the Rotorians to move to Nemesis is the action that finally destroys Insignia's marriage to her Earthman husband Crile Fisher, who has been out of place on Rotor. They part, and Crile returns to Earth in spite of the fact that he must part with their 10-month-old baby Marlene.
Orbiting Nemesis the Rotorians find a gas giant five times the mass of Jupiter that they name Megas, and an Earthlike planet orbiting Megas they call Erythro. They put Rotor in orbit around Erythro, more by habit than anything else, and place a dome on Erythro to study it.
Fifteen years later the story begins on Rotor, as Marlene, now fifteen and short, plump, and plain, but also intelligent, is making everyone uncomfortable with her skills at reading body language. Pitt, now Commissioner, is aware that she may be a disturbing influence on Rotor and agrees to her request that she be allowed to visit Erythro, because he knows that a mysterious plague has destroyed the minds of several people who have tried to explore the uninhabited surface, and he hopes it will dispose of Marlene and maybe her mother Insignia. Insignia has discovered that Nemesis is on its way through the solar system and in a few thousand years will pass so close to the Earth that it will destroy all life there. Pitt doesn't want to warn Earth because it will give away their location.
Erythro has no life forms above the prokaryotes necessary to provide oxygen in the atmosphere. No one goes out on the surface, however, because those who do have their minds affected. But Marlene insists on visiting the surface, first in a suit and then without, and suffers no harm. Something speaks to her, eventually mind to mind, and it turns out to be the total network of prokaryotes.
Meanwhile Crile, back on Earth, has been recruited to figure out where Rotor has gone and, after Nemesis has been discovered and its fatal passage through the solar system has been calculated, he is assigned to work toward superluminal travel. His first step is to recruit
the leading researcher on superluminal travel, Tessa Anita Wendel of the Settlement Adelia. An attractive, sexy man, Crile, who had been assigned originally the job of finding out what was happening on Rotor, now induces Wendel to move to Earth to pursue her research. Although fully aware of each other's motivations, they become lovers.
the leading researcher on superluminal travel, Tessa Anita Wendel of the Settlement Adelia. An attractive, sexy man, Crile, who had been assigned originally the job of finding out what was happening on Rotor, now induces Wendel to move to Earth to pursue her research. Although fully aware of each other's motivations, they become lovers.
Eventually Wendel, with help, perfects superluminal travel and builds a ship called the
Superluminal.
Its first Jump, however, comes out wrong until Wendel comes to the conclusion that she must include gravitational effects: in superluminal travel objects repel rather than attract, and the larger the object the greater the repulsion. Eventually, when the
Superluminal
discovers Nemesis, Rotor, and Erythro, the prokaryote mind works through Marlene to discover the answer to the problems of the Settlements and Nemesis. Earth cannot be evacuated and Erythro used as a way station to the stars because Erythro would have to be terraformed, which would destroy the prokaryote mind. It discovers in the minds of all the humans present the information that ships in superluminal travel are repelled by objects in normal space, and the objects also are repelled in a much lesser degree. By a substantial series of superluminal passes, then, the path of Nemesis through the solar system can be altered sufficiently to save Earth.
Superluminal.
Its first Jump, however, comes out wrong until Wendel comes to the conclusion that she must include gravitational effects: in superluminal travel objects repel rather than attract, and the larger the object the greater the repulsion. Eventually, when the
Superluminal
discovers Nemesis, Rotor, and Erythro, the prokaryote mind works through Marlene to discover the answer to the problems of the Settlements and Nemesis. Earth cannot be evacuated and Erythro used as a way station to the stars because Erythro would have to be terraformed, which would destroy the prokaryote mind. It discovers in the minds of all the humans present the information that ships in superluminal travel are repelled by objects in normal space, and the objects also are repelled in a much lesser degree. By a substantial series of superluminal passes, then, the path of Nemesis through the solar system can be altered sufficiently to save Earth.
In an Epilogue, Pitt thinks in fury and desperation about the failure of his experiment to avoid the anarchy, degeneration and short-time thinking of Earth:
What would there be now? Galactic empires? All the sins and follies graduated from one world to millions? Every woe and every difficulty horribly magnified?
Who would be able to make sense out of a Galaxy, when no one had ever made sense out of a single world? Who would learn to read the trends and foresee the future in a whole Galaxy teeming with humanity?
Nemesis had indeed come.
Even in an "independent" novel, Asimov could not resist the temptation to weave in his Foundation themes, or, at least, to remind his readers that in the universe, even in the Asimov universe, nothing exists in isolation.
In
Nemesis
Asimov had "placed considerably more emotion than was customary," by which he meant, I suspect, that the action of the novel was driven more by character than by the logic of the ideas. Pitt is motivated by his concept of a better human society, but the others are influenced by love, ambition, uneasiness, or, most of all, by obsession. Marlene, for instance, has an intense desire, against all reason, to visit
Erythro. Later that is explained as the shaping of her desire by the prokaryote mind. Her mother is driven by science but influenced by ambition, by her love and later dislike for Crile, and by her love for Marlene. Siever Genaro, the head of the project on Erythro and perhaps Asimov's representative in the novel, is the only one who doesn't fear Marlene's gift for deciphering people's secrets from their body language; he is rational except in his love for Insignia. Crile is moved to insist on a place on
Superluminal
and then to insist on certain procedures in their search by his obsession about the daughter he hasn't seen since she was ten months old, and by his memory of his sister's untimely death as well as her resemblance to Marlene. And so on.
Nemesis
Asimov had "placed considerably more emotion than was customary," by which he meant, I suspect, that the action of the novel was driven more by character than by the logic of the ideas. Pitt is motivated by his concept of a better human society, but the others are influenced by love, ambition, uneasiness, or, most of all, by obsession. Marlene, for instance, has an intense desire, against all reason, to visit
Erythro. Later that is explained as the shaping of her desire by the prokaryote mind. Her mother is driven by science but influenced by ambition, by her love and later dislike for Crile, and by her love for Marlene. Siever Genaro, the head of the project on Erythro and perhaps Asimov's representative in the novel, is the only one who doesn't fear Marlene's gift for deciphering people's secrets from their body language; he is rational except in his love for Insignia. Crile is moved to insist on a place on
Superluminal
and then to insist on certain procedures in their search by his obsession about the daughter he hasn't seen since she was ten months old, and by his memory of his sister's untimely death as well as her resemblance to Marlene. And so on.
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