I really appreciate Krugman's analysis here...
I read the Foundation Series in my late teens... I had already read a
great deal of SF by that time and had developed a little sophistication
about both science/math and the concepts of social/economic
prediction/engineering. Enough to really enjoy the romp Asimov took me
on, but not to be taken in by it completely. I had already been taken
in by the likes of Heinlein and Rand and perhaps FT and Dune were
instrumental in my spitting myself back out of their clutches.
I was learning the duality of Utopia/Dystopia as well as the value of
storytelling as "study". FT was a study in prediction theory, the
limits of science/engineering, in social/economic theories, etc.
The worst part to my youthful formative conscience was that it seemed to
support the evil slippery slope of the end justifying the means.
Next to the likes of old school Jack Williamson or Van Vogt, Asimov's
characters were at least 2.5 dimensional.
Odd that Carl's Subject line "Seldon seen" resonated with Ed Abbey's
character Seldom Seen Smith... I'm about to go on a mission to Ed Abbey
country which probably increased the resonance. The genre of
ecoterrorism is also near and dear to my heart with Stephenson's
"Zodiac" displacing "Monkey Wrench" from the top of my list.
Too bad there isn't a new edition in which the Foundation "science"
remained intact, yet which had been sufficiently re-written so as to
have three-dimensional characters, dialog, personalities...
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Robert Holmes
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Wow, I've not read those in three decades and that intro had me
salivating. Off to Amazon...
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 4:54 PM, Carl Tollander <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
New edition of Issac Asimov's Foundation series out, intro by
---- Paul Krugman. Woo-hoo!
https://webspace.princeton.edu/users/pkrugman/FDT%20intro.pdf
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