Manny's Reviews > Fondazione e Terra

** spoiler alert ** "Every single part of me has been replaced at least five times," sighs the dying R. Daneel Olivaw at the end of this book, unaccountably omitting to add "Except for all the diodes down my left side. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch."

I figured that Douglas Adams had to be making an obscure joke at Asimov's expense, but when I check the dates I find that So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish appeared in 1984, while Foundation and Earth appeared in 1986. So either Asimov is borrowing from Adams and ruining the punchline, or it's some kind of bizarre coincidence.

Weird.
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More generally, the infuriating thing about the series is that Asimov keeps moving the goal-posts. It's originally going to be about psychohistory and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire. But then it turns out that Weird Mental Powers can derail the Seldon Plan, so it's about Weird Mental Powers for a while. Then we belatedly get the psychohistory back on track at the end of Second Foundation, and if Asimov had been smart he would have quit while he was ahead.

But no, thirty years later he returns in Foundation's Edge with more Weird Mental Powers, also introducing the hive mind Gaia, which is completely extraneous to the original series, and then shortly after follows up with Foundation and Earth where we discover it was REALLY about robot R. Daneel Olivaw's behind-the-scenes role in setting up the rise of Gaia to become the even larger hive mind Galaxia. And then he goes back and writes two prequels which expand Olivaw's role, bring in another robot character, give a backstory for the Mental Powers, and triumphantly end with Seldon creating psychohistory, which we know will turn out to be irrelevant.

Honestly. It's like Tolkien had decided somewhere around the beginning of volume two that in fact it would make more sense to give the Ring to Aragorn, and then changed his mind again in volume three so that it eventually goes to Fangorn, who decides that justice will best be served by turning everyone into an Ent.