Glow in the dark Foundationn

I got this book because it seemed like a cool edition of The Foundation Trilogy. I later discovered that it glows in the dark when I turned the lights off to go to sleep.

68 comments

The Foundation trilogy is absolute peak science fiction and I should definitely re-read it.
- I totally agree. This series, along with the original Dune novels, is the bedrock of my love for sci-fi.
  
  Ive tried to get thru dune a few of times but it hasnt clicked for me yet, I'll use your comment as a reminder that I need to give it another go :)
  
  Thoughts on the sequels? I absolutely beyond love the first. Read it maybe 5 times by now. This last time didn’t want to end the adventure, so finally gave the second one a try, and was pretty badly disappointed. The first does such a good job with meanings within meanings and subtlety in dialogue (along with everything else it does right), and the second just seemed to be trying too hard at those things and ultimately failing.
- start with the robot series. Get the full saga.
  
  And don't stop after the trilogy there's seven foundation books in all.
  
  Actually just read all of Asimov while you are at it.
- I couldn’t disagree more. The writing is absolute cringe.
  
  For some reason I assumed Asimov would be a good writer, maybe because I read his “Last Question” short story a long time ago and thought it was brilliant.
  
  But Foundation reads like it was written by a teenager. He’s obsessed with describing ghee whiz gadgets and doodads that I couldn’t care less about, the prose is plain and boring, and the themes and characters have not aged well. It feels like I’m watching the Jetsons, except it’s not at all quaint.
  
  I was hoping to be able to look past all this and get lost in the epic scale of the story and universe he purportedly builds, but it just wasn’t there for me.
  
  Sounds like you're kinda more after something a little less hard? Asimov is very much the quintessential "this could've been an essay" hard sci-fi author (though I will say, imo The Mule is a great character)...but then again I'd argue most hard hard sci-fi is like that. It's either an ethics or a speculative engineering/biology essay under the veneer of a story. It doesn't matter much in a short story because you don't have to set up anything beyond your core theme but stretching out into something more than 50 pages long can be a bit much for some people.
  
  If you're after something longform from him that's not so...jargony, have you tried Caves of Steel? it's his attempt at writing genre fiction and at least I think it's pretty good. It's a murder mystery set in his general universe (though way before the Empire and everything) and tries to tackle the more social aspects and themes behind robotics.
  
  What sci-fi would you recommend?
- Agree completely. This and the culture series were my jam for a long time. Charles stross is also a banger. Sam Hughes too.
Absolutely expected this to be a weird makeup thread from the title. Don't Lemmy while tired, kids.
Cool! That book cover alone is better than the show 😂
- That's because the cover has at least a minor relation to the source material.
- The show is its own thing. It was always going to need to be radically different to work on the screen. That's what adaptation means.
That's awesome, I want one!
as someone who has had a really hard time getting into this series. Does it get better?
- Not really. Foundation is notoriously NOT character-driven, bit of a pendant to Dune’s hero-centered narrative. I love the world of Foundation, but it really is bit of a chore to read the books.
  
  Thankx. That's kinda what I suspected but also so many people seem to enjoy it. Sounds like it's not for me
- I personally have found them very easy to read. It doesn’t spend time on character development but it summarized the story well and moves on (jumps forward in time) before it gets boring.
- Foundation is basically all concept. If you do want to get into it, there's a dated but still entertaining (IMO) radio drama version the BBC did in the early 70s. You can hear it here.
Same thing happened to us!
I'm curious? is it the warm glow of atomic energy?

(or was it 'the warm glow of radiation'?)
- The series believes nuclear is the end all of energy sources, so I would say it’s probably radiation.
  
  That was the context times they were in. Nuclear sciences were new, and miraculous; but they didn’t quite know how dangerous it was to be around, so Asimov envisioned it was safe to have tiny little nuclear reactors powering personal shields around one’s neck
That’s pretty cool! Where did you get it?
- I got it from Ebay. I can't seem to find an official source of it. It seems to be published by "Spectra".
😍
So smart and inventive! Which publishing house is it?
- I believe they are called "Spectra".
  
  Cheers! Never seen it here, I'll check online.
Snagged the audiobook from my library this morning & started it via libby. Audiobook was an excellent idea, thank you!!
What happens when you turn the lights off for reasons other than sleeping?
- You make sweet love to the sexy cool glow of the Foundation trilogy special edition.
  
  The spacer shoes stay on during sex
https://Lemmy.world/c/foundation
- Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !foundation@Lemmy.world
  
  It worked for me on wefwef.
  
  All hail wefwef!
Where can I find this? Looks so cool!
I never knew how badly I needed this book in my life until now.
I have the whole set of 7 books I’ve been reading through, do people mainly only focus on the first 3?
- They just happened to be first and then the others were written later. I have the other books as well, but not as a set.
  
  I had to take a break around book five. I just finished do androids dream of electric sheep, yesterday I started Neuromancer.
I know it's just the cover because the pages need to be exposed to light first in order to glow, but imagine if the entire book glowed so you could read it at night...
- I've become a full convert to tablet reading because of this. It's also nice to be able to slip my book into my pocket and take it anywhere easily.
  
  Feels like I'm in a sci-fi story every time I use it.
I like the image. Makes you think about how Golan Trevize saw Galaxy in his mind
really neat!

68 comments