Foundation

So the Galactic Empire is about to come down big time, as predicted by the sciencey science of master psychohistorian (empirical sociologist?), Hari Seldon. The rest of the book is about the post-Empire centuries in the periphery of the galaxy, and how Seldon's psychohistorical predictive analysis was amaaaazing (is he Nate Silver?), and a bunch of great men in future history shepherd the galactic stragglers through the usual Dark Ages pattern of Medieval religion preserving scientific insight, followed by increased trade and Renaissancey stuff, and the promise of a second Empire down the line.

Uggggghhhh.

So the entire book is literally a series of two-man conversation scenes, where Great Man X explains his position in the future history to us (since he always Gets It, and we have big time-jumps which require sooo much clunky “as you know” dialogue), while Minion Man or perhaps Enemy Man go either “oh wow jeez” or “i disagree!”. It's incredibly boring and depressing. Depressing that the first woman who shows up does so at 76% of the way through (to try on a dress, people, A DRESS), and the first woman to SPEAK is at 79%. And she's a shrewish wife of one of the Great Men's enemies. So, basically, pointless.

Yeah. It's clunky, and oh God boring, and just a bunch of exposition, and I AM NOT UNDERSTANDING ASIMOV'S POSITION IN THE SCI-FI CANON. I admit this is one book. I will read a few Asimov more, but, let's just say, this one confirmed by ~~dark thoughts~~ about some pre-1960s sci-fi: that it's chauvinistic and narrow-minded and dull as hell.