Friday, July 05, 2013

Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov

This is the fifteenth in my one-book-at-a-time bookshelf.


One of the distinctive features of the Foundation trilogy is Asimov's use of quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica. These fall nicely within the context of the history he created but are also a clever narrative device, filling the role of the narrator who sits to the side of the stage speaking directly to the audience. A similar mechanism is used by Frank Herbert in Dune and is now a standard tool for unpacking complex science fiction scenarios.

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