SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

What did you think of the characters in Foundation?

Honestly at some points they never seemed to shut up :)

But dialogue aside may favorites were the Mule and the characters there. The Mule was a very unique and interesting antagonist.

Michael wrote: "Honestly at some points they never seemed to shut up :)

But dialogue aside may favorites were the Mule and the characters there. The Mule was a very unique and interesting antagonist."

Michael, we are only discussing the first book, the Mule comes in the second half of the second book, Foundation and Empire, so don't over jump yourself when there are others out there that has only read the first book.

Kevin wrote: "Michael wrote: "Honestly at some points they never seemed to shut up :)

But dialogue aside may favorites were the Mule and the characters there. The Mule was a very unique and interesting antagoni..."

Yeah, I was going to say, "The Mule?" OMG WHAT DIDN'T I REMEMBER!?? And ok, crisis over. hehe

My favorite character was probably Hardin, the Mayor. I thought he was unique. However, I find myself not really worried about any individual characters. I feel more like an observer, and I am just watching the lives of this empire run around in front of me. It's very interesting. I don't think I've felt that same way about a book yet. It's great. :)

I'm only 60% of the way through, and I definitely liked Hardin. Though I wish we didn't jump characters so quickly. I've just stared the next section and thought "wait! no go back! I don't care about the traders!"

I've never felt that characters were Asimov's strong point. He does fairly well with them in the Lijah Baily series but the Foundation series, it's more about psychohistory than the characters themselves. They seem like they're just all there to discuss what's going on.

I agree Michael. I tend to think Asimov's strength in this series is his dialogue. Otherwise, for at least the first half, there isn't much else going on. I find the dialogue to be informative without being an info dump and really clever and witty.

The way the story is laid out and the characters written, there wasn't much room (or need) for character depth or sympathy. This book was much more a sweeping overview than a typical story which progresses through character crises and development.

I have to say, however, that it ruffled my feathers that there was literally one female character in the book, and she only had 2-3 lines.

Hi all, I too think that characters are not really (at least in this series) Asimov's forte..but then I also get the point that he is trying to highlight the passing of time, of generations and to show the changes that a predicted eventually happening. To stick to one set of characters over such a huge span of time would have been impossible then.

Is it just me? It seems to me that Seldon, Hardin and Mallow are pretty much the same person. I didn't care for the characters though I did enjoy the book as a whole.

Ed, it's not just you. apparently, there needs to be one man to go against the consensus at each milestone in time, and they're pretty much all the same guy.

I'm with most people here, Asimov just isn't interested in characterisation, or setting for that matter, and for his novels that is just fine. The characters are just a means to an end, carrying the plot forward. The fact that the characters are flat and samey and speak with the woodenness of Adam West from time to time (usually my pet hate) doesn't seem to bother me too much.

If we're taking class of characters I would have to say my favorite would be traders. Their motto, "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing the right thing!", is reason enough.

The characters seem to be intended as purely functional. They serve to advance the story in that they are foils to ignorance. The first great ignorance is that of Empire failing to realize that their society has run its course. The foil is Hari Seldon, who uses his intelligence to manipulate the Empire into giving him the things he needs to create a 1000-year renaissance that begins before the Fall.

In each section of the novel, the characters that make up the enemies of the Foundation prove to be egocentric and shortsighted, easily maneuvered by the Foundation’s major characters into subjectivity. It seems to me that the primary function of the Foundation characters is to show that cunning and intelligence are to be valued over violence. Salvor Hardin’s motto, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” would seem to serve all characters and prove the general theme of the novel.

For what it’s worth, I think most of Asimov’s characters are written to serve the function of the theme and that most of his dialogue serves to function as plot development.

I agree I liked Salvor Hardin out of all the characters. He has a hardness or purpose and a humanity about him that others lack. It's just a very wordy book; the characters never seem to shut up! I'm about halfway though now and am struck that, even though this is set in the distant future, there seems to be a complete absence of women! Even Star Trek had thought of putting a few in, why couldn't Asimov?

Its funny that despite the absence of women, Foundation reminds me very much of a Jane Austen novel, it's heavy emphasis on dialogue used to push the plot forward and the almost complete lack of setting.

The characters remind me of characters in Twilight Zone, very much there as vessels for the telling of the tale. Just believable enough to get me interested and keep me interested, but Asimov, like Serling, knows that he only has a couple of hundred pages and a lot to do, so he thinks, "here's some people ... but the ideas are what I want to write." And so he does. I like it, but then I'm on a TZ every night kick.

Although I've too noticed the lack of character depth, I don't feel like it's really lacking. Assimov probably realized that he could expound on them, but didn't have to. That extra little bit isn't necessary in my eyes.

But, I would have liked to have more time with some characters. It really is going fast. Almost like a much shorter version of Dune. Instead of living the action parts, we mostly just hear about it after it happened. It's not a bad way to write a book, but it also doesn't leave me totally in love with it.

It a lot of exposition, a lot of tell rather than show. It makes me wonder if I could tell a story like that. I mostly tell stories by showing, but there is something almost quaint, and thereby attractive, about telling.

It hearkens back to the early days of novel writing when action was tucked into a history being told. As I understand it, the craft of writing grew from the craft of storytelling which was as much for imparting history as for entertainment.

I agree with a lot of the people who already commented that it's appropriate to the story for the characters not to steal the show. It fits especially well with the idea of psychohistory for the individual characters not to be too memorable.

I read Asimov's collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories not very long ago and in the commentary he calls attention to how he likes to write stories told entirely through dialogue.

I like Salvor Hardin very much. :o)

I tend to agree with everyone else on this one, in that the characters are very secondary to the tale, there purely to move the unfolding story along.
The thing that struck me most fully on this long overdue reread was the almost total lack of female characters. Now I'm not usually very good at noticing any underlying sexism, but the phrase 'twenty thousand men and their wives and families.' practically leaped off the page and socked me on the nose. I think that sentence alone very forcefully made me realize just how far society has come since Foundation was written, as I think most here would agree that Asimov's writing didn't on the whole tend to be overly sexist or derogatory towards women. But here though the only female charcter I can recall is a rather sour minor Royal who thinks Daddy has rather married her off to someone rather too far beneath her for her liking. (Glad to say the Royal wedding I've just watched today seemed to be a much happier affair)
I don't remember the later books at all well, but I do hope they get better in this regard if I'm going to continue and reread them all.