Latest / Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast / Reading Foundation in 2026: What Holds Up and What Feels Dated
Transcript
- Foundation Andrea: I’m Andrea. Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth. Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond. Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality. So are we. [musical intro] Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses. Elizabeth: On this week's episode, we're talking about Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Andrea: We'll be chatting about psychohistory, collapsing galactic empires, and why Foundation became one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written. Elizabeth: Along with what it's like reading a mid-century sci-fi classic today, including what still works, what feels dated, and who gets included in visions of the future. Andrea: Let's get started! Andrea: Before we even talk about the book, I'm curious about what your expectations were, Elizabeth, before reading it, because we had called it a “classic". So does that mean you have higher expectations? Or because it's written a long time ago, do you kind of lower your expectations because it might be dated? Or does that all balance out? Elizabeth: I try to not have expectations for things, 'cause then… Andrea: [chuckles] Elizabeth: ‘Cause if you, if you set your expectations low, then you're always pleasantly surprised. I mean, classic sort of implies older. Sure, I don't think anything new would, be called a classic. Elizabeth: But as far as, having higher expectations for it not necessarily, and I feel like the more classics of any genre that I continue to read, the less I am automatically thinking that there are high expectations. Elizabeth: My assumption is that it's a classic for some kind of reason, or reasons, but not necessarily because it's always good. Elizabeth: What about you? Did you have expectations about it? Andrea: So I did expect to like it because I've read a few other classic sci-fi books like The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I really liked those. The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, that was also written in the 1950s. Andrea: I liked that. So I just assumed that, “oh, this is another classic I'm sure I'll like it” And I didn't feel that way by the end of it. So I was surprised. Not that I had, expectations because I didn't know much about the plot I knew it was important for the sci-fi genre, and it was written during the Golden Age of sci-fi, so that is very plot-focused and technological solutions to problems in space. And I enjoy thinking about what they thought technology would be like in the future. Andrea: So I did enjoy that aspect of it. Andrea: So it is important to mention that it was published in 1951. So in the beginning of the '50s, and it was originally serialized as short stories in a magazine. I did not realize that until after I read it, but finding that out made a lot of sense because, the chapters come across as sort of capsules. Andrea: Like, each one is a contained story, and characters are referenced in future chapters, but they don't necessarily play a role. They were originally published as episodic stories in Astounding Science Fiction, a magazine at the time. Elizabeth: Each of the chapters takes place large leaps into the future as compared to the previous chapter. Hearing that it was originally serialized in a magazine makes sense and I read somewhere where it was, originally written as a series of short stories. Makes a lot of sense because they do have to do with each other in terms of the overall history of this universe, but otherwise they don't. By the time you get to the next chapter, all of the people in the previous chapter are, of course, all dead, 'cause it's probably hundreds of, years in the future from one to the next. Andrea: Well, it's clear in the book they talk about the Seldon crises taking place, like, 50 years into the future, and then another 80 after that. Andrea: Where all this might be happening compared to our current, Earth. Andrea: Earth necessarily isn't mentioned, in this universe. I keep being tempted to say world, but it takes place on so many different worlds, you can't say singular. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: There are many worlds within this galactic empire, and every time the galactic empire is referenced it makes me think of Star Wars. Elizabeth: At the beginning of every Star Wars movie where it says " a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” That's not in this book, but that could be the start of this book is it could say, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Andrea: Yeah, so the Goodreads synopsis says, "For twelve thousand years, the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying, but only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future, to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, warfare that will last 30,000 years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the empire, both scientists and scholars, and bring them to the bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation." Andrea: That definitely sounds like Star Wars and like, the Jedi, you know, preserving the Empire or something to me. But could see how there could be a connection. Andrea: And yeah, so they mention psychohistory in that synopsis, and that is actually a huge part of this book. I had never heard that term before, and I had to kind of look it up as, like, a, "Is this a real thing?" It's not, but the idea of using math or symbols to predict the future large social events or upheavals or crises so sort of psychological history a predictive model based on math and science, which was interesting. Andrea: I thought that was an interesting concept. What'd you think about that? Elizabeth: This book is very political. And a lot of this psychohistory stuff is used to predict ... seeing into the future and predicting large historical events or how the masses will react to certain things and how that can be used for political manipulation. Elizabeth: And so sometimes it felt almost more like speculative sociology as opposed to speculative science. Which I mean not to say that psychology isn't a type of science, 'cause it is. But it frames it as sort of using math and more hard sciences to predict how people and mobs and the masses will act over time. Elizabeth: But there's more sort of, like, psychology and sociology in that almost. Andrea: That's sort of what struck me too, even in the first chapter of the book, that it really was almost a political thought experiment. Not political in the sense of Republican or Democrat. It's political in terms of the rise of power of certain parties. Probably at the time this was published, regardless of your political beliefs, you could read it and relate to it, because it was talking about power as a very generalized concept, right? Elizabeth: Yeah, sort of regardless of what your beliefs are, this is just how power corrupts and how power develops over time, and how the masses interact with the people who are in the positions of power. As if that stuff can be predicted maybe not necessarily, the date and the time but within, maybe a year or two timeframe. Elizabeth: Predicting how events will unfold based upon behavior of the masses. Fascinating thought. Deep philosophical things about this book kinda made you stop and think about it, and at times can be sort of prescient for what has happened in politics recently and since the book was published. Andrea: The way they treat ideas about how power evolves and is gained, I think you could still use some of those concepts today. Elizabeth: Yeah, there were definitely sort of currents, underlying currents of truth, among the things that were being said throughout the book. Elizabeth: What did you think of where I put the tabs? Elizabeth: You read the same copy, so you saw where I put the tabs. Andrea: Ooh, so the first one that you marked, was that one of the phrases that the mayor, had framed on the wall behind him "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Yes. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: So violence should be the last resort. That if you can come to terms through some type of political alliance or treaty agreement, is preferred and more intelligent than violent warfare. Elizabeth: And can help to prevent the violence from happening. Elizabeth: These sort of discussion of these big, huge ideas like power and politics and religion and how the interplay of all of these different things Isaac Asimov clearly found things that 75 years later that still ring true because I think there's a lot of truth to that, line. Yeah. Andrea: There are aspects of the book still ring true today, but there are other aspects that feel really dated. The most obvious one is transporting letters or mail in a spaceship, right? Andrea: They didn't foresee that we would have email. And so reading that today, that feels very dated. Elizabeth: That's going to happen, of course. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: When you get something that's, was published 75 years ago. Elizabeth: That reminds me of watching like "Seinfeld." So I mean "Seinfeld" is what? 30 years old now, right? And the things that feel really dated in "Seinfeld" have to do with like how we communicate with one another. Elizabeth: Like when they talk about like trying to call each other on the phone and leaving messages that- you leave a message, and then you have no idea, when they're gonna get the message 'cause they have to go home and check the messages on their answering machine. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Maybe for myself, whenever I write my own science fiction book, just try to stay away from, methods of communication because there's a fair chance that will date itself very quickly. Andrea: Yeah. Well, and they use microfilm for record keeping. I remember the library used to have microfilm records, but I never did it. I don't think I've ever looked at a microfilm. Have you? Elizabeth: Oh, maybe a really long time ago. I really have to think about that. Andrea: But you have to think about that. Elizabeth: I really have to think about that. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Maybe a school library. Elizabeth: If so, it would've been a very long time ago. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: And you had to use a special type of machine. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: I don't know if there's anything that necessarily struck me as being really dated. I read it two months ago, so I didn't remember the part about mail being transported in a spaceship. ' Cause yeah, that's funny. That is quite dated. Even though there's still, you know, there's still... Elizabeth: The written word still does wield a lot of power, and even though we have found ways to, legally sign things that doesn't require you actually having a writing utensil in your hand and signing a piece of paper, we do still use paper for a lot of things. Elizabeth: Yeah, I don't know that there'd be as much of it as he was imagining that there would be. Andrea: So the first time I noticed a woman being mentioned in the book was a little bit over 100 pages in, and it was a telephone operator. It was a young lady in the role of a telephone operator, and I was like, "Wow, this is the only female character you're going to include in this vision of the Galactic Empire? Andrea: A telephone operator, seriously?" Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: The Commdora is wife of a high official that shows up later on in the book, she is a political pawn being married off by her father. Andrea: So that's not the only female character, but a telephone operator. that felt very dated to me, and that there are no women in positions of power. I think it speaks a lot to this author is writing for, who their intended audience is, and it caused me to do some more diving and research into him as an author, and I found out some unpleasant things. so, I think that's one of the things that feels dated. Not having more female characters. And not having more female characters in positions of power. Elizabeth: Yeah. Like as more and more time goes on and, women continue to fight and advocate for equal rights, and as women take back their own stories and write their own stories, and there are more and more books written by women with female main characters and stories centered around women, you're right, this does make it feel very dated for sure. Elizabeth: I feel like with a lot of science fiction, there's almost, an expectation, maybe science fiction having to do with space. Elizabeth: There’s an expectation that there's gonna be a lot of action, maybe battles in space and spaceships and, like pew, pew, pew, pew lasers and stuff like that. Elizabeth: You just think about Star Wars, and that's what Star Wars is right? This is almost like anti-action. Elizabeth: Each of the sections feels like a backroom meeting amongst men of power. Elizabeth: And so then you learn about these things that have happened, but it's always, after they've happened, and then they're talking about them in these backroom meetings. Andrea: All the men are smoking cigars. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: Talking about how they're taking over the world. Andrea: So I think that was a big negative in my book. Elizabeth: I'm not disturbed enough by it to make me stop reading it. 'Cause also, once again, they're really short. ' You know, if these were really long, I might feel the same way. Andrea: What if all women were in power? Andrea: That's basically the Barbie movie by Greta Gerwig. Andrea: Who decides what is a classic? Elizabeth: A classic is a classic because it's still around. It's not like there's a whole committee of old white English professors sitting in a back room with a pipe and a tweed jacket with leather elbow pads deciding that this book becomes a classic and this book doesn't, and then that actually happens. I think a classic becomes a classic because it withstands the test of time, and it continues to stick around for whatever reason. Andrea: You're saying, it's a classic because it stood the test of time, and I wonder if maybe over time that'll still be the case. I mentioned this book to a couple of people, and one person was like, "Yeah, I read it," and they stopped there. didn't say anything positive and they refrained from saying anything negative. And so sometimes when someone's just like, "Yeah, I read it," that gives me a, like, kind of a negative people don't like saying bad things about a book. They don't necessarily wanna taint your impression of it. Elizabeth: Oh, seriously? Oh, I don't hold back. Elizabeth: People can read whatever they want, and… Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Just because I didn't like a book doesn't mean you won't like a book. I'm the type of reader that I want to read everything. Elizabeth: Especially the classics, if it's something that's stuck around as long as it has, and publishing companies are still printing it. Elizabeth: There are lots of books out there that goes out of print and, gone forever unless you can find a copy that still exists. So if a publishing company is still spending money to continue to print it, that says something. And I want to be able to form my own opinion, 'cause then if somebody doesn't like something, I wanna know why they didn't like it. And then as I'm reading it, it might make me notice something that I wouldn't have otherwise, but that's not necessarily bad. and there are times where people say they really don't like a book, and then I read it and I loved it. Elizabeth: So… Andrea: You like making your own opinion. I think that’s fair. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: That’s totally fair. Yeah. Elizabeth: Because if you listened to every bad review, you would never read anything, Andrea: True. Elizabeth: Because there's always going to be somebody that didn't like it. Andrea: Well, and I think that’s why it's important to give honest reviews, right? What didn't work for someone else might be the piece that you love. If you're like, "Oh, that book was too academic. I didn't like all of the math references," like well, what if you really like math. Andrea: You might enjoy that book, but it doesn't mean it's for everyone. So yeah, I think just being honest about your critique and what specifically you did or did not like about a book. Andrea: Maybe some people reading a book that has a all male cast is no problem, but I personally enjoy it more when there are strong female characters. Andrea: Maybe some romance, maybe some fantasy. If there's dragons, that automatically goes on my list. I've learned that about myself, and I will accept that. Yeah. Elizabeth: That doesn't mean that every single book that you read is always going to have a strong female character. It doesn't mean that every book that you read and like is going to have a strong female character. Andrea: True. Elizabeth: Okay, you have a preference for that. Elizabeth: But not to say that there aren't older books that have strong female characters. I mean, I'm you know, thinking about Jane Austen, for example, has a lot of strong female main characters. But that's also partly what made her so revolutionary as a writer at the time. Elizabeth: There are more and more books being published that have strong female main characters, but for most of history, the things that have been written have been written about men. Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: So, then that means that you just then don't read old stuff because there are no strong female main characters? Elizabeth: As far as, like you know, what does make it a classic. Why is it a classic? I, I'm, I think I'm gonna reserve judgment until reading at least the next one, 'cause once again, when it wasn’t explicitly written to be a book, then it makes me want to not judge the entire thing yet. Elizabeth: Thinking about other fantasy, sci-fi series what if you just stopped at The Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. Or what if you just stop at The Gunslinger in The Dark Tower? Andrea: That’s what I’ve done. You know that’s what I’ve done. Elizabeth: I have also done, or did the first time around, and then second time around, tried it again, didn't stop at The Gunslinger, and then you get sucked into a really, really good series. Elizabeth: So yeah, the fact that there are so many of them makes me think that it's gotta get better, 'cause otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them, I think. So. Andrea: I'll try to be optimistic. Elizabeth: So why is it a classic? With this first one, it seems like less to do with the science fiction and more to do with the statements on politics and power and religion and, broader philosophical topics. Elizabeth: I feel like that seems to be more in line with classic material. Andrea: One of the big ideas was about how knowledge is preserved. Foundation where they had the scientists, they continued to do scientific work and develop technologies, whereas on other planets science stagnated, and the same type of technology was handed down from generation to generation to the point that the people then didn't understand how to work it. Like, kind of the transfer of of knowledge. Elizabeth: Oh, right. And there was like, a power generating plant that there was, one person that ran the whole thing? Andrea: But he didn’t really know what he was doing. Andrea: He was just given the job because he was the grandson of whoever founded the plant or something. Elizabeth: And that sort of went along with the idea of a civilization over time to regress. Andrea: Well also it made me think about, like, I don't know exactly what I would do if my power was cut out. We rely so much on refrigeration. I have an electric car, so being able to plug the car in to go to the grocery store and get food there. Andrea: I don't have a garden. I don't grow my own food. I rely on going to a grocery store, this idea that people are no longer self-sufficient, they don't really have a connection with where things come from or how they're created. It made me think about what if we were to lose our current technology, right? Elizabeth: Well, I think there's something to be said about AI in that conversation in terms of younger generations these days, questioning the value of a college education. Maybe I even saw a headline today on a PBS video about how some universities in response to that are trying to speed up their degrees. Elizabeth: So instead of a four year degree, maybe a three-year degree. And maybe that would be more attractive to new students to enroll. But as somebody who is not an educator I'm not a teacher, I'm not a professor, I'm not in academia, it seems like students are using AI in school more and more, and so then they're not developing critical thinking skills and, may be asking themselves the question of, " Why do I even need to continue to learn when there's just this computer system that just knows all the things for me? Elizabeth: And as long as I just ask the right question, then I can just find any information I need, and I don't need to know the information myself. Andrea: Well that sort of reminds me of growing up, I had phone numbers memorized, I had phone numbers memorized, and now I have two phone numbers memorized. one of them's my own, And the other one is my mom's phone number. That's pretty sad, right? You used to be able to memorize, everybody's phone number, but now you just have it saved for you in your phone. And so this dependence on a technology that we don't really understand. If my phone were completely to break, or all phones stopped working I would not have a way to communicate with people. If the internet and my phone stopped working, I'd have to go talk to people in person? Postcards? I mean… Elizabeth: Yeah. Postcards. Elizabeth: Personally having been a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, in Sub-Saharan Africa, I have lived without power, not all the time, but about half the time. And the power that was there was really unreliable. It would come on for a while. Elizabeth: Sometimes it'd be on for some days. And then randomly it would just turn off. And then maybe it'd be off for days, or maybe it'd kinda come on and off throughout the day. there was no rhyme or reason to it. And so that meant I didn't have a refrigerator. And there were lots of times that I read books by candlelight or candlelight and a kerosene lantern. Elizabeth: I think I personally just have a better understanding of what that can look like without those things. Elizabeth: Humans are absolutely very resourceful. And so if you suddenly lose a major resource that you've come to depend upon, you adapt quickly. you figure it out. But it's not gonna be easy, and it's not necessarily gonna be as nice. Elizabeth: I mean you're absolutely right. There is so much technology that I do not understand how it works, and you just take it for granted that it works. Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: And there are so many things that you don't even know are at play because you're so removed from the time when we didn't have that thing, that you don't even know that it's working for you… Elizabeth: Until it breaks. Andrea: That's one of the things I like about reading science fiction and I enjoyed about reading this book, is that it made me think about our world and how we live in our current day. Andrea: I don't know if I would be thinking about these ideas of stagnation and technology dependence if I weren't reading this book, right? Andrea: So I do appreciate that. Andrea: There's a podcast episode on Freakonomics where they talk about AI and different technologies that have basically made jobs obsolete, and One of them was the automated switchboard. The automated switchboard put switchboard operators out of the job, and it was invented by a mortician. So two morticians in the same town, and all of his business was going to the other mortician, because the other mortician's wife was a switchboard operator. Andrea: So people would call up and say, "I need a funeral home," she would transfer them to her husband and give her husband business. And so the other guy wasn't getting any business. Elizabeth: Oh. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Talk about human resourcefulness. Andrea: So he was getting left out, and he invented the switchboard to solve that problem. Elizabeth: He was presented with a unique problem he hadn't experienced before and found a very innovative workaround. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Huh. Elizabeth: The podcast episode is New Technologies Always Scare Us, and Is AI Any Different? Elizabeth: Documentary that I saw recently from this year, 2026 called The AI Doc: or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. I really like that term. I'd use that for myself, that there are things that I see mostly apocalyptic about AI, but also lots of things that are optimistic. Elizabeth: Apocaloptimist. Elizabeth: And yeah, this new technology that no one really understands, even as it's being produced. Elizabeth: I suppose that's a little bit different. Elizabeth: Going back to the idea of this, nuclear power plant that the single operator doesn't even understand how it works and, it's just something that this technology has existed presumably without any kind of innovation for generations. Elizabeth: And so the knowledge of how it all works has been lost and the only knowledge that remains is just how to have this one person keep it functioning. Andrea: Right. Andrea: All this talk around AI makes me wanna go back and watch the Terminator movies. 'Cause that was about, the machines revolting. Elizabeth: Yeah, like Skynet? Andrea: Yeah. I don't think the machines have really revolted, but sometimes they'll say, like, "Oh, I can't give you that answer," right? they've been programmed to say they can't give you certain answers I suppose. But yeah. Mm-hmm. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: Something that feels very different about AI though with regards to the obsolescence of the knowledge of how technology works? Elizabeth: What feels different about AI is that it seems like as this technology is being developed, no one knows how it works really. Elizabeth: Even the AI experts seem to not really understand exactly how it works and where it can go, because if you don't understand how it works now, then how can you possibly know what it's gonna do in the future? And that seems, particularly unsettling about AI as compared to other technologies in the past. Andrea: Well, and going back to the first computers I think it was Ada Lovelace that said, it was an analytical machine, but it wasn't a thinking machine. Andrea: That it can solve your problem, but it won't solve things that you don't ask it to do that's a different situation today. Elizabeth: Yeah, like I don't think AI is thinking. As far as I know it's just predicting what it thinks the next word is supposed to be. Predicting something based upon massive amounts of computation is not the same as thinking. Andrea: Well it’s weird too, when for example, this has happened to me in the past couple days, where I have Googled something, I open a couple of tabs and it prompts me. It knows what I'm going to ask, based on what sites I have clicked on prior to that. Andrea: It knows what my next question is, and it's filling it in for me. Like, "Is this what you're gonna look up?" That's creepy. That's creepy. Elizabeth: That is creepy. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: I think we're only just gonna get more creeped out by AI. Andrea: All those, different privacy settings for cookie settings? There's gonna be like, "Oh, are you gonna allow AI to analyze your website history." The fact that we have to put AI disclosures in publication pages now. Like, AI is becoming ever present. Elizabeth: I think it's already doing those things. Elizabeth: Ooh, 'cause something I saw recently a video basically saying that, AI is already sifting through all of your emails and knows all of that information, and there is a way to prevent it from doing that. Elizabeth: And so, I was very intrigued by that, so I went into the settings. Like, they gave you instructions on how to change the settings so it stopped doing that. And so I did that, and it almost gave me this warning of like, " Are you sure you don't want me to do that anymore?" Elizabeth: “Be managing your inbox for you?" 'Cause when I, put in these settings to stop AI use, my inbox just exploded into so many spam emails and AI is actually filtering that stuff out. Elizabeth: Unless you are really good about, hitting unsubscribe and finding ways to unsubscribe from all of the email slop that we get sent every single day. So I very quickly went back and was like, I guess I'll just let AI do its thing," Andrea: Interesting. Elizabeth: Cause it was very inconvenient to not have it there. Elizabeth: it's a nice reminder of like, oh, right, it's being used in so many ways that we don't even realize without really our consent. You know, we are consenting to it 'cause you accept the terms and conditions, Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: But no one ever actually reads the terms and conditions to know what we're actually accepting. Elizabeth: We kind of got off on kind of a weird AI tangent. Andrea: Yeah Elizabeth: What led us to this? Andrea: So this is going back to the book's idea of not understanding the technology that you’ve been handed down over time. Elizabeth: Oh Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: In the book, they have a world that has giant nuclear power plants versus the more technology savvy world with, like a entire nuclear power plant that you hold in your hand. Elizabeth: How would you rate this book, Andrea? Andrea: So I gave it three stars. If we're giving half stars, I'd give it a three and a half. I had to rate it down because, it didn't have any characters that I particularly cared about. It had some interesting thought experiments, and it was well-written. But I didn't enjoy reading it. Andrea: It felt like, a homework assignment, but it's not a bad book and it is a product of the time period and culture that it was written in. So three and a half. What about you? Elizabeth: I mean.. Andrea: What would you rate this? Elizabeth: All books are a reflection of their times, and he was a white man that wrote a book in 1951. But I do think that there is a lot to chew on. The things that you're gonna chew on are not the classically science fiction things you're gonna chew on. Andrea: Sure Elizabeth: It seems that the parts that were the most interesting, I thought, were the parts that had... political commentary and the role of science in a society and the role of religion and power, and how that power is transferred from one person or one state or organization to the next, and who wields the power. Andrea: It was a lot of big overarching ideas. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: And honestly the fact that there were no women involved in this galactic empire, that was really hard for me to get over. Elizabeth: But once again, a, book written by a white man in 1951. Andrea: I enjoyed Lord of the Rings, but that had more action. It had more to it Also, Galadriel was a queen. Another strong female character in Lord of the Rings. Andrea: Maybe my opinion will change over time, maybe this is a book that the more I think about it, I'll be like, “That really had a lot of thought-provoking ideas” But way I felt finishing it once I had a heightened awareness for, like, oh, is there gonna be another female character? And I kept not experiencing that. I started to not like it as much, Elizabeth: No matter what you were gonna read after "The Lord of the Rings," were you gonna not be as excited about it? Because It's hard for things to compare to "The Lord of the Rings," that's true. Elizabeth: I think I'd probably also give it three and a half. I just think that it felt kinda disjointed. and the fact that it was just a bunch of men sitting in a back room talking about things that have already happened. Elizabeth: It just wasn't as... thrilling or exciting. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Because there were such large gaps in time between one section to the next, there wasn't really one big story. There were just lots of stories. Andrea: The blaster points both ways, right? In one sense it feels disjointed, but in the other you get to see a much longer span of time. You're looking at these really large sweeps and kind of epic scale. And that's what influenced future generations of authors to write about these galactic empires and space operas as a genre. And so I can see how this could inspire people to think differently about science fiction and space in general. So from that standpoint, I think it interesting and important which is why it gets that half star. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: Not necessarily like I expected it to be sort of a classic, space opera with all this drama and action and, laser guns, pew, pew, pew. But the things that I found myself thinking about, the tab that I put in that “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” was not something I would've thought that I would be thinking about from this book. Elizabeth: I do enjoy books that make you think. And, there was a lot of thinking about it, but not the things you would expect to be thinking about based on, classic science fiction space empires. Elizabeth: Like I can see how pun intended here, how this could be a good foundation for a big, big dramatic space opera. Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: That it kinda sets things up for more of what we think of as classic science fiction, spaceships and stuff. Elizabeth: A potentially a good setup for that. Andrea: I think this book would appeal to somebody who's interested in some thought provoking ideas, but not necessarily action, not character forward, very plot-oriented and big picture ideas. We'll see if that continues to be the case with the rest of the trilogy. Elizabeth: That turns into a bigger series. Andrea: Yes. Elizabeth: Unfortunately, that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses. Andrea: Don't worry, the adventure never really ends. There are always more stories to explore, and let's be honest, more bookish tangents for us to go on. Elizabeth: If you loved today's episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share the magic. Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be chatting about most books' first impression, its cover, and our summer book bingo. Elizabeth: And in the meantime, keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories Andrea: And never stop chasing the worlds waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone.