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skolima finished reading Lonely Planet the Netherlands by Lonely Planet

No cover — Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet the Netherlands (2024, Lonely Planet Publications)

Lonely Planet the Netherlands by Lonely Planet

skolima finished reading Lonely Planet Amsterdam 13 by Catherine Le Nevez

Lonely Planet Amsterdam 13 by Catherine Le Nevez, Kate Morgan, Barbara Woolsey

skolima started reading Lonely Planet Amsterdam 13 by Catherine Le Nevez

Lonely Planet Amsterdam 13 by Catherine Le Nevez, Kate Morgan, Barbara Woolsey

skolima started reading Lonely Planet the Netherlands by Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet the Netherlands by Lonely Planet

skolima started reading Second foundation by Isaac Asimov (Foundation (5))

Isaac Asimov: Second foundation (1991, Spectra)

Second foundation by Isaac Asimov (Foundation (5))

After years of struggle, the Foundation lay in ruins -- destroyed by the mutant mind power of the Mule. But …

skolima reviewed Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (Foundation, #2)

Isaac Asimov: Foundation and Empire (Paperback, 2008, Spectra)

Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its …

Historical

4 stars

First: William Hope is a brilliant narrator for this audiobook version. His classical US accent lines really well with the, well, classical US characters in the book.

Asimov published Foundation and Empire in 1952, 7 years after the end of World War 2. Earth at the time had about two dozen computers, one per each major country. That is, electronic computers - and they weren't even called that yet. A "computer" at the time still meant a human who performs calculations in an office, often with the use of a mechanical calculator device - the world still employed hundreds of thousands of them.

This is significant for the book. Once you realise it is chronologically much closer to the XIX century than to today, you can better appreciate how imaginative it truly is. But you can also much more easily understand why everything feels so feudal (including the progressive Foundation). …

First: William Hope is a brilliant narrator for this audiobook version. His classical US accent lines really well with the, well, classical US characters in the book.

Asimov published Foundation and Empire in 1952, 7 years after the end of World War 2. Earth at the time had about two dozen computers, one per each major country. That is, electronic computers - and they weren't even called that yet. A "computer" at the time still meant a human who performs calculations in an office, often with the use of a mechanical calculator device - the world still employed hundreds of thousands of them.

This is significant for the book. Once you realise it is chronologically much closer to the XIX century than to today, you can better appreciate how imaginative it truly is. But you can also much more easily understand why everything feels so feudal (including the progressive Foundation). If Asimov didn't include Bayta, a woman from the Foundation, as one of the main characters, the book might have aged much worse.