I can neither deny the publishing success of Foundation nor myself describe it as a landmark that should have become seminal. However, excellent explorations of different aspects of the concept of a predictive science of society are to be found in Anderson's own Question And Answer, Psychotechnic History and Technic History.
But this has got me back into knocking Asimov again! Remember the precursors, Shelley and Wells. Also, celebrate Anderson's many works as one fulfillment of theirs.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
To give Isaac Asimov due credit, I do think he wrote "landmark" stories about robots, esp. the ones seen in I, ROBOT. And I agree in finding his Foundation stories disappointing and unsatisfactory.
But I don't think we see "a predictive science of society" analogous to Asimov's unconvincing "Psychohistory" in Anderson's Technic History stories. Rather, we see him using the work of Spengler, Toynbee, Voegelin, above all John K. Hord. to show us how civilizations rise and fall. This became necessary after Anderson, quite accidentally, linked together what were originally two separate series of stories.
Poul Anderson was especially indebted to John K. Hord, as we both know. But Hord did not claim being able to PREDICT what will happen. Rather, his argument was that human civilizations tend to show very similar patterns in their rise, development, decline, and fall.
Sean
Sean,
Yes. Desai's analysis was as predictive as can be but certainly lacking the mathematical precision of Seldon.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And Chunderban Desai was careful to stress that he did not believe his Hordian analysis would be completely accurate.
Sean
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