BookRecSunday--The Gods Themselves

This week's book is The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. I picked it up at the request of the husband that I read it when I was book shopping for myself around my birthday. I have read some other Asimov books (I, Robot, Foundation, and Asimov's Mysteries) with varying degrees of love, but love it was. There is something about Asimov's writing where he knows that not everyone reading his books is a brilliant scientist, which must have come from writing books in almost every category in the Dewey decimal system!


The Gods Themselves is definitely no exception to the understandable science either; I'm only about halfway through, and the first part (Asimov's books usually have parts like that) is alost exclusive getting to know some science with a touch of interindustry discontent. The first part makes you think a lot of his Robot stories or the stories in Asimov's Mysteries, where the science is explained in a dynamic way, but allows for a little speculation on the reader's part as to how it will be solved, using the previously explained science.

I'm in the middle of the second part, which is amazing. It's all about these three aliens, and the whole thing just hits you in the face that it's different. It doesn't make any allowances for humans that find the things they do strange. Their activities are described in ways that they would understand them, and you can't help but feel immersed in the whole thing. It's like as if you left the perfectly manicured sidewalks for tourists in another location and find a little Mom-and-Pop that only locals go to, and only they know the slang. It's much more immersive than, say, if the narration took a moment every few sentences to describe what's going on. This section has faith that you'll figure it out as you go along, and because of that, you do.

Like I said, I'm only halfway through. But I would recommend this or any other Asimov story to anyone who has considered themselves a fan of science fiction.