Donald Palumbo

I wanted this book to be better than it is. I am a fan of all things Asimov, and own all of the Robot/Empire/Foundation books. But Donald Palumbo does not write as well as Isaac Asimov.
Though it really isn’t important. The Introduction to this book consists of a 30 page discussion of various topics such as chaos theory, fractal mirroring, and the trilogy-within-the-trilogy. Very dry, and really, not to the point. Possibly of interest as far as the process of writing, in the same way as reading Joseph Campbell’s writings on the origins of myths. But not very helpful as to understanding why we like Asimov.
After the introduction, there are 150 pages of “entries” from the Galactic Encyclopedia.… (mere)

Probably the best close reading of these two titanic series you could ask for, Palumbo's thesis here is that in addition to being entertaining reads, one of the reasons that the Foundation and Dune series have endured for so long is due to their fractal nature: the structures of the novels recapitulate their main plots, which are themselves illustrations of their main themes. The nuances of psychohistory in Foundation and ecology in Dune are demonstrated not just by the characters talking about them, and not just by the actions they take, but also how the books in the series relate to each other, since each novel is a mostly self-contained story but each series builds and expands on the main themes in subtly brilliant fractal patterns. Even better, Palumbo made my own vague notions of how the two series' overlapping but distinct and even opposed ways of viewing the universe relate to each other much more clear - can the future be known, planned for, and managed, or will there always be elements of chance, volition, and surprise? Asimov's careful unification of short stories, novellas, novels, and entire trilogies into the Foundation "metaseries" (i.e. the initially separate Robot, Empire, and Foundation series) is itself an example of the psychohistorical vision of finding order in chaos, whereas Herbert's more shambling efforts in the Dune novels to set up and then knock down successively grander iterations of monomythical hero archetypes are themselves demonstrations of inescapable disorder in a seemingly perfectly ordered society and natural world. Debates over whether genre fiction can be as good as "real literature" are invariably as tedious as they are pointless, and as this literary analysis of two of the greatest science fiction series of all time shows, utterly wrongheaded.

Like a lot of other sci-fi nerds, both of these series made a huge impression on me as an adolescent. I read the Foundation novels in middle school, then the Empire novels, then the Robot novels and short stories, and then the Dune books afterwards. At the time, and even upon rereading, my appreciation was mainly for the ideas, since Herbert and especially Asimov have never been renowned as prose stylists (I continue to believe that this was not a weakness, and that Asimov's decision to listen to his critics and sex up his later works was a mistake that dilutes their impact). As economists like Paul Krugman have noted, Foundation is perhaps the best novel ever written about macroeconomics, and Dune is still one of the all-time great deconstructions of the hero myth. But where the two series separate themselves from other more typical epic sci-fi or fantasy, and rise head and shoulders above their own ancillary literature - the disjointed Benford/Bear/Brin "Second Foundation trilogy", and the fanfiction-y Dune prequels cobbled together by Herbert's son - to enter the realm of more purely literary novel cycles like Balzac's La Comédie humaine or especially Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart series is in how Asimov and Herbert's grand themes are echoed in each level of their work (I was also reminded of Richard Powers' similar attempt in his Poe/Bach tribute novel The Gold Bug Variations). Palumbo's goal is to explain how each series repeats certain plot devices or character actions as a way of illustrating the main theme within each installment and also between them, so that the search quests and preservation of knowledge in Foundation build up to humanity's ultimate survival and unification, while the steady accumulations and dispersals of power in Dune eventually lead to the guarantee that humanity will eternally evolve, never again prisoner to a single narrative.

The first section recounts how the Foundation series was constructed and then expanded on over the half-century in between the 1942 publication of "The Encyclopedists", the short story seed of the first Foundation novel, and Forward the Foundation in 1993, and how, despite the very different motivations Asimov had for writing each series and even each book, eventually the series' architecture came to reflect the concepts of psychohistory at multiple levels. As readers of the series know, psychohistory is the idea that history can be made understandable and predictable by treating the billions of disparate individuals as an aggregated mass within a sufficiently sophisticated nonlinear mathematical framework. Asimov was a chemist in real life, and found the idea of a social scientific equivalent of the ideal gas law quite compelling, especially given the seeming slide backwards into barbarism that World War 2 represented. He didn't decide to unify his magnum opus until many years later, but he had left himself plenty of material to work with even before the discovery and popularization of fractal mathematics, because with the partial exception of the mostly standalone Empire novels, the Foundation and Robot series show a profound understanding of the way that dynamic systems operate, even on unpredictable human beings.

Within the Foundation universe, Seldon's theoretical science of psychohistory requires a complex feedback setup of a visible First Foundation and invisible Second Foundation in order to actually apply its insights to prevent tens of millennia of chaotic barbarism. Eventually it's discovered that this "visible actor with shadow motivator" extends even beyond the Foundations to Earth and Gaia, and has been present in-universe since the era of the Robot stories (I have always felt that the treatment of the invisible global stewardship of the economic control computers in "The Evitable Conflict" remains profoundly under-appreciated as a piece of prognostication, especially with so much fearmongering about "runaway AI"). I wish Palumbo had discussed how the "individual action supports inevitable destiny" idea behind psychohistory relates to the Marxist-Leninist theory that an inevitable class conflict somehow requires a determined revolutionary vanguard party to take conscious action, but it's easy to get lost in the swamps of dialectical materialism. The repeated crises that the First Foundation suffers within each of the individual Foundation series novellas can only be resolved by the use of cunning to bring the system back on track, and even when the Seldon Plan is temporarily disrupted, such as with the appearance of the Mule in Foundation and Empire, Asimov uses the "fractal motifs" of backup plans, guardianship, and disguise to reveal how the individual character actions, for example the Tazenda gambit against the Mule in Second Foundation, fit into the larger plan. There's a great example of these fractal motifs in one scene in Prelude to Foundation where two robots are trying to shepherd Seldon to safety:

"Daneel, however, is the guardian who at one point in Prelude assumes the most intricate disguise-within-a-disguise-within-a-disguise-within-a-disguise in the entire metaseries. Soon after arriving in Trantor's Mycogen Sector - where they come under the protection of Sunmaster 14, yet another guardian - Dors and Seldon don skullcaps and robes to pass as hairless, appropriately attired Mycogenians. Dors then insists on further disguising herself as a Mycogenian male, through a change of robes, so that she can accompany and continue to protect Seldon during his thoroughly unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the Mycogenian Sacratorium, which only male Mycogenians can enter. Yet her three levels of disguise - a robot posing as a human female masquerading as a Mycogenian female disguised as a Mycogenian male - are exceeded by the four levels of disguise that Daneel must then assume in order to rescue both Dors and Seldon. As he, too, must pose as a Mycogenian to follow them into the Sacratorium yet must rescue them as Hummin, Daneel is in this instance a robot pretending to be human assuming the persona of Demerzel disguising himself as Hummin masquerading as a Mycogenian."

The second section discusses further evidence of this multi-level plotting in the Robot series, as well as how they additionally incorporate Asimov's ethical concerns. Asimov's plotting can get quite complex, which is why readers forgive him his often weak characterization, merely functional dialogue, and aversion to action scenes. The Robot novels are essentially detective stories, which gave Asimov plenty of opportunities to construct the whodunits that he loved so much, but they also served as deep meditations on moral philosophy; since cooperation, intelligence, and tolerance are required to solve each murder mystery, the resolutions of which gradually help Earth get its act together and escape its terrestrial trap. The prejudice of Earthmen against robots and Spacers against Earthmen, are the backdrop that the main characters have to solve their crimes against, but with each successful resolution, Earth gets closer to breaking the negative equilibrium of its colonial shackles, and the eventual colonization of the galaxy becomes inevitable, which after the series unification can be seen as a profound statement of what it would take to get humans to stop fighting each other. I had always thought that the Three Laws were a great theoretical framework to discuss ethical conundrums as trolley problems, but the way Asimov unified early stories of individual robots trying not to lie to individual people in I, Robot with the robots' ultimate solution in Foundation and Earth to eliminate human cruelty and bigotry by simply amalgamating all living matter into a galactic superorganism is staggering when looked at in its entirety.

The third section is devoted to a similar analysis of Dune, both comparing it to Foundation and as its own entity. Dune is actually more amenable to this kind of fractal analysis, because Herbert explicitly told the reader that that's what he was doing:

"Like a fractal image, Herbert's "patterns within patterns" metaphor is reiterated through numerous variations to describe the complex schemes, frequently working at cross-purposes, of the Harkonnens, the Atreides, the Emperor, the Bene Gesserit, Princess Irulan, the Tleilaxu, the Spacing Guild, the Fremen, and, finally, the Honored Matres. Pardot Kynes defines ecology as a system of "relationships within relationships within relationships" (Dune, 493), and Herbert's many variations on this metaphor also include the "blue within blue within blue" of Fremen eyes and Feyd's "tricks within tricks within tricks" and "treachery within treachery within treachery" (Dune, 125, 485, 486); "vision-within-vision" and "meanings within meanings" (Messiah, 39, 136); "trickery within trickery" (Children, 207); "wheels within wheels" (Children, 209, Emperor, 245); "hidden shells within hidden shells" (Emperor, 375); "a cage within a cage," "a box within their box," and "contingencies on contingencies" (Chapterhouse, 94, 197, 349); and numerous repetitions of the ubiquitous "feint within a feint within a feint" (Dune, 43, 332, 372; Children, 140, 322). Each variation, like the motif of schemes nested within schemes that most signify, underscores the series' fractal plot structure as this echoes its ecological theme. Leto tells Paul, early in Dune, that politics "is like single combat... only on a larger scale - a feint within a feint within a feint... seemingly without end" (43), a variation that is also a perfectly apt description of the archetypal fractal image's levels of scale descending infinitely."

But even if Dune has a more openly complex plotting than Foundation, I think many readers develop a stronger emotional attachment to Dune because of its bildungsroman/coming-of-age skeleton, particularly in the first novel. Herbert then goes on to criticize essentially every element of that myth, but that's what's so great about a well-done deconstruction - it can be perfectly enjoyable on its own even as it shows why the thing it's critiquing is ultimately unsatisfactory (see also Norman Spinrad's essay "The Emperor of Everything" which also comments on the kind of adolescent wish-fulfillment that Dune is responding to). Palumbo spends a lot of time discussing Dune's use of the "monomyth", as in Joseph Campbell's work. I thought I had had my fill of Campbell due to reading one too many essays on the hero's journey in Star Wars, but Palumbo makes it all seem fresh. Dune's more openly religious/mystical/spiritual aspects make it easily as fruitful as subject for this type of analysis, especially because Herbert sets up a succession of monomyths (Paul's journey in the first novel, his journey continued in the next two novels, Leto's journey in the fourth novel, etc) that interact with each other in a really satisfying way. Alongside his incredibly interesting analysis of the monomyth itself as a fractal pattern is a discussion of the monomyth in extant world religions; Herbert had a lot of fun mashing up religions in the Dune series (the Orange Catholic Bible, Zensunni mysticism, the Bene Gesserit's Panoplia Propheticus, etc), and this kind of syncretic analysis gives a lot of context on why that strikes us as so plausible.

One area I did wish for was a bit more discussion of relevant details from Herbert's other non-Dune works like the anti-AI stuff in Destination: Void, human evolution in Hellstrom's Hive, or social structure in the ConSentiency novels. One reason why I like the (unjustly) maligned God-Emperor of Dune so much is that even though it's essentially one long monologue, it collects just about every neat little idea Herbert ever had in one or another of Leto II's proclamations, but I think it would have been helpful to have some more background on Herbert's mindset because some of his artistic decisions, particularly in the later books, make more sense once you know where he's coming from. He infamously wrote Dune as a partial commentary on the idea of "war as a collective orgasm" after having read Norman Walter's 1950 book The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare, hence seemingly odd ideas like the Honored Matres' sex magic tucked into the later two novels. Likewise, one of Asimov's main predecessors for Foundation was L. Sprague De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, where a time-traveling archaeologist attempts to prevent the Dark Ages by reducing the physical and social damage done by the Byzantine invasion of Italy during the Gothic Wars; this conceit recalls the main character's time-travel in Pebble In the Sky, the only time in the Foundation metaseries where that contrivance appears. Palumbo has a great line that "Like the Foundation series, the Dune series is like a time-travel story without any time travel in that its protagonists also attempt to use knowledge of possible futures (gained through prescience, rather than psychohistory) to alter the future."… (mere)

This is essentially a 150-page reference book that begins with a 30-page introduction in the form of a literary analysis. A brief 2-page index concludes the volume.

The Reference
"An Asimov Companion" is an "Encyclopedia" in which entries describing the major characters and other aspects of the Foundation Series are listed alphabetically. The entries are brief, for the most part, but sufficient. More space is devoted to major figures such as Elija Baley, R Daneel Olivaw (alphabatized under Daneel for some reason), Dr. Han Fastolfe, R. Giskard Reventlov, Raych, and Hari Seldon. I did not spot any noteworthy omissions. This is a noteworthy addition to the bookshelf of fans of Asimov's Foundation trilogy and more broadly to fans of Asimov works they might not ordinarily associate with his Foundation trilogy.

The Introduction

Palumbo's thesis is that a fractal architecture is apparent in Asimov's Foundation Series. He notes the repetition of an identifiable pattern within the encompassing pattern that is repeated within an even larger encompassing pattern; in the case of the Foundation series for at least three levels.

Only the fans of literary analysis will find the introduction to be interesting. Totally missing is any emphasis on the pleasure involved in reading Asimov's work. Palumbo mentions the skillful plotting but provides few examples to document this observation.

The introduction suffers greatly from the unimaginative writing style characterized by long, compound, complex sentences that is often thought to be synonymous with academic writing. Long paragraphs, passive sentences that run on to six lines, the use of a relatively small font size, and the failure to use section headings all reduce the readability of the introduction.

Palumbo marvels that the fractal architecture is visible in novels Asimov published years before the formal publication of Chaos Theory. It is hard to know what he makes of that observation. A central tenet of chaos theory is that it describes an fundamental aspect of reality that underlies all forms of existence. If that is so, then of course it will be observable in works published prior to the formulation of the theory. The observation, therefore, speaks to the validity of the theory and not to some clever literary accomplishment of Asimov.

The other alternative is endemic to literary analysis. Having developed a thesis, literary scholars often "see" proof of the thesis throughout the subject of the analysis. That speaks not so much to the validity of the thesis as to the powerful, well-documented effect that prior expectations exert on perception.

If it were possible I would give the introduction a single star and the encyclopedia 3.5 stars.… (mere)

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Some people think this may bias a reviewer so I am making sure to put this information up front. I don't think it biases my reviews, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

An Asimov Companion: Characters, Places, and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries is, for the most part, a reference work. The bulk of its length is taken up with what amounts to an encyclopedia covering essentially every notable character, location, object, and event found in Asimov's extended metaseries (and pretty much every non-notable character, location,, object, and event as well). Every entry gives a brief description of the subject, offering at least a sentence or two outlining who or what the entry is, and an explanation of how the subject fits into the larger body of Asimov's work. These entries are informative, but like Asimov's actual writing, have a tendency to be a little dry.

The opening section of the book consists of an introductory essay by Palumbo outlining the structure of the Robot/Empire/Foundation metaseries, and attempting to connect the metaseries to chaos theory and fractal geometry. For those who do not know, in the 1940s and 1950s, Isaac Asimov wrote three "trilogies" of stories: The "Robot" series, consisting of Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun and the short fiction contained in I, Robot. The "Galactic Empire" series was comprised of the books Pebble in the Sky, The Stars, Like Dust, and Currents in Space. The "Foundation" series was made up of Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. For many years, these series were, at best, only loosely related. In fact, the books of the "Galactic Empire" series were only loosely connected to one another, let alone to the books in the other two series. This changed in the 1980s when Asimov wrote a group of books consciously attempting to connect these disparate works together into a somewhat coherent whole. The added books - The Robots of Dawn, Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Robots and Empire, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth - provided links intended to knit the earlier works together. Short fiction from two additional works, Robot Dreams and Robot Visions, was also woven into the metaseries.

Given that books such as Pebble in the Sky and I, Robot were originally published in 1950, while books like Foundation's Edge and Prelude to Foundation were not published until the 1980s, and most of the books don't seem to have been originally intended as part of a single imagined future history, the entire metaseries is a rickety structure at best. This makes Palumbo's attempts to evaluate the series as a coherent whole somewhat less than convincing - it seems far more probable that the recurring themes in Asimov's metaseries were the result of the fact that Asimov had a relatively limited bag of plot tricks that he would return to than that it was the result of an intention (or even just a happy accident) to create a nested fractal set that uses chaos theory as an organizing principle. Even when the books in the series are laid out in a chart purporting to provide a graphic representation of the fractal architecture of the series, the end result simply isn't convincing. The Robot/Empire/Foundation metaseries is a chaotic mess, but trying to force that mess into a fractal self-symmetry requires doing the equivalent of jamming a square peg into a round hole. This doesn't mean that the essay isn't an interesting read, but rather, like the metaseries itself, it is a structure that simply doesn't really hold up to close examination.

Palumbo's essay, as comprehensive as it tries to be, only takes up thirty pages of the book. As noted before, the bulk of the book is essentially an encyclopedia of the Robot/Empire/Foundation series, providing an alphabetical listing of pretty much every single person, place, object, or event found in the series. Every entry is accompanied by a a description that both details what it is, and also gives some context from the series. Although the text explaining each entry varies in length depending on the importance of the subject, they are all very much capsule descriptions, and in general offer only a cursory summary. Anyone who is not familiar with Asimov's works would almost certainly find the material presented in this book to be entirely opaque - I have read some similar reference works (most notably some of the Tolkien-related works of David Day) in which a reader who had not read the original works could piece together the story from the text provided. This book does not share that characteristic - I have read all of Asimov's works and some of the entries were almost unfamiliar to me - and as a result, this book is essentially of no real value to anyone who has not read or is not intending to read, the books that make up Asimov's metaseries. That said, for someone who is interested in the metaseries and desires a handy reference work, this book will fill that need quite effectively.

As far as I know, there aren't very many reference works for Asimov's oeuvre in general, and none that focus on the massive and ramshackle metaseries constructed , and consequently this book fills a niche that is at the very least sparsely populated. For those who are interested in the recurring themes in Asimov's work, Palumbo's essay is likely to be of interest, and for those who are in need of a reference to follow along with Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation metaseries, the rest of the volume is likely to be quite useful. Though this book is definitely more practically valuable than is is aesthetically pleasing, it is a handy volume to have around, and for an Asimov fan, well worth having.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds.… (mere)