What was wrong with Hyperion? The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the male gaze parts and random irrelevant “intellectual” insertions.

Asimov had a Very Good Brain and could make a certain type of person (or, many types of people) very interested in his ideas/plots in an intellectual way.

If that is not you, that's fine, but it's core to much of Sci-fi and that's why he has written so many classics, including science popularization. He's far better as a science popularizer than Sagen or anyone else I can think of, as far as written word goes, in my book.

Two pages are better than no pages. Honestly, the best way to get into reading is not to set any reading goals except that you'll go at your own pace. If two pages work for you, then fantastic! Enjoy yourself and don't mind other people's reading goals and other opinions.

Why would reading a little everyday be a bad habit? In my opinion, it is a good habit to be consistently reading something everyday.

You can’t even hear me yo.

I read five of them and really only liked the first story from the first book. Also, by the ‘80s Asimov had clearly become the horniest man alive and was mostly describing women by the shape of their breasts.

There’s no disputing the value his sci-fi concepts had to the genre though.

I've been reading a little at a time for a decade. I read before bed, sometimes I fall asleep after 1 page, other times I get a couple of hours in. There's nothing wrong with that. Read however you are comfortable.

Medimops is located in Germany but ships to other European countries as well. And they have a fixed price for shipping if you order like 5 books or more.

I’d prefer to read 5 pages every day than 35 pages once a week. Your reading habit will develop naturally. The important part is sticking to it.

Most of these comments make it sound worse than it is.

I wont spoil the plot, but I will spoil something pertaining to a message or moral to the book, so read further at your own risk.

While the content is pretty severe, the ultimate message is pretty positive. You may cry, but you will cry for the depth of the human soul, the love of fellow men, and a glimmer of hope for mankind.

The Road is McCarthy’s most accessible and arguably his best book. Ultimately it has a positive message and moral lessons for father/son relationships. But also there is some deep, dark, scary, shit in it that when subtracted from the post-apocalyptic setting are things that regular people have to face and endure though not in the same circumstances. McCarthy never lets on about how the world got to where it is, it’s all about survival and trust. Is everyone just out for themselves or is there still compassion and unconditional love left in what remains of humanity? I love McCarthy’s older work, my favorite is probably Blood Meridian and/or The Crossing. I’ve read nearly all of his books and I think The Road is his most succinct, most artfully distilled creation. After reading it I was struck by its power for a long time.

I agree with your criticisms as they apply to the original 3 foundation novels (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation). They're kinda tough to get through, they meander too much etc. The prequels and sequels are much better. The Robot novels are also very entertaining. For me it was well worth reading them because they tie together the Robot novels and the other sequels/prequels.

Super glad that you commented that as it puts my mind at ease. I’ve been super intrigued to read it but scared that it’ll trigger a depressive episode if I do 😅 Seeing that a fellow sufferer has managed to get through the novel and still classes it as a good read is enough to convince me. I’ll just have to self-preserve a lot during it and have 10 minute intervals with the dog 😂

Hope life’s easier for you though and thank you for your insight ☺️

What gets me is the random death at the beginning what was that all about? What was the reason? How did he just fall in love with her after seeing death???

I've seen this criticism before, and I don't understand why that needs to have a reason. It was a random death, something that happens. It's an interesting and attention grabbing anecdote used to kick the book off, that's all. Also, where was it indicated that he fell in love with her "after seeing death"? He was a fan of her writing prior to that, and they gradually fell in love with each other throughout the book.

Why was there a random sleep walking scene???? What purpose did it have in the story?

This was actually a pretty big plot point, not random at all. Lowen describes struggling with sleepwalking, it's the reason she wants a lock on her door, its the reason Jeremy installs multiple locks on her door and one on Verity's. The sleepwalking backstory set up multiple scenes in the book, and also alludes to Lowen having mental issues which makes her thoughts an accusations about Verity faking everything more questionable.

Who reads a manuscript that god damn slow JERMEY READ IT IN ONE SITTING? i mean he already knew about it but still MY GOD.

Pacing. I agree it didn't make a ton of sense that she spent three hours reading one of Verity's books and then read one chapter of the juicier manuscript - but maybe she legitimately felt like she was violating her privacy. Either way, she had to read it at that pace for the sake of the book's pacing and tension building.

I think the best plot twist would’ve been Jeremy and Rowen turning out to be the real villains.

That's exactly how the bonus chapter ended, isn't it? Jeremy literally murdered an innocent woman, Lowen knows all about it and doesn't say anything. They are villains.

There are fair criticisms to have with this book, but I feel like it gets unnecessary hate just because of its popularity. It's a fun read and keeps you guessing and engaged with the story.

Hey, reading is reading. Some days i read 3 pages some days i read 20 read whatever you have time for

Any reading is good reading! You might want to join us on r/readathon. A user there is putting together a readathon where the goal is just 1 page a day (or whatever goal you want to set).

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It's not a competition, you know? All these reading competitions and goals we see on the internet can be fun and help with motivation, but they can also create problems where there are none.

You do you.

Check out these and see if the blurb interests you! I really enjoyed these

The Slynx - Tatyana Tolstaya (actually very funny and satirical)

Before and After - Andrew Shanahan (very different take on the genre)

A female centric one I remember really enjoying was Into the Forest by Jean Heglund

> I think the Golden Age began with Jules Vernes era of Sci Fi.

You don't get to redefine the genre of science fiction all by yourself. It's generally accepted that the Golden Age of science fiction began in July 1939, when John W Campbell became editor of 'Astounding Stories'.

the way i see it: you’re still reading!! that’s what matters. keep going!

> Thank you for opening my eyes to Bookfinder. I see Amazon (De) has a pretty good collection and that should mean no import taxes as well.

they might have import taxes, it does not matter where the amazon is, just where the seller is.

>Do you know of any specific firms like this?

for used books, not specifically, but for books in general bookdepository (and if book is not out of print, it will likely be bew less than 5+20 dollars for shipping)

> He was only 21 when he wrote the story, therefore hardly a skilled writer. He wrote all 70,000 words in roughly only a month, implying he never took the time to properly develop his ideas and refine his draft.

Let's start with some facts.

The Foundation "trilogy" which was published in the early 1950s was actually a collection of short stories that were published in the preceding decade. The book called 'Foundation' is actually a collection of the first four of those stories. The first one was published in 1942; the fourth in 1944. An additional opening story was written in 1951 for the collection.

So, he did not write all 70,000 words in one month.

At the time he wrote these stories (spanning his 20s), writing was a side hustle for him. In his main life, he was studying biochemistry at college, getting a job with a naval science laboratory (World War II was happening), being drafted into the army, getting out of the army, continuing his post-doctoral studies, getting a job at a pharmaceutical company. That was how his 20s were. That was the time he was writing those Foundation stories.

He didn't become a full-time professional writer until his early 30s, when he realised that his income from writing finally exceeded his income as a college associate professor.

It's also important to note the audience he was writing for. He wasn't writing for any book publishers. Almost no companies published new science-fiction books in the 1940s. The big market in that era was pulp magazines. He wrote on spec, and submitted stories to magazine editors.

> A prolific author, who published over 500 works of fiction in his lifetime, Asimov confessed that he had no time to read or write creative prose.

True. He was more concerned with conveying the story clearly, than writing fancy prose.

But his stories were popular. That's why they were collected into books in the early 1950s.

The reason they were popular was because of the ideas. Not the characters. Not the prose. Science fiction in those days was mainly about ideas, and Foundation had some great ideas.

Of course, the main idea was that the series would cover 1,000 years of future history, so there had to be a succession of characters from story to story. This also reflected the central assumption of psychohistory - that individuals don't matter. Form reflected function.

Apart from that, everything you complain about is simply your personal preference. You don't like Asimov's writing style. Other people do. It's as simple as that.

I found The Nightingale to be too slow for me. I shelved it as DNF. That said, I studied WWII in college and went on a bit of a WWII historical fiction tear soon after, and I think it burned me out on the genre by the time I got to this book.

I otherwise enjoy most KH books. The Great Alone is one of my all time favorite novels, and I loved The Four Winds. However, The Winter Garden was on par with The Nightingale for me, another DNF for being boring.

Adulting generally sucks, but one of the main things that doesn’t is that nobody’s asking for a book report later. Read what you like, in the manner and style that you like, or however you are best able to.

Personally, I usually have several books going at a time, and it’s rare that one captures my interest enough to read multiple chapters straight through. I also don’t have the leisure time I would if I were retired or wealthy, so I tend to read less than I wish I could, but I’d rather take a couple of months to get through a good book than just… not.