The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves.

The Short of It

Plot: The Electron Pump connects our reality with another where physics works differently, allowing for unlimited exchange of energy at both ends.

Page Count: 288

Award: 1972 Nebula and 1973 Hugo

Worth a read: No.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: 85% of book... but often plot relevant.
Review: A curious mix of hard science and alien relationship drama - originally serialized and comes off disjointed. As a story, the most engaging part is a POV section for the aliens. They're interesting, engaging, and totally unlike anything I've seen in another book. On the other hand, no human characters are appealing, plot is minimal and mostly about vindictive academics. I can't say that I enjoyed the book as a novel, but I was impressed by it.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

I love the second section of this book. Asimov does a fantastic job of creating aliens that do not just act differently but rather follow a completely different set of natural laws. It's well thought out and engaging, with a self-contained narrative arc that pulls the reader in. It could stand just as well without the rest of the text. Context would be changed a bit, but that's all. 

The science described is also interesting. I won't break down everything, but the short of it is that because of differing laws of physics, elements that are stable in one universe are unstable in the other, and the radiation that is let off at both ends provides power. There's more to it, but that more is basically the book. 

This is my issue with it as a novel. I acknowledge that the science is neat, and Asimov does a good job of keeping it pretty interesting as such. But this does not leave much room for storytelling. Why does the guy who discovered this need to be an intolerable egomaniac? Because it's the only way for there to be conflict. There are broader issues that come up in-universe with the process itself and the science behind it - but they are only so difficult to get across because of academic opposition. It's not a fun or engaging conflict. It's just a couple of academics disagreeing, one of whom is a total jerk, and is thus the bad guy. None of the human characters are worth much consideration. The aliens, Odeen, Tritt, and Dua, are all much more engaging - though they are also there for the shortest segment of the book.

I will readily admit that this is a question of personal preference on style of SF (and speculative fiction more broadly). Here's how I see it. Asimov offers some truly interesting scientific ideas that would be fun to discuss - parallel universes, other forms of life, variable laws of physics, etc. But there is no real exploration of how that impacts society. This is a crucial failure; there are many ideas but no world building. I fell like it's worth noting that Asimov usually does this much better. The Foundation books are much more about the societal impact of technology than the tech itself. The same could be said for most of the I, Robot stories - they are about interaction and impact of technology, how robots have changed us as humans and as a collective. I would rather explore a world and see how science has impacted it than have a much more in depth exploration of the mechanics involved. 

Felt like that was worth noting.

All of the standard issues with serialized work becoming a single text apply. Odd pacing, redundancy, and a general feeling of disjointedness.  We have the actual science portion of this explained a number of times by a number of characters; it never feels like he is treating us as fools, but it does feel like it could have been trimmed significantly. Although he goes a few interesting directions with exchange between universes, especially in the third story.

If you like your SF with an emphasis on the S and not too much F going on, this could be a good one for you.

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The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

I like Isaac Asimov. I, Robot was one of the first classic SF books I encountered and could be accurately said to be one of the works that made me love the genre. The guy himself seems great too - he comes off well in interviews and is the only author to have at least one book in every category of the Dewey Decimal System. He was both brilliant and prolific. His Three Laws of Robotics have shaped an amazing amount of science fiction; Dan Simmons's Endymion refers to the "asimotivators" that some robots have, to pick just one example. 

Asimov also literally coined the term robotics, which is amazing.

Which all leaves me feeling pretty disappointed with The Gods Themselves. There are a lot of things that were well done:

• Starting with Chapter 6, then catching up to it - clever
• Breaking down the Part II into A, B, and C chapters, depending on which character was offering perspective was an excellent way to show up simultaneous events from multiple perspectives. 
• The merging of the three aliens into one being was a great twist that I did not see coming at all. And is a good twist because everything is there to provide clues. It was a surprise, but was perfect.
• The focus on some of the practical considerations of living on the Moon - bone and muscle density, detachment from Earth, and so on, were well done. Though they seemed like they belonged in a different story.
• Asimov does a decent job of making people talking about science interesting.

The complaints are the same as noted above - there just is not much story to the story. The decision to swap human characters between Part I and Part III broke any small connection I had with Lamont or Bronowski. It also showed how similar Lamont (in Part I) and Denison (Part III) are, highlighting the lack of nuance to their characters.

It's a neat thought experiment that extends far too long.

Let's pick a universe and hang out sometime, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!