Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
This is it! Isaac Asimov’s Foundation will finally make it to visual media. After the rights passing through a few hands, they’ve finally made their way to HBO. Check out the entire article at The Wrap where Jonah Nolan talks about the new project. I’ll definitely keeping tabs on the development. No dates were given, so I’ll try to hold back most of my excitement until I hear more.
At this point if you have not read both The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, this review will contain plot spoilers for those novels. I highly suggest reading both of those before even reading this review.
The Robots of Dawn takes place 2 years after the events in The Naked Sun. At the conclusion of The Naked Sun Elijah Baley is resolved to push Earth toward space expansion. He must face the open spaces of Earth and encourage others so they can prepare for colonization. His goal is to approach Aurora, the most powerful Spacer planet to petition for approval for expansion. The Outer Worlds have cut off Earth from immigrating to them, so the only solution is to expand to new worlds. This essentially was the goal Dr. Han Falstofe spoke of in The Caves of Steel. The long-lived Spacers haven’t colonized a planet in over two centuries, and according to Falstofe the future of colonization must lie with Earthers. (more…)
Flash Forward
When I first heard of Flash Forward, I was intrigued. Time travel stories always have piqued my interest. This new show isn’t a typical time travel story. One day all of humanity is knocked unconscious, and most of them see what appear to be hallucinations (2:17 minutes worth) of the future. The rest of this pilot episode is the main characters picking up the pieces from the fallout of this event. Can you imagine the scale of destruction if that would really happen? Interestingly enough, by the end of the day everyone is home and contemplating what their visions actually mean. I would think they’d be busy cleaning stuff up for weeks after all of the crashes and looting that took place. I’m not sure if it was poor scripting or what, but quite a few times I felt like I was being spoon-fed information and “insights” as the actors tried to piece things together.
For example, some of the visions were disturbing. They didn’t like what they saw and were afraid the vision of the future would come true. The flipside of this is also touched on, but what about those that had no vision? Also, how will seeing the future affect the future? It is apparent that some will fight FOR the future, while others will fight AGAINST it. Who will win? Can both sides succeed? I am waiting to see how the writers can add a unique twist of their own.
Anyway, give it a try and judge for yourself.
This review will most likely contain spoilers for any previous books in the series, read at your own risk.
Toward the end of Alliance, Derek agrees to transport the three shape changing robots to the cannoid inhabited planet that Adam originally emerged from. The title of the book refers to a subplot about a loner named Maverick, which was expelled from a main pack some time ago. His goal is to join PackHome. I really didn’t identify with this character at all. In the meantime the Robots on the planet agree to treat the cannoid inhabitants as humans in order to give themselves a purpose.
Overall this book has a little bit of action, but seems to me to be nothing more than a stepping stone before the final book. I didn’t really enjoy it that much because nothing seemed to really happen. I’m looking forward to the final book to see how all of this will finally be tied together.