http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:52:30 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88242 Ah, so he did die of heart problems, with complications due to Reagan-era health policy. 88242@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:52:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88239 Official cause of death at the time was heart and kidney failure. His wife revealed later that the actual cause was HIV, which he contracted during heart surgery. 88239@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:35:48 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88238 WHA?!?! I never heard about Asimov having AIDS. I thought he had heart problems. 88238@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:33:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88224 I believe that inside every 900 page airport novel there's a consise 350 novel struggling to get out. 88224@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 12:45:58 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88219 Exactly! I get frustrated with Asimov because I know he can write better than he often did. And, that bloated ego, which is reflected in his alter ego heroes! I wonder if the last years of his life, when he had HIV and eventually succumbed to AIDS, brought him down to Earth some. A reminder of human frailty, including one's own, sometimes does that. 88219@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 12:28:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88164 I thought "Foundation's Edge" was one of Asimov's worst books; it marked the point where he began to suffer from Heinlein Syndrome (become to popular to edit) and started writing bloated books which were twice as long as they should have been. The bloating wasn't quite as bad as "The Robots of Dawn" where he took two pages describing the hero going to the restroom (and then did it again a couple of chapters later) 88164@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 08:02:13 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/30/235139.php#comment-88162 Mac- Fascinating, since I am now reading the series after putting it off for so long. Since I had the luxury, I began with the Prelude to Foundation. I say luxury because I could have read Foundation before the Prelude was written. Anyhow, the Prelude seemed to make a conscious effort to stress the male-centric nature of the Galaxy via the Dors Venobili character, and especially in the chapters where Dors and Seldon were struggling with the Micogenians. I imagine 40 years of criticism similar to yours helped him to acknowledge these shortcomings. 88162@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 07:39:32 EDT