Foundation’s Triumph
{5/5} “The good of humanity at large had to supersede that of individual human beings. The early Calvinians who rejected the Zeroth Law were simply wrong, and Daneel was right. That was not the discovery upsetting Dors. It was finding out that Giskard and Daneel had proceeded down this path without consulting any humans at […]
DaCapo Chamber Choir’s “This Thirsty Land”
I attended the DaCapo Chamber Choir’s concert “This Thirsty Land.” From the program: “Today — as a result of climate change, political decisions, wars, industry agriculture, deforestation — access to potable (and other) water is becoming an increasingly significant cause of population displacement, while at the same time flooding and rising waters levels are shifting […]
Foundation and Chaos
{4.5/5} “The humans who made us both, in different times and for different purposes, interest me. I am concerned for their welfare. However wrongly, I regard myself as human, and that is why I have returned.” Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, published in 1998 Even as an old man, Hari Seldon continues to work […]
Foundation’s Fear
{4.5/5} “Hari felt in his soul that unpredictability was bad — for humanity, for his mathematics. But it was inescapable. This was the secret the Emperor and others must never know. That until he could rule chaos — or at least peer into it — psychohistory was a fraud.” Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford, published […]
Fuzzy Nation
{4.5/5} “He paused at the cabin door and pointed to Baby Fuzzy, who now appeared to be dozing lightly. ‘If that is a person, then this becomes a Class Three-a planet — a planet with native sapient life — and Zara Corp’s E and E charter is suspended… No more mining, no more drilling, no […]
How to Stop Time
{5/5} “For years now I had convinced myself that the sadness of the memories weighed more and lasted longer than the moments of happiness themselves. So I had, though some crude emotional mathematics, decided it was better not to seek out love or companionship or even friendship. ” How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, […]
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
{3.5/5} “Does ‘phone’ mean something different in the future?” Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, released in 2017 Four high school kids in detention come across a Jumanji video game. When they start to play it they’re sucked into the world of the game. They don’t look like themselves any more — they look like the […]
The Autobiography of James T. Kirk
{4.5/5} “During this period, the only personal connections I relied on were with Spock and McCoy. McCoy and I went back far enough that our friendship was like old leather. Spock’s friendship was different; because of his devotion to Vulcan principles, it never felt close, and he never required emotional support from me. But I […]
Forward the Foundation
{4.5/5} “When I first began my work on psychohistory, it seemed a purely academic piece of research to me… But the decades pass and we know more and more and then comes the terrible urge to apply it.” Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov, published in 1993 Hari Seldon is working away on psychohistory on […]
Foundation’s Friends
{5/5} “Some of you may now be saying that psychohistory was not what I made it out to be, and you will be right, in the way that most shortsighted minds are right. But it was, I hope, enough of what it had to be — a rallying cry against the irrational darkness that threatened […]