In 1973, The Gods Themselves seemed poised to become a
perennial classic and a major piece of the science fiction canon.
Written by Isaac Asimov, an already acknowledged master of the genre,
it won the two highest awards bestowed upon books of its kind: the Hugo
and the Nebula. In recent years, however, other novels of its era have
overshadowed it. Hollywood didn%26#8217;t touch it, while filmed adaptations of
1968%26#8217;s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and 2001: A Space Odyssey found huge popularity. Meanwhile, mainstream critics delving into sci-fi preferred the postmodern flourishes of Vonnegut%26#8217;s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Pynchon%26#8217;s Gravity%26#8217;s Rainbow (1973). Furthermore, Asimov%26#8217;s fans had, long before the publication of The Gods Themselves, declared the Foundation
series of the 1950s the author%26#8217;s magnum opus, and when he resurrected
it in the %26#8217;80s, it was as though the decades in between had never
occurred. Thus, although it still has admirers, Asimov%26#8217;s only science
fiction novel of the %26#8217;70s seems in danger of slipping into the canon%26#8217;s
periphery, where readers may in time forget it. This would be a great
shame, for it is an outstanding book.
The novel finds its inspiration and three-part structure in a
proclamation by Friedrich Schiller: %26#8220;Against stupidity, the gods
themselves contend in vain.%26#8221; The first section %26#8212; %26#8220;Against Stupidity%26#8221; %26#8212;
concerns a thick-skulled, egotistical scientist named Hallam, who finds
success when a derisive remark by a smarter coworker, Benjamin Denison,
leads him to stumble upon a seemingly endless source of energy that
costs almost nothing and causes no pollution. When another scientist,
Lamont, discovers that Hallam%26#8217;s invention, the Electron Pump, will
eventually, for reasons only Lamont has figured out, destroy mankind,
Hallam uses his celebrity to turn the scientific community against the
young man denouncing that which has brought Hallam fame.
Asimov describes the Electron Pump, which trades matter from our
universe for matter from another universe, in terms scientific and
simultaneously comprehensible, thereby lending the fantastical device a
believable reality.
Novel
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