The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 1972
Reviewer: Bukkake S. Tabernacle




Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves is the first novel I've read by the man. I've read some of his scientific publications, and one short story. I've been a huge fan of Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, the other two parts of "The Big Three", but for some reason took a very long time to seek out the third man in the triad.

I thought I'd start with his highly acclaimed Hugo Award winning novel, because every Hugo Award winning novel I've read (I think the count is up to eight) has been nothing short of fantastic.

Something I like about Isaac Asimov is that he is a scientist, so when he writes speculative fiction he tends to get things right... or as right as can be expected in the context of the story and with consideration to the suspended belief that must be inherent to the style of science fiction. The scientifically aware details he includes in this book are things that Arthur C. Clarke would also be including, as Clarke also had a scientific education. This gives it the common label of "hard science fiction". It makes the story far more compelling and believable, not that beleiveability is necessary for the genre.

The Gods Themselves is, to briefly summarize, a story about many different people with no main characters threaded through out the entire story. It is about a source of seemingly infinite energy that is "discovered" by an average, not-so-special scientist, due to messages sent by intelligence from a different universe. The energy is allowed through the exchange of electrons/positrons between the two universes. The other dimension has a weaker strong force than our own universe, and so matter there behaves differently, which is used as the basis for how the "Electron Pump" works. A couple scientists, however, realize that this discovery, which by now has changed the world and created energy seemingly out of nothing, might mean doom for not only Earth, but the galaxy if not the entire universe due to a slight but very present change in our own strong force.

The book is broken up into three main parts. The first part details the scientist who first has doubts, and then recruits a new physicist to make calculations that may or may not support his idea. The physicist then becomes obsessed with stopping the Electron Pump, and goes to great lengths to begin sending messages back and forth between dimensions to try to communicate the dangers with the other species. This portion of the book was nearly impossible for me to put down, and was highly compelling to the end.

The second part deals with the alien race in the other universe, where matter is quite different due to the weaker nuclear force, and the entire social structure is quite evolved and dissimilar to our own. Asimov uses this portion of the book to expound on an interesting species, but to also respond to critics who had long criticized him for the lack of aliens and sex in his novels. He used this middle portion of his book to detail the complex aliens, as well as to give great attention to their sexual behavior, as a sort of humorous middle finger to all the critics. Despite the interesting nature of this material, I found the middle portion to be quite dry, too verbose for its own good, and drawn out with boring details of the aliens' lives and social structure. It took me a long time to make it through this part.

The third part of the book returns to our dimension, this time on a moon city. One of the scientists from the first part of the book has since moved to the moon after having his scientific career essentially ruined on Earth over the controversy of the Electron Pump. While on the moon, he makes contacts with a couple very important people, and meets a quite interesting character, convincing him to reflect back on his past disputes with the Electron Pump and to further consider alternatives to offer the world that wouldn't require a drastic change. This portion of the book was also very compelling and hard to put down.

Though its middle was more than a bit convoluted and dry, yet still interesting in its own way, The Gods Themselves is a fantastic story with a writing style that benefits a scientifically-minded reader looking for a little more depth to a science fiction tale. Asimov's attention to minute details and intelligent approach to problems is a sign of his career in science, but also his creativity as an author. While this didn't strike me as immediately great and wonderful as all previous Hugo Award winning novels have, it still delivers what is surely a terrific little story.

I don't know how this book compares to the rest of his work, but after finishing it I wasn't as eager to seek out his other work as I was after my first book by Clarke or Heinlein. However, the short story of Asimov's I have read (The Dead Past) was one of the best short stories I've read in a long time. I've got a book of more of his short stories, so I may turn to some more of those before seeking out more of his novels.

76/100