It's been well over a month since I completed my reading of Pebble in the Sky, but I've waited to write this review until I also finished the next book on my reading list, Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge. What? Not part of the Foundation universe? Let me explain.
First, I was feeling a need for a break after seven Asimov novels. Second, my Kindle was poached by my wife to read The Hunger Games trilogy. And third, I've really liked the two other Vinge novels I've read and I had Across Realtime laying around and wanted to read it!
I thought it would be interesting to see how I viewed Asimov (who I've long considered a favorite author) after reading Vinge. Sorry to say, Isaac, but at the very least the older novels don't really stand up compared to Vinge's work from the mid-1990s. I don't know if it's just the difference in plausible technologies based on the authors' respective experience (Asimov assumes that thousands of years in the future people will get their daily newspaper on microfilm, for crying out loud), or Vinge's more radical and imaginative concepts, or just better writing. I'm not dissuaded from continuing this effort, but I'm also not quite as excited when I started it, either.
On the other hand, the next two novels in line are the newest in terms of when they were written. I hope Asimov was not too 'gimicky' in trying to slot them into the overall flow. Again, reading these in 'chronological' order is an experiment, so I'll have to soldier on. You can thank me later.
