Asimov's writing is clean and tight, regardless of content. Whether it's unfunny, sexist 'humor' like I'm in Marsport Without Hilda or really stellar work like The Ugly Little Boy, his stories are clear and generally feel complete. They are not typically poetic, but his prose, IMO, is masterful.
The religious overtone of The Last Question is actually one of the things I loved about it. As someone raised religious who later struggled with teachings I felt were self-contradictory and often hypocritical, the idea that humanity created itself was quite appealing. I can accept a super-intelligent creator, but not an omnipotent one. Of course, as I eventually realized that I was an atheist, these ideas were not offensive to me, but rather, fascinating.
It was also my first real exposure to the idea of the heat death of the universe, a concept which had a profound affect on me at the time, and one which I still return to when I am considering the path of my own life.
I particularly enjoyed reading the trajectory of technology he predicts, from room-sized behemoth computer to personal family computer to tiny cube that is kept in one's pocket which one can query for the answer to any question. ((OOC: In this, he got only time-scale wrong. In fact, when I first read this it was long before cell phones had been invented. It seems even more prescient today. Now we just need a telepathic interface...))
I understand the objections to the story, structurally and logically. I recognize, to, that by many measures The Ugly Little Boy is a better story. But it did not have the tremendous impact on me that The Last Question did when I first read them both.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-03-02 06:28 am (UTC)The religious overtone of The Last Question is actually one of the things I loved about it. As someone raised religious who later struggled with teachings I felt were self-contradictory and often hypocritical, the idea that humanity created itself was quite appealing. I can accept a super-intelligent creator, but not an omnipotent one. Of course, as I eventually realized that I was an atheist, these ideas were not offensive to me, but rather, fascinating.
It was also my first real exposure to the idea of the heat death of the universe, a concept which had a profound affect on me at the time, and one which I still return to when I am considering the path of my own life.
I particularly enjoyed reading the trajectory of technology he predicts, from room-sized behemoth computer to personal family computer to tiny cube that is kept in one's pocket which one can query for the answer to any question. ((OOC: In this, he got only time-scale wrong. In fact, when I first read this it was long before cell phones had been invented. It seems even more prescient today. Now we just need a telepathic interface...))
I understand the objections to the story, structurally and logically. I recognize, to, that by many measures The Ugly Little Boy is a better story. But it did not have the tremendous impact on me that The Last Question did when I first read them both.