Book: Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
Genre: Thriller
Themes: spies, technology, suspense, courtroom processional
Comps: Fleming's James Bond books, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Representative quote: "The recorder I have on the table,--which is a perfectly ordinary recorder to all appearances and performs its duties well--has the additional property of completely blanketing the spy beam. This is something they will not find out at once."
Page: 22
Published in 1951, just two years before Ian Fleming's debut of James Bond in Casino Royale, Asimov's Foundation falls into an unfortunate technological chasm, placed in a world where DuPont's "Better living through chemistry" (a slogan that brought us such "wonders" as fancy glass and plastics) is fifteen years old, but the height of cold-war tech has yet to develop.
Consider the following; "Avakim was carefully emptying the contents of a flat folder onto the
floor. If Gall had had the stomach for it, he might have recognized
Cellomet legal forms ... He might also have recognized a pocket
recorder." Dry, passive, tentative. Gall feels "disheveled and
wilted," and this master spy's primary desire is a "hearing with the
emperor." It is a book that feels the need to posture itself as a spy thriller, when in reality what it most aspires to is probably courtroom drama. But with Perry Mason still 6 years away, Asimov fumbles, uncertain and ineffective, towards a genre and tropes that have yet to be invented.
The technology itself is laughable by today's standards. A listening device and a recording device that can jam the listening device? How original. Where are the exploding pens, the car chases ending in a button-triggered explosion, and the laser-guided anythings? I know that starting in 1950 there isn't much to go on, but even Back to the Future, written in 1985, could imagine flying cars, hoverboards, personalized advertisement, and so much more, which have yet to be realized after three decades. Surely a 1950's tech thriller could have at least envisioned a cell phone?
One can only imagine what might have come from it if Asimov was writing from the modern day, with the currently available crop of electronics, robotics, and software to pull inspiration from. If only he'd been more visionary, instead of limiting himself to the smallest of technological leaps, he could have captured the imagination of generations.
Final Rating: 1/5 bookmarks. Dated and unconvincing. Confused about whether it wants to be a courtroom drama or a thriller, and it shows. It's clear why Bond became the iconic spy character, rather than Asimov's Gaal.
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