Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition)

by James Gunn

  The characters are more realistic than Asimov customarily presented. In fact, the novel offers more anti-heroism than heroism, in keeping with the trends in science fiction that began with the New Wave. Hallam is an ordinary and unlikable man pushed into a position of power by accident, and Lamont, who tries to tear him down, is not much better. Lamont simply happens to be right, and Hallam happens to be wrong. Lamont's motivation is revealed at the end of Part I, however, when he mourns not for the end of the world but that "no one on Earth will live to know that I was right."

  The characters seem to be drawn, if not from real life as in Asimov's first mystery novel, The Death Dealers (1958), at least from observation and combination of characteristics. In Hallam's reaction to Lamont's suggestion about para-men superiority, the reader might sense a hint of John Campbell's reaction to the possibility of alien superiority in the stories presented to him, some of which were by Asimov himself.

  Part II, titled ". . . The Gods Themselves . . . ," as another piece clicked into place, is concerned with the para-men and the para-Universe. Like much that Asimov had done in the second half of his career (the novelization of Fantastic Voyage, The Sensuous Dirty Old Man, Murder at the ABA), Part II was the result of a challenge. Some of the challenges had been posed by others; some, by Asimov himself.

  A paperback house had expressed interest in the novel after seeing Part I. The editor asked Ashmead, "Will Asimov be putting sex into the book?" Ashmead responded, "No!" When Ashmead reported the conversation to Asimov, Asimov felt contrary enough to want to put sex into the book. I rarely had sex in my stories and I rarely had extraterrestrial creatures in them, either, and I knew there were not lacking those who thought that I did not include them because I lacked the imagination for it.

  I determined, therefore, to work up the best extraterrestrials that had ever been seen for the second part of my novel.

  The extraterrestrials are among the most fascinating and believable aliens yet imagined in science fiction. Part II also is concerned almost entirely with sex. That it is alien sex must have made it all the more enjoyable for Asimov.

  The planet on which the para-men exist in the para-Universe is a barren, rocky place orbiting, as scientists in Part I speculate, around a small, dim sun. The para-people find it congenial, though not as congenial as it once was. Their Universe, which burns its suns more rapidly because of the ease of the fusion reaction, is running down. The para-people are energy-eaters. They "eat" by walking or basking in the sunshine. They also spend much of their time involved with sex or family.

  They are not quite gods. They are nebulous creatures, more like ghosts. As infants they can melt into each other, or even into rocks, and one sex retains the ability to melt throughout its lifetime; in fact, their reproduction depends upon it. This sex is called an Emotional or mid. There are two other sexes: a Rational or left-ling, and a Parental or right-ling. When a triad is formed, the Emotional helps the Rational and the Parental to melt together, a state in which they lose consciousness and which may last for ecstatic hours or days. During the melting, if the conditions are right, a seed may be passed from the Rational to the Parental by the Emotional. In the Parental the seed incubates into a new para-child.

  Para-children are born in sequence: first a Rational, then a Parental, and finally an Emotional. The creation of an Emotional requires a great deal more energy than the others and is thus more difficult. The Parental not only gives birth to the para-children but cares for them until they are mature. Parentals customarily are concerned with procreation and family and are largely motivated by instinct. Emotionals usually are concerned with eating since they are more tenuous, they require more time to absorb the sun's energy and with melting. As a consequence, Emotionals usually are flirtatious, social, and foolish. Rationals spend their time learning and thinking. After three children have been born (infrequently after a second three) the Rational determines that the time is right and the triad "passes on."

  A second group of alien creatures lives somewhat apart within the para-Universe. They are called Hard Ones because they cannot melt. Indeed, contact with the Soft Ones, those who can melt, causes the Hard Ones pain. The Hard Ones are more rational than the Rationals; they have their own scientific concerns but act as tutors to the Rationals and mentors to the others.

  Part II is about a triad that differs in significant ways from the others. Odeen, the Rational, is more intellectual than other Rationals and is the favorite pupil of a Hard One named Losten. Tritt, the Parental, is moved almost entirely by his sense of the fitness of things, but he exercises more initiative than the usual Parental: he pesters Odeen to get them an Emotional so that they can melt properly and is even bold enough to ask Losten. Losten produces Dua, the Emotional, who is relatively unconcerned with eating and thus has difficulty helping the triad produce a baby Emotional. Dua also is overly concerned with thought, so that other Emotionals taunt her with the dirty name of "Left-Em," which refers to an Emotional who behaves like a Rational. Odeen enjoys talking to Dua about his ideas, however, and all three enjoy the melting, which Dua does so much better than the others, perhaps because she is different.

  Dua is unhappy, and this provides much of the structure of the story.

  She suffered a trauma when her Parental's triad passed on; she does not want to help to create a baby Emotional because then she too might have to pass on. Odeen, who is happy with Dua and even fonder of Tritt, is unhappy only because Tritt is unhappy. Tritt is unhappy because he does not have a little Emotional to complete his group of children. He keeps after Dua to eat and after Odeen to make her eat.

  All of this is gradually complicated by what Odeen and later Dua learn about their world. Thousands of cycles ago, for instance, there were many thousands of Hard Ones and millions of Soft Ones. Now there are only three hundred Hard Ones and fewer than ten thousand Soft Ones. Energy is diminishing; their sun is cooling. All the stars in their Universe are coming to an end. The fusion reaction in the para-Universe works so easily that all the particles are combined after a million lifetimes.

  So the Hard Ones, led by an unseen and mysterious Hard One named Estwald, have initiated the plutonium-tungsten exchange with Earth's Universe in order to provide an artificial source of energy to keep their world going. At first, the energy is harsh and bitter to the taste, but Estwald has been working to improve it.

  Part II comes to a climax when Tritt, pushed beyond endurance by Dua's unwillingness or inability to cooperate in producing a baby Emotional, goes to the caverns of the Hard Ones to get Estwald's help. When he does not find Estwald, he does something, the results of which are not apparent until later. Dua, meanwhile, in drifting away from Tritt, goes to the caverns of the Hard Ones and senses Tritt's presence. She melts completely into the cavern wall, which she has never done before, and in this state finds herself much more able to understand the Hard Ones and what they are doing. She returns in excitement to Odeen and asks him questions while, hungry for once, she eats at the private feeding station that Odeen has installed for her (Dua is hungry because her melting into the rock consumed energy).

  While Dua is eating, Odeen discusses with her the differences between the Universe from which they are getting energy and their own. Dua has the feeling that something bad happens in the process. Odeen says that their sun cools down a little faster, but that they do not need the sun anymore. That was not what was bothering Dua. But the discussion ends there. Dua's feeding has made her larger and compacter, and she makes an unusual erotic advance that results in a new and more satisfying melting than ever.

  Later, Dua asks Odeen whether their Universe's laws don't get into the other Universe. Odeen says they do, and their suns speed up and get hotter. Dua realizes that this is where she keeps getting the something-bad feeling. Odeen admits that speeding up the nuclear fusion might make the suns in the other Universe explode. Dua is horrified this might kill the people in the other Universe. Odeen does not understand. They won't need the people
in the other Universe to make the exchange, he says, because the explosion of their sun will create such a flood of energy that they can tap it directly; it will be enough to last a million lifetimes.

  Hard Ones arrive at this moment to ask if one of the triad stole a food ball (a storage battery charged at the Positron Pump). Tritt confesses that he stole it to feed Dua, and now he has a baby Emotional growing inside him. Dua flees in anger, feeling that Tritt has tricked her into helping to create a baby Emotional, that Odeen connived with Tritt, and that now they will pass on. A bit later she thinks she learns that the Soft Ones are machines created by the Hard Ones and that when their usefulness is over they are destroyed by the Hard Ones. She also learns that communication with the other Universe is possible. Eventually, after hours spent hiding in the walls of the Hard Ones' caverns, she learns how to send messages herself, first "F-E-E-R" and then the message beginning: "PUMP NOT STOP NOT STOP WE NOT STOP PUMP. . . ."

  Odeen and Tritt come to find her in the caverns that are the Hard Ones' laboratories, just as she has sent that message. She has used up almost her entire energy doing so. As they restore her from a battery, Odeen tells her she is partly right. The Hard Ones are the only living creatures in their world, but that is because the Soft Ones are the immature forms of the Hard Ones. When the Soft Ones melt, they become a Hard One for the period they do not remember. They must return to being Soft Ones while they keep developing. When the Rational realizes the true state of affairs, all three have developed sufficiently and the Rational can then guide a perfect melt that will form the Hard One forever. The Soft Ones cannot be told about this by the Hard Ones because then the development would be aborted, the time of the perfect melt could not be determined, and the Hard One would form imperfectly.

  For generations the Hard Ones have been combining triads with great care to form particularly advanced Hard Ones. The triad of Odeen-Dua-Tritt was the best ever put together. And Dua was the most important addition to the triad. Losten, who brought Dua to Odeen and Tritt, was once the triad that gave birth to Dua; part of Losten was Dua's lost Parental. The Odeen-Dua-Tritt Hard One is destined to be the best ever formed. They melt and form Estwald.

  Once more Asimov is not content simply with the problems of the energy exchange, which Hallam has called ''the road that is downhill both ways." That part does have its central interest, to be sure, with its twists and turns and logical confirmations. In the para-Universe the Electron Pump is called, of course, the Positron Pump: it pumps positrons, not electrons. The facts of the para-Universe that have been the subject of ingenious speculation in Part I are strikingly confirmed in Part II: the small suns, the relatively short lifespan of the para-Universe (the questions raised about how the para-Universe was created and if it was created at the time our Universe was created, why it is still around; or if it was created later, by what mechanism, are avoided by Odeen's comment that time may pass differently in the two Universes), and most of all the alien life-patterns. Creatures of diffuse substance are made possible by the stronger nuclear force, and energy-eaters are more probable where energy is made more easily available by the fusion process. Odeen points out that in their Universe "matter doesn't fly apart" because "the tiny particles do manage to cling together across the space that separates them." Melting is not possible in the other Universe, Odeen says, because the particles spread the wave-forms more and need more room. With the transfer of natural law from the other Universe, melting would slowly become more difficult, but the Universe would long be over before this became noticeable. It is even credible that creatures who feed directly on energy might be more likely to recognize the existence of an alternate Universe and be able to transfer material to it. Moreover, the para-people have the motivation to initiate the exchange: their own imminent starvation and racial death.

  These details must have delighted Asimov the "click-click as unexpected pieces fall into place, as annoying anomalies become anomalous no more" especially the attributes of the Hard Ones. The Hard Ones are most rational and are mostly concerned with the mind and their inquiries into the Universe, not only because they are the result of a process guided by a Rational but because they are more dense. Rationals are more dense than Parentals, who are more dense than Emotionals; thus Emotionals rarely are capable of thought, Parentals are capable of thought only about family matters, and Rationals devote most of their time to abstract thinking. In the para-Universe, to be dense is to be intellectual. (This does not work out completely; Dua, intellectual though she is, has "retained a girlishly rarefied structure.") Thus when Dua merges with the cavern wall and becomes more dense, she can understand many things, including the language of the Hard Ones: they use air vibrations instead of the energy exchange or telepathic communication of the Soft Ones.

  All of this, however, including Dua's concern about the people in the other Universe, which leads to the sending of the messages (a consequence, perhaps, of her seldom-used Emotional attributes), is reinforced by the main narrative structure, of which the relationship between the Universes is a subordinate part. The main structure concerns the triad and the working out of its problems: Tritt's desire for an Emotional and then a baby Emotional; Odeen's attempt to keep the triad harmonious, his pleasure with Dua, and his greater love for Tritt; and mostly Dua's difference and her desire to understand her situation and to avoid producing a baby Emotional and passing on. In addition to the narrative conflicts, the reader enjoys the science-fictional delight of the working out of the alien tripartite life form.

  Moreover, Part II has a plentiful supply of Asimov's favorite fictional device: the mystery. Several mysteries demand solutions. Who are the Hard Ones, and why do they never talk about themselves? Why do they teach the Rationals, and what is their relation to the Soft Ones? What happens to Soft Ones when they pass on? Who is Estwald, and why does he never appear? Other intriguing questions are raised to be answered by the events of the story.

  Beyond this are the philosophical and psychological comments implied by the narrative, and the style in which the narrative is presented. In Part I Asimov drew upon his experience to describe the nature of scientists and the process of science. In Part II he drew upon his experience with people on a more intimate level to describe the relationships between the sexes, even if there are three of them. The tripartite nature of the Soft Ones, who eventually combine into one mature Hard One, allowed Asimov to deal with the multiple facets of human psychology.

  A psychologist might suspect that Asimov's Emotional, Parental, and Rational represent Freud's Id, Superego, and Ego. Elizabeth Anne Hull, in an article published in Extrapolation (Summer 1981), analyzed the novel, including Parts I and III, according to Eric Berne's transactional analysis, and its "child," "parent," and "adult." Asimov denied that he knew anything about transactional analysis or Freud, and added, a bit disingenuously perhaps (for he made his fortune out of rendering obscure material comprehensible), that he probably would not have understood them if he did.

  No one need accept Asimov's statements about himself as absolute truth. In the afterword to Olander and Greenberg's Asimov, for example, Asimov first built a case for his not having incorporated in his fiction any of the psychological and artistic aspects the essays discovered in his work because he wrote too fast and did not have the special knowledge necessary. He then admitted that the parallels discovered by others might have been in his unconscious. His customary posture about literary criticism, and often psychological analysis as well, was to deny conscious intent. In 1950, however, he sat, unannounced, in a classroom in which his story "Nightfall" was analyzed, then introduced himself afterward with the comment that the analysis was all wrong. The professor (Gotthard Guenther) replied, "What makes you think, just because you are the author of `Nightfall,' that you have the slightest inkling of what is in it?" After that, Asimov was willing to admit that his subconscious might have slipped things into his story that he did not consciously intend.

  In The Gods Themselves, however, A
simov was not so much dealing with the parts of human psychology as with the nature of men and women. He wrote that he was convinced at an early age that women were puzzling creatures of mystery and, though he learned about them as he matured, he could not shake his early attitude.