Nemesis by Isaac Asimov

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov

I consider myself a fan of Isaac Asimov literature, I know the robots and Empire series by heart as well as the foundation series. Asimov in his prologue wanted to go in a different direction with his novel nemesis. But then he hinted that maybe Nemesis and follow up novels would tie everything to one Asimov universe.

It seems to me that Isaac Asimov was always interested in the Progressive future of humanity as a collective. You may have noticed that he also was behind the woman's right to progress to her full potential, but with taste.

The protagonist and supporting characters are mostly females. I say females because the protagonist was a child of 15 not a full adult. I don't want to get the impression that I'm some sort of sexist but I try to use the proper wording the best way I can.

It was a woman astronomer who discovered a star closer to earth.

A woman who discovered superluminal flight. A girl who communicated to an entire planet.

There is a lot of hard science in this particular story. Astrophysics concepts were well developed.
One has to admit there wasn't anything special with Nemesis. I do have mixed thoughts about his characters, here he has a young lady about 15 who has a unique ability to read body language. That is very interesting, but he is also updating his personal view of Society as he saw it at the time. The main character "Marlena" is part of a single parent household. I don't think I have seen that in any of his books before, but please correct me if I am wrong. The single parent is also a working woman, who made the decision to abandon her husband in pursuit of her career.

In his earlier books, more so in his Robot novels, like " The Caves of Steel" women we're just to be wives and mothers and hysterical creatures, however, he evolves his viewpoint over time. Later on, he has strong women characters in many of his books. But I just don't know where he was going in Nemesis. He gave Marlena's mother, the personality of a woman in hysterics most of the time when it came to any issue regarding her daughter. It just didn't mix well for me.

I digress to one item, In this particular novel, in his notes said Nemesis was to be a stand alone, but eventually he did mention Nemesis in his later foundation books I believed he was setting up of the origin of the Asimov universe, the beginning of the Settlers Worlds, and the effort of Earth in maintaining control over the Settlers worlds. He was also setting up the method of how humans would settle other worlds. Which I find more interesting than his main plot. Asimov, I believe died three years after writing Nemesis. I wonder how it would have turned out is Asimov have written more nemesis novels.

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