The Gods Themselves - best, or a bore? (The Gods themselves - Isaac Asimov)

Member Name: jdwilliams1012

Product:	The Gods themselves - Isaac Asimov
Date:	16/10/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite scientific in nature, paints a great picture of three different settings

Disadvantages: Very little actually happens...

When I heard about this book, the basic idea sounded very appealing, so I had a quick look, and managed to find a very old book in my dad's shelves.
The general idea of The Gods Themselves is that in the near future, a scientist "discovers" an unlimited energy source, called an electron pump, which interacts with a parallel universe. Life on Earth soon becomes dependant on this energy, without thinking of the possible consequences.

The book started in a quite interesting fashion, following a scientist who has found a very dangerous problem with the electron pumps, and is trying to persuade those higher up to shut them down. However, it soon becomes apparent that this first half of the book is not going to go very far, and there is a distinct lack of anything happening in the first section.

The next part of The Gods Themselves is based in the parallel universe which are also involved in the electron pump. Things are very different there, and almost the whole middle section of the book is spent explaining what the beings on this alternate world are like, again, with very little actually happening that impacts on the rest of the book.

The concluding part of the book is the based on the moon, where another huge amount of time is spent explaining what things are like there before anything happens. And when something does happen, it's really quite unexciting.

After hearing about this book being such a "great", I was incredibly disappointed reading it, and finding how boring it was to me.

Summary: This book really felt like quite a chore to read - there was nothing making me want more.