Customer Reviews

Nemesis

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Nemesis is often looked down upon in the world of science-fiction, and fans, as you can tell by the other reviews posted here, find it to be rather weak. And so it was only with reluctance that I picked up a copy of Nemesis, and again it was only with reluctance that I began to read. I had come expecting trash and the worst of Asimov but what I got was a surprise, a rather pleasant one actually. Despite what you may hear, Nemesis is great. It features many artistically crafted characters and a fine blend of science and adventure. If you've heard that Nemesis was no good, just take my advice, don't believe it.

Having Read much of the Foundation Series as well as what I feel is Asimov's most inspired work "I, Robot", I recently picked up a copy of Nemesis. At once, I found Nemesis to be very suspenseful, and I found the character development to be quite creative, though a little predictable at times. The book built more and more intensely towards a climax which sadly never came. It seemed to me that the Asimov must have been under a very tight deadline to finish this book because at the most interesting point, the entire story line simply dissolved in a matter of 4 or 5 pages with nearly nothing resolved. Needless to say, I found this work to be a little disappointing

I have read practically everything fictional Asimov has ever written, from the very earliest short stories through all the Foundation books and beyond. I love Asimov, as you would surmise. This story is not nearly as much like Asimov as it is like another of my favorite SF writers - Orson Scott Card.

This is late Asimov - very late - and it shows. Character is not Asimov's great strength, though he does have some compelling ones, but this is a character-driven story. The plot is thin, and serves mostly as a backdrop for the characters to play off against each other. They do. I love this kind of story.

Asimov is the king of hard SF, that is, his stories all have a great reliance on astrophysics as a major plot device. This story does have this element, but it plays a smaller role than I'm used to seeing. Rather, the main character's abnormal perceptiveness is the major plot driver, and that is very, very Card, not Asimov. Card's novels ordinarily have almost no science in them at all, but the characters leap off the page. Call this a blend of the two.

I liked the book. You need to be aware of the biases here, though, of those that also like it.

Out of the many concepts explored in science fiction, from space exploration, to the colonization of other worlds, to new earths, and terraforming, I find that the concept that seems to have fallen by the wayside the most is that of the settlement of space through artificial habitats. Issac Asimov once commented that a sort of "planetary chauvinism" existed while commenting on all the efforts and speculations spent on searching for another planet like earth, both in science and in science fiction. In Nemesis Asimov tackles these concepts as well as a range of other issues.

Taking a break from the two (or one) universes that have made Asimov's name a staple in science fiction, that of the Foundation and the Robots/Spacers universe, Asimov has created a brand new world where humanity has settled the stars in space habitats that is as fascinating and deep as his others. In the two or so centuries following the twentieth, overpopulation has resulted in the mass migration of humanity to artifially created habitats located throughout the solar system. These habitats are not your usual modular space stations. they are like those envisioned by the likes of Gerard K. O'neil et. al. They are massive vessels with vast swaths of land, lakes, blue skies, curving horizons and artificial gravity. Through self selection, these communities have become thousands of little islands in the sky. Their citizens have developed a curious love/hate relationship with the earth, the origin of humanity. On one hand they hold their habitats and lifestyles to be superior to Earth, yet on the other hand, they hold an irrational reverence and psychological link with the Earth, perhaps as a reaction to the isolation imposed by life in the habitats from the rest of humanity.

The story revolves around a colony, Rotor which declares its intent to be free of the earth's dominion and mysteriously dissappears one day. The rest of humanity does not realize that Rotor and its citizens have resolved to isolate themselved from the rest of humanity by moving the colony to a near by star, a previously undiscovered star only 2 light years from Earth called Nemesis. However, this ominous name may have far more meaning and deadly consequences than its namer could have realized, for Nemesis is on a collision course with the Solar system. This knowledge is kept secret from the citizens of Rotor, and only a young Rotorian girl knows this deadly secret. This girl now holds the fate of both Earth and Rotor in her hands. But she is far more than what she appears to be, for she has strange empathic abilities. However, she is not the only one with strange mysteries. When she is drawn for some unknown reason to the planet around which Rotor now orbits in the Nemesis star system, she must uncover its strange nature which could potentially be the salvation of both Earth and Rotor.

Nemesis is an great work not only for its unique concepts, but also for Asimov's characters. Characterization and dialogue have always been Asimov's weak points, however it was an aspect that was always continously improving through the years. As one of Asimov's late works, Nemesis contains a vibrant cast of interesting characters and good dialogue. There's still the tendency for characters to go into science textbook recitations for paragraphs at a time, but that's trademark Asimov.

What really makes Nemesis work though, are the concepts and issues Asimov explores. As with the Foundation and Robot novels, there is much more here than just a story about a big space station, or a mystery, or an adventure. Asimov uses his habitats to reflect on the nature of human society and the formation of communities. The habitats as "Islands in the sky" are used to discuss the propensity for humans to self select in the formation of communites, especially regarding their racial and ideological makeup. There are implications here that comment on real life things including racism, and the effects of gated suburban communities. Rotor is itself a standin for the numerous attempts throughout history, from the Pilgrim's Mass. to William Penn's Quaker Pennsylvania, at social experimentation by establishing ideologically motivated "cities on a hill" in splendid isolation from the rest of the world.

On the whole, while not as great as Asimov's most well known works, Nemesis is a nevertheless a good story in its own right, and one that one would expect from an author of Asimov's calibur.

In the past year I have read all 11 of the novels from the Foundation and Robot series and have enjoyed all of them immensely (4 to 5 star range). I was eagerly anticipating Nemesis, as another book written later in Mr. Asimov's career, and a book extolled by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, as "...almost certainly one of the finest novels in science fiction." Notice the hedge in the word 'almost'. In my view, it is almost certainly one of the weakest sci-fi books in Mr. Asimov's extraordinary collection. The story follows the initial explorations out of the solar system after the development of hyperspatial technology. There is an interesting teenage girl, Marlene, with an unusually astute capacity to read people's true motivations through perception of non-verbal cues. Unfortunately, she is kind of a brat. The rest of the characters are almost entirely enslaved by their narcissistic drives for power, control, and place in the history books. There are excruciatingly long and repetitious harangues between Marlene and her mother, Eugenia. The female adult leads, Eugenia and Tessa, have relationship issues that drag the story to the level of a soap opera. The men are either pathologically power hungry and sociopathic (e.g.,Janus) or confused (e.g., Crile) or naive (Siever). mild spoiler alert: The alien intelligence, which you suspect early, does not emerge until near the end of the book, and then it is sadly under-developed. And after such a tedious build-up, the book ends rather too quickly. If you're an Asimov fan like I am, I suppose you will have to read it; just make sure you have one of his other novels cued up right behind so you can rid yourself of the sour taste (I've got Currents of Space going, it's great!)

I give "Nemesis" three stars for originality and suspense, but none for the writing or the characters. It is an easily readable book with a decent ending, but it's not nearly as good as some of Asimov's earlier works.

"Nemesis" is set several hundred years in the future, when small numbers of humans have moved away from the planet Earth, which is in decay, and started to live on settlements in space. Janis Pitt, the leader of one of these settlements, decides to move it to a hidden star system nearby, where he hopes to establish a Utopia and prevent any outsiders from entering. The settlement, known as Rotor, is set in orbit around a planet called Erythro. However, a plague apparently caused by sinister forces on Erythro complicates the settlers' plans. Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists are struggling to discover the secret to faster-than-light travel so that they can find Rotor. The story starts off pretty slowly, but it becomes pretty suspenseful once the main character, a girl named Marlene, starts being pulled by mysterious forces on the planet of Erythro.

For some reason, Asimov always chooses to write about ninety-five percent of each novel in dialogue format. In "Nemesis", this style becomes annoying because all of the characters sound almost exactly the same. There's no attempt to give any of them a unique and original voice. Also, despite the fact that most of the characters are supposed to be brilliant scientists, they're all fairly stupid. They prattle on for pages before suddenly realizing facts that have been obvious to the reader for several chapters. The worst character of all is the archvillian, who's supposed to be a big evil dictator but instead comes across as more of an annoying loser.

Anyway, "Nemesis" is a decent quick read, but it doesn't have the same imagination and character development as Asimov's better works. I recommend "Foundation" and "Foundation and Empire", "Nightfall", and "Fantastic Voyage" instead.

FWIW, I love Asimov particularly the Foundation and Robot series, but really anything I've read of his including non-fiction--until now. This is a particularly plodding tale with wooden characters, little action, and repetitive exposition.

I finished it just for closure and the ending was particularly disappointing.

If you want to read good Asimov, start with the Foundation series and you'll be hooked, but for goodness sake do not judge his work by this mess. I fully understand that tastes differ, but I have to really wonder about those reviewers who have given this a 5 star rating. That is just wrong.

Having just finished Nemesis, I was really surprised by the disparity of reader reviews and it's for that reason that I felt compelled to add my own -- Just in case I might have a chance at swaying the balance. Admittedly I have not read all of the other Asimov stories as many of the other reviewers have, but I do read a huge variety of genres and always appreciate a good story, intelligent dialog, suspenseful plotlines, and admirable character development. This book certainly had all of those elements and more.

I found the plotline to be fascinating -- without being over-the-top or too fantastical. There was a believable problem and situation to overcome, and a very fascinating race to resolve it. At the same time, there are opposing forces at play, both man-made and otherwise, which create the feeling of underlying suspense and a barely discernable sense of urgency -- though not enough to be distracting. I realized for the final third of the book that I had become extremely impatient (in a tapping-my-foot kind of way). Not at all because I found the book tiresome or too long as others have suggested, but simply because I could not wait to find out how everything would eventually come together.

I was not disappointed in the least.

I found the characters to be fascinating. I've noticed that other reviewers found them to be flat, but I was grateful that they were subtle and very real. Again, everything was truly plausible and believable -- without being in-your-face or insultingly spelled out for you. I was sympathetic to all of the very human traits exhibited by the main characters. Of course Marlene was the best, as most of the other reviewers agreed. I suspect we all wish that we had her gift, and those of us who read and enjoy science fiction especially wish we could decipher people as easily as she does. This made her such a treasured character, someone we wish to emulate -- Which seems especially possible (and therefore easy to sympathize with) when she finds herself confounded or confused.

As contradictory as it may sound, what I liked most about the book was how complex and yet subtle it was all at the same time. The subject matter, scientific and technical elements, and the characters were all extremely complex with conflicting emotions and issues -- all very natural -- but everything was in a quiet, subtle, understated, and not in-your-face Hollywood type of way.

I found the book to be extremely well-written, peaceful, moving, and extremely gratifying -- from the dialog, to the descriptions of landscapes and space, and to the emotional depth of the characters. I look forward to reading the rest of Asimov's works -- and promise to update my review afterwards if I've changed my view. In the meantime, I certainly don't expect to, and from a very avid reader's point of view -- I would rate this book as "extremely highly recommended".

In this classic, Isaac Asimov places you in the future where the human race takes its first faltering steps to the stars. The solar system is full of space settlements and it's getting more crowded every year. When Eugenia Insigna of the settlement Rotor discovers a hidden red dwarf star only two light years away from the sun (which she names Nemesis), and her discovery coincides with the development of hyper-assistance; Janus Pitt, the director of Rotor, decides to leave the solar system. Without warning to the rest of mankind, he takes the large space station and all of its inhabitants away to the secret star on mankind's first light-speed journey.

The leaving of Rotor tears apart the marriage of Rotarian Eugenia Insigna and her Earth husband Crile Fisher. She takes her year old daughter Marlene with her to Nemesis while Crile returns to Earth. As the child grows, Marlene displays an exceptional ability to read body language and see through people's lies. It is this ability that leads her to discover that Nemesis is on a course that will destroy Earth.

Back on Earth, authorities who desire the technology for hyper-assisted travel, become obsessed on finding out where Rotor has gone. On Rotor, Janus Pitt is equally obsessed on separating from humanity and remaining hidden. At Nemesis, the people of Rotor discover a large gas planet in a tight orbit and around that gas giant, and Earth sized world with an atmosphere containing oxygen. This empty planet with continents and oceans seems ready made for colonization but a mysterious plague prevents Rotor from establishing more than a tiny foot hold.

This is a book with many themes all woven around believable science. The world of Nemesis is intriguing and a testament to Asimov's imagination. The desire to escape the chaos of the densely populated solar system and the need to survive the coming disaster drive the development of true hyper-space flight. While the science is strong, the characters are not, and no great conflict ever plays out. Only the characters of Janus Pitt and Marlene have much personality, the rest are either flat or clichés (the over protective mother for example). Events play out in an interesting and logical way right up to the end but then the reader must accept some very unlikely events, that the author makes only a passing attempt to justify.

If you are an exploration and science enthusiast you will enjoy this book and I recommend it. If you are looking for memorable characters and a plausible plot all the way through you might not find it as interesting.

[...]

Nemisis is another masterpiece of Asmoivian Sciene fiction. The settings are as grandiose and inspiring as any of Asimov's creations are: the Solar System is awash with metal colonies that tend to look down on Earth, even though they are psychologically dependant on it. One colony, Rotor, decides to leave the Solar System in order to pursue a social experiment of its own. It uses proprietary technology to find and transport to a star much nearer than Alpha Centauri, a star that no one else in the Solar System knows exists. But in finding the star Nemisis, the Rotorians also discover that Earth's days are numbered.

This is NOT an action novel, nor will you encounter some mythical "Dark Force" of the universe guiding Nemisis against humanity. As fans of Asimov know, the Grand Master of Science Fiction does not dwell on the fantastic to create his stories. The real story here is a speculation into human nature. The book explores what migration patterns into the stars might be like, and expressly demonstrates the futility of powerful individuals to create homogenous, uptopian societies by hiding away from the rest of mankind. The science is good, but merely a backdrop.

The book is mostly dialouge, another Asimov standard. For those who like lazer fights in space, Nemisis is not a good book. The conversations are eloquent and deliberate, however, always advancing the plot and posing interesting ideas while developing the characters.

The only complaint I have with this book is the introduction. Asimov makes it very clear this book is NOT part of the Robot/Empire/Foundation universe... and yet the book makes MANY references to these series' ideas, proper names, and themes. If the hyperdrive invented in I, Robot was a precursor to the hyperassistance they use in Nemisis, I would put this book immediately prior to The Caves of Steel in the Asimov universe. It seems like Asimov wrote a book in a different universe, but was unable to leave the one he had already created.