Lorayger

Update 08.June.2024: After reading [b:Tomorrow's Eve 239615 Tomorrow's Eve Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1173029970l/239615.SY75.jpg 2641863]:Now Helen's story doesn't seem that imaginative and cool as before. It was a shorter and milder version of [b:Tomorrow's Eve 239615 Tomorrow's Eve Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1173029970l/239615.SY75.jpg 2641863]. Still a sex robot though!Update 29.April.2024: After reading [b:R.U.R. 816443 R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Karel Čapek https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628105109l/816443.SY75.jpg 3065006]:Helen was made to keep a good home for the makers, but Adam Link from [b:I, Robot 30525004 I, Robot (Adam Link, #0.1) Eando Binder https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1465707411l/30525004.SX50.jpg 51047598] was like a son to his maker even with his metal body and no human flesh and skin!!First orders of female robots in our time? Sex robots.Asimov told me to read it; in the introduction of “The complete robot”.[b:Astounding Science Fiction December 1938 55002311 Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1717695092l/55002311.SX50.jpg 85784175]I'm truly astounded by this imagination! The influence of Mary Shelley is seen all over! (+ The movie Bride of Frankenstein was also made in 1935.)2024 and we're still not there!

Oh wow we finished it!(Jeff Bridges's tone:) End of line man!While reading the first hundred pages, I talked to a cool book-reader lady about how much I dislike this book because of the misogynistic characters. She said: “By reading the books of that era of how casual misogyny was and how women could only do what was expected of them, like being the servant of the husband, you see what kind of motive men had to create a robot.”Her words struck me. I decided to keep on reading and reminded myself that:1) Humans are accustomed to their evolution. Anything else is uncomfortable to them.2) Society moves much slower than technology. Up to this very moment of 2024, our world is still patriarchal and misogynistic.The story pace was awfully slow. It dragged me like a prisoner whose ankle was tied to the ankle of a camel in a desert. The camel didn't walk much and the heat got worse every minute.I know I had been waiting for the sci-fi parts but when the story did reach them in Book 4, they were horribly long and disinteresting. Just like how water is merely a mirage in the desert.I don't think I have ever skipped such long explanations in a book. The Edison guy couldn't shut up.I know, I know, I bought the book because of the first use of the word “android”, but more importantly, Edison's and that English guy's motive hasn't changed in 138 years. Their dream is finally coming true in 2024. They would have cried in joy seeing sex robots; One of the many reasons why “Incel becoming scientist” is the extreme danger and produces Viktor Frankenstein from [b:Frankenstein 12974171 Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546419388l/12974171.SY75.jpg 4836639]. Beware!And so, 4 minutes of silence for Mrs. Anderson, Hadaly, Alicia and Evelyn.P.S.: The university of Illinois printed this book on acid-free papers, which is a shame! The papers are awesome and I could draw stuff on them happily if most of them were empty!!!! (Wtf with this cover image?!)

If you were confused like me by Victor's characteristics and his dummy behaviors through his pov story, I recommend you read about Mary Shelley's parents, her personal life and the shitty society she was living in. You could also watch the movie Mary Shelley (2017) which shows a great deal of what I mentioned.

This was my first read.

Unfortunately, I was deceived by the media and the very bad but famous picture in 1935 which I now must say fortunately always refused to watch.I have not read Paradise Lost because of its heavy text and language. But I know its summary + the story of Prometheus. I must say I am glad that I got to read Mary's masterpiece with open eyes. The character Victor Frankenstein represents typical men around Mary: some of them intelligent, yet most of them ignorant and narcissistic. They gaslit her (+ all women), underestimated her, belittled her, and even accused her of stealing the story just because she was a “teenage” AND a “girl” AND her husband was the great poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley! They forced her to publish the story ANONYMOUSLY! Five years later her name appeared in the second edition, and she was recognized for it.

I'd also reckon a great influence of Elizabeth (I) and her mother Anne Boleyn on Mary's inspiration and the concepts of creation, love, and abandonment. It aches my heart that her real-life miseries have not actually been solved through the last 206 years; humans still have toxic societies under theocracy and patriarchy, with many men who hate women and underestimate them more than ever, counting “feminism” as a cuss. I feel ashamed of all men in history who have systematically erased women's names and contributions by gaslighting, dismissing and overlooking them and their works. It makes me nauseous to think of all those great women's works being signed under the name of a man by force! Henrietta Swan Leavitt is only one of them! I can see how men loved her book and still do and would probably cum every 2-3 pages, but they are still too jealous, too ignorant, and too arrogant to admit it publicly. They have tried, many many many times, to shove their unoriginal ideas and bad stories into the great gothic world she created. It's March 2, 2024, and there is still NO direct and complete movie adaptation of Frankenstein!

Enough said.

Mary takes the reader to various real places and describes families and society differences in detail (yes, I love realistic details). Even when the reader does not necessarily travel to an Arab country, Mary shows the true face of Islam through Safie's life so well that I could only nod YESSSSSSS! in awe. (The quote does not exist in the quote pages of GoodReads, so I added it myself, to the top of my list.) I read that page several times and admired her knowledge only more, the knowledge many women in 2024 still do not have. This book can wake up many people. Well, if they are willing to wake up!

I must mention some of my comments while reading the book:

Considering the 17th century in the story, it makes me sick to see how social conventions have constantly changed for the worse. Back then, male friendship wasn't a big deal. In 2024, guys can't express their simple feelings because they're instantly pointed out as “gay” by their very own male friend! But look how openly Victor and Henry speak their mind and feelings. No need to remind that words like “gay” and “intercourse”, which were repeatedly used in the book, have also lost their positive meaning and turned into curses! P.S.: I wish I knew which Persian poems were Henry's favorites. And which were Mary's favorites...

The different narrators and POVs make the characters more sensible and it's not like the writer is either preaching or promoting ideas. She's just showing us inside of the characters. I despised the recurring word “monster” from Victor's goddamned mouth. I call him Adam like he himself claimed, which is a fact, and not his personal opinion!! First when Victor was telling his story + how Walton described Victor's appearance, I seriously thought Adam was evil, and wanted to know so badly what the hell he had done that made Victor like this... BUT NO NO NO! The plot twist is right here. Victor believes he's the victim!!!!! MY GOSH! He has had the best childhood any child could ever have: literally zero problems. He'd never had to ask for all the good things he had in life. He was free to do whatever he wanted, which unfortunately, led him to become a self-centered crybaby. Adam speaks of his intentions and next victim(s) so obvious that a retard could understand but not Victor. He was passionate and motivated in his major, but he was narrow-minded. He never had any responsibility and so never learnt what “consequence” means. Even after all his miseries, even on his deathbed, he did not realize it was all his own fault: Victor obviously represents gods every religion has [pointing to Paradise Lost]. All of them created (an) Adam and sent him off to live without teaching him properly. And after they committed the so-called “sin”, god banished him. Both religious gods and Victor abandon their creature, more importantly their child. A perfect god would never do such horrible things to his creature and expect them not to turn into evil. Additionally, how dare god/Victor blame Adam for the sins he'd done when god/Victor condemned him and left him on his own?! This is too unholy and irresponsible of a good god!!!! (That's just one of the many reasons I believe all religions are man-made.) Children are innocent and have no idea what's going on. It's adults' responsibility to take care of them and educate them. This is the very first rule of parenting, something Victor refused to do even though his father was bright and wealthy to provide for him and some other kids, and his mother took good care of him, two things most kids his age did not have. Take Henry, his friend, whose father did not let to go to Inglostadt to study further! And later in the story, we see how hard Adam tried to educate himself, fortunately and sadly, by reading Paradise Lost.Another thing that bothers me is how Adam's appearance still counts as “hideous” in our time. He says he can only be happy if he had a female companion. And we, in 2024, can confirm that because we've seen this coming true in Shrek. I'm serious. No sarcasm. We are still judging people based on their appearance. If someone does not fit our standards, we refuse to talk to them. I say we, because now I am also including myself.

Coming to Paul Cantor's essay: It was boring, and I do not agree with most of what he said. The one thing that I agree with and very much bothered me was Victor and Elizabeth's relationship which I still cannot process. When Henry was introduced, my ultimate guess was Henry and Elizabeth getting married at some point and I had no problem with that BUT “Victor and Elizabeth” ship is beyond me: too “incest”. No other way. End of line.

Now, regarding AI, humans have taken the path Victor took. I guess you only learn from the best! which is god himself!!!! But I do believe that we must break the cycle of generational irresponsibility. I would like to refer to "Point of View" by Isaac Asimov to clarify that matter, and to "I, Robot" by Eando Binder, another great story about what could have happened if Victor had not panicked.

If we want our societies to improve, we need to start with ourselves, put the irrational biases and prejudices behind, and be better parents to our kids and better developers to our AIs, and so, better humans.

Looking back, I was captivated the whole time reading the book. The dark atmosphere was shivering! Just getting to know that Mary was a pioneer in forming the gothic genre by writing Frankenstein blew me away.

She is the mother.

She is the creator.

She is immortal.

Well, well, well, what do we have here? :)
Very pleased to get to read this book, thanks to Wes Anderson!
I wish I was familiar with Roald Dahl when I was a kid. I find all stories in this book fascinating. Even I found many new subtle things from them, let alone the kids!
- “The Swan” hit me. I never thought he would have written such a heavy story. Every kid needs to know this story before going to school!
In the short movie The Swan by Wes Anderson, the adult version of the poor kid narrates the story, which shows how traumatizing getting bullied is!
- The kid who talked to animals and The wonderful story of Henry Sugar stories point out respecting and protecting animals + social classes. The sooner children learn these topics, the better, otherwise they will learn it the hard way, when they are already in the society and have no idea how to put up with that! (like me)
An my god! How extraordinary his own life was! And what an amazing first story he had written! A piece of cake! He was born to do this!

This was an emotional read... huh... T~T (As I'm writing this, I am listening to "Oxygene, Pt. 18" by Jean-Michel Jaare.)

I read a bit of Foundation novel before finishing this. So, it was a good thing. Now I know the chronological order better: Read all chapters of Forward the Foundation, then read the first chapter of Foundation, then come back to read Epilogue of Forward the Foundation. If you're interested in reading this epic in chronological order, this is my list: https://hardcover.app/@AtlaSSS/lists/robot-foundation-world-chronological-order

I understand why many dislike this book (and its prequel Prelude to Foundation) because they read these two after reading the Foundation trilogy. Not just that. The book was messy. I know. The main reason is Asimov's health status; he was still working on it when he passed away. So, I rather not be too strict.

I didn't like how Dors was entraped. As if she was only loosely made with The Laws of Robotics. It wasn't explained, when and by whom she was built, and how Dani found her and put her on Trantor, or if Dani was involved with her being built, which is more likely. It was definitely worth exploring, maybe even more than those parts when the story goes off-road from sci-fi to fantasy and into telepathy. I didn't like telepathy. I genuinely expected to see a futuristic-made-up-scientifically reason for Wanda's brain working that way when her dna was examined. I would have accepted it way easier than... than... this... . Now with several mentions of Second Foundation, I know what that book is gonna be about now and honestly, I'm not looking forward to it if it's gonna be like this. It is a spoiler but even without it, I still don't enjoy space fantasy.

It's a shame he didn't explain when and where Yugo introduced the ideas of Foundation to Hari.

The rest was quite interesting and I enjoyed reading it a lot.

About why it struck me on a deeply emotional level:

First, in the first chapter of Foundation, that is about Hari, there is no sign of the two prequel characters who were close to him. I could guess that Dors dies here. It was inevitable in my opinion but I couldn't believe it when Asimov even killed Raych and Manella and the little Bellis. What the hell man? Couldn't they just go live in peace? Hari already had a tragedy losing Dors. Or do you think that is emotionally not enough because she was a robot?! Uh... Tragedy after tragedy, and totally out of nowhere the song "In my remains" by Linkin Park was replaying in my head... T_T

Second, knowing this book was published a year after Asimov passed away, I couldn't help but think of Asimov himself when I was reading the epilogue; Hari's reflection on his life, his regrets, his desire to show Daneel what he has achieved, his last moments, his funeral, and Dani being there... As if Hari's death wasn’t just an ending for the character, but also for Asimov’s own life and the epic sci-fi series of the century. I can't help but to think that Asimov may have seen Daneel in his final moments. It makes my heart ache so much. I kept remembering "What Goes Up" by "The Alan Parsons Project". I held my tears back and then burst after finishing the book.

P.S.: Alan Parsons made a full album being inspired by Asimov's works called "I Robot" and even contacted Asimov about it. Unfortunately, he had to remove the comma symbol from the album title because Asimov had sold his rights to his books and Parsons wasn't allowed to just use the title I, Robot.