We had a smaller group tonight, which in itself is a bit of a wonder because who would have guessed that we would keep this going for eight full months, add on several new members, and are now defining “smaller group” as seven people? Well done us!
For those who have read more of the Foundation series, the discussion tonight easily segued into future plot contrivances that Asimov has set up in this book, for those who are very familiar with his robot series (I am so proud of us for being able to quote his three laws, then debate exact wording without referencing any book – again, well done) it was hard not to applaud Baley and Daneel walking off into the sunset together and waxing poetic about real robots and how awesome that will be, and for those unfamiliar with Asimov they didn’t show up tonight.

We checked out some of the numbers Asimov had in place for his Cities and determined that we are at most of those population sizes now but have somehow escaped living in enclosed superstructures under a benign socialist dynasty, which was a pleasant surprise.

Most of us agreed that the mystery portion of the story appeared to be, in Dave’s words, an “irritating distraction” from the world-building Asimov was doing, but had some disagreement on whether the whodunit was paper thin or just moderately weak. Satid believed the culprit to be a red herring then was surprised when it wasn’t, I likened the story to some of the formulas you see on Castle or Murder She Wrote, and Auston had a contingency plan which pointed the way to the villain through an elaborate series of trial and error (i.e. not this guy? then this guy!).

Satid spoke of the use of language to differentiate the changes in thinking between Baley and Daneel, and the metaphorical use of the Cities as a cautionary tale. Dean trotted out the phrase “Malthusian Argument,” which I had to ask what the heck that was, and he told me after a disappointed sigh. His sigh was met with astonished laughter so I felt vindicated.

There is more to discuss, but I am sleepy from a night of discourse and cheese eating so I will leave this up to Dean to fill in the missing gaps. Take it away, Dean!