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This novel was Asimov's first for fifteen years, but there's a feeling that it beat novels such as Silverberg's Dying Inside to the Hugo and Nebula through sentiment
The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov's 1972 novel, was his first for fifteen years, and few instances showed the battle lines between science-fiction's old guard and 'The New Wave' than the contest between The Gods Themselves and such 'literary' novels as Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside. There's still a feeling in some quarters where more literate styles are championed that Asimov beat such novels as Dying Inside and Barry Malzberg's massively controversial Beyond Apollo to the Hugo and Nebula as much through political battle lines married to sentiment and a desire to belatedly honour his past works, as through the quality of the novel itself. In October 2070, a radiochemist discovers an impossible isotope in a lab and gives mankind the key to unlimited power. The power comes from the elctron pump, a device that allows matter transferral to our universe from another universe with different physical laws. Peter Lamont believes that this device will consume our solar system in a holocaust, and the first part chronicles his unsuccessful attempts to stop the pump, and his bitterness toward its creator. The second part tells the story of an alien "Triplet" (or family). These aliens live in the alternate universe from which the energy is being drawn and while this middle section almost completely reprises the other two sections, the alien perspective illuminates the viewpoint of the novel. These are no humans with elastic on their heads, as in Star Trek: The Next Generation -- Odeen, Dua and Tritt act and think completely differently -- but they are genuinely interesting. A tri-gender species is not an easy concept to develop, at least in a single novel, but Asimov did a terrific job here at establishing the genders through archetypes, and then defining the individuals through contrast. Asimov has few equals at portraying academic back-stabbing, and many of his other favourite topics can also be found here, such as the folly of supposedly superior intellects when muddied by emotions, and xenophobia -- something Asimov knew well from his 1930s Brooklyn upbringing, as shown in both Before the Golden Age and The Early Asimov. The arguments have faded with time, and would never have been resolved in the dark, closeted world of 1970s SF. To an outsider, they are all but irrelevant. While perhaps not the greatest novel ever to win the major awards, nor is The Gods Themselves actually the weakest. Read it for the clipped elliptical style, and its other positives, and ignore the too-easy conclusion.
The copyright of the article The Gods Themselves in Alien/Space Fiction is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish The Gods Themselves in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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