Foundation

by Isaac Asimov

A few pages in, I thought to myself "science fiction doesn't typically age well, does it?" It's hard to imagine the experience of media it in the year of its publication. And in the many ways it is unfathomable in its foresight, it's "anti-woke" with social forecasts and characters. I've seen Asimov fans say "It's not about the characters!!1" and in a small way, maybe they're right? But a dozen pages into Foundation, I realized there hadn't been a female character introduced. A couple hundred(!) pages later, and it was still a boyz club in space. Cool ideas indeed, but the story, and the characters, were forgettable at best.