Isaac Asimov, Game of Thrones: How to Write Sociological Stories

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

~ Isaac Asimov

I'd say GoT didn't change from sociological to psychological but from sociological and psychological to badly written psychological storytelling.

I’m always amazed at how Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke could craft these profound, engaging stories even though their individual characters are mostly forgettable. At one point it hit me: these are stories where the protagonist is not an individual but the human race itself.

Asimov can write really good prose, it's just that he was full-time professor, researcher, and non-fiction writer (among other things) and wrote so, so much. He's the only author to have written in every main division of the Dewey decimal system, and he has a gigantic catalogue. Generally, the shorter the piece, the better the prose is, because it's when he takes the time to slow down and write carefully that he produces his best works. The stories Robot Dreams, The Machine that Won the War, The Martian Way, The Feeling of Power, Cal are all great examples.

The Foundation series was Robin William's favourite literature. His love of Asimov got him to star in Bicentennial Man (1999).

The Mule is one of the single most terrifying villains I have ever seen in a work of literature

Can't wait to watch this later. Asimov is the Nikola Tesla or Michael Faraday of scifi: not as well remembered in popular culture, but those who dig into the genre slowly understand how important he was.

I read the trilogy in the early 70s. My only beef with Asimov (in retrospect) is that he predicted miniaturization a billion years in the future, but Moore's Law kicked in 10-15 years after he wrote the trilogy. On the other hand, he was the only scifi writer or the era to realize how important it was.
Heinlein has guys navigating spaceships using a slide rule :-)

I can't wait to read a book by you. You're so thoughtful and I can tell you take so much time writing these videos.

"You were bound to fail," said Susan Calvin. "I was bound to try," said Simon Ninheimer. Calvin turned and left. She did her best to feel no pang of sympathy for the broken man.

She did not entirely succeed.

I read "Foundation and Empire" when I was a kid and was struck by how many ideas Star Wars lifted from it, including calling handguns "blasters."

That logic about generals and emperors is truly straight from Roman history, nearly every great victorious general after like the claudians turned right around and went for the capital

Give it the Dune treatment. A bit artful, lots of wide pans, Blade Runner-esque shots. Cherry pick the dialogue from the books so that it's all a bit suitably weird but the story still hangs together. Jazz up the costumes. You might even get a feature length film out of it that way.

A well made adaptation of Foundation could be just the thing we need right now, sociologically speaking.

Finally! Someone is talking about the importance of Isaac Asimov! Great job man

Loved that you mentioned The Big Short, one of my all-time favorite movies :D

This reminds me so much of The Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which is one of the greatest anime series ever made, which is in turn based on japanese Novels and short stories, written between 1982-1987

This video essay gave me the words to describe why i felt a Game of thrones connection to LotGH , because LotGH was a practically perfect blend of sociological storytelling and psychological storytelling too.

You might find it interesting!

"They endlessly tease big space battles that don't happen or aren't
important... There is a guy explaining why his trade policy will end a
war with less bloodshed."
.....

Well, Aaron Sorkin can make a masterpiece out of it!

Those book covers contain way more imagery and thoughts than the recent start trek movies combined. I was mesmerized and transported to another world just by looking at them.

That sex scene was written by a computer and you can’t convince me otherwise 🤭