Arabian Nights : a selection

Ah, the famous tales of Sheherazade... I've just finished a selection of tales from The Thousand and One Nights, translation courtesy of Sir Richard F. Burton, and the reading was very entertaining, the tales very exotic, somewhat erotic (for the times, it was published in 1857).

• King Sharyar and his brother: The two kings were both betrayed by their wives, who prefer to have sex with blackamoor slaves... As a consequence, King Sharyar marries a new young and beautiful virgin everyday, and has her killed right after the first night. That is until he marries the daughter of his vizier, Sheherazade, who comes up with stories so gripping that the king cannot slay her or he'll never know the end... The following stories are then all recounted by Sheherazade


• The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinnee: more tales about unfaithful wives and black slaves (women are a bit too often portrayed as such)


• The Fisherman and the Jinnee


• The Ebony Horse: a tale about a wooden horse that can fly.


• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: The famous one. I did not know that in the original tale, it's not Ali Baba that overcomes the 40 thieves, but one of his servant women.


• Aladdin and the Magic Lamp: Since the only version I had of the story is that of Disney, I was surprised to notice that there was so much differences, the biggest one being that Aladdin is not a nice & poor little thief but a thankless and renegade son who feeds off his parents. He gets the lamp by chance and is not granted 3 wishes but as many as he wishes...


• Julnar the Mermaid and her son Badar Basim of Persia: a long story about alliances between people of the sea and of the earth


• The Tale about the thief of Alexandria and the Chief of Police: a short one with a morale


• Prince Behram and the Princess Al-Datma: a tale where a princess refuses and humiliates men who do not match her in the joust and who is humiliated (and taken) in revenge


• The Tale of the three apples

Prelude to Foundation

Written after the Foundation trilogy and its two sequels, the Prelude takes us to the beginnings of psychohistory. It also serves as a starting point to the Foundation saga and links it to the rest of the works of Isaac Asimov. I personally enjoyed the Prelude a lot better than the Foundation sequels, maybe because its main character is none other than the great Hari Seldon; and then, although it also has the default of the Foundation sequels, in that it “flows” without a real destination until the last ten pages, in that one, the story feels better prepared, as though Asimov was better acquainted with this character than he was with Trevize.

So let's get to the story. I'll try to make it short, but that means I'll have to take shortcuts!:

Hari Seldon is a young mathematician, and he leaves his home planet of Helicon for the first time as he comes to a mathematical congress on Trantor, where he delivers a presentation of psychohistory: he has demonstrated that, theoretically, the future could be statistically predicted.

His speach has been remarked by Eto Demerzel, the Emperor's powerful councellor; he and the Emperor see how they could use him to maintain or extend the Empire's power. The Emperor, Cleon I, summons him, but Seldon explains to him that, at this point, psychohistory is possible but not practical (for instance, it is theoretically possible to meet everyone in the Galaxy, but it is not practical since no one would live nearly long enough to do it). The day before he should return to Helicon, he talks to a journalist, Chetter Hummin, when he is agressed by two punks. They manage to escape but Hummin is convinced (and convinces Seldon), that this attack has been orchestrated by Demerzel, who has eyes and arms everywhere. So, in order to protect him, and because he would like to see him develop psychohistory for the good of mankind, he keeps him on Trantor, where even the Emperor cannot do all that he wants to, and sends him to Streeling University.

There, Dors Venabili, a young historian, is to protect him and to help him by teaching him about history so as to advance on his work of making psychohistory practical. After taking a stroll on Upperside (understanding: outside of the buried complex of Trantor), Hari narrowly escapes death: Was is an accident or was that Demerzel's black hand? Whichever it was, Hummin relocates them to the Mycogen sector, where the locals boast an old history that could help Hari understand sociological evolution.

In Mycogen, the inhabitants are depilated (Hari and Dors have to hide hair and facial pilosity), all men are equals and all women are equals in their infériority. Hari manages to get the Mycogenian book (the local historical Bible) and learns about Aurora (see Foundation and Earth) and robots; but, doing that, he commits a sacrilege and Dors and he are faced with a death threat. Hummin extracts them and reveals again to be a *very* persuasive person. He relocates them to the Dahl sector of Trantor.

In the very poor sector of Dahl, Hari and Dors learn about Earth and again about robots. There they twice escape death and are finally saved by a general of Wye who brings them to the Mayor of Wye, knows as a powerful persona, second only to the Emperor in might, and who has claims on the throne. Rashelle, daughter of an aging Mayor of Wye, wants to use Hari and his psychohistory just as the Emperor wants to. But as she etches her plans, the Emperor's army quickly overthrow Wye's and Hari is saved (again) by Hummin.

But how did Hummin do it this time? Hari's theory proves right: Hummin is Eto Demerzel and is a 20,000 years old robot is disguise. Hummin confesses and explains to Hari the three laws and the Zeroth law that comes before the three laws, and how he tries to help humanity. But he is bridled by the law of robotics: however he will then help Hari to develop psychohistory as a path to build a brighter future. (And for the romance, Dors is also a robot, but since Hari is already in love, he is above that...)