The Gods Themselves

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain, that’s the Schiller line the title comes from, and it’s a good one to sit with on a ridge where stupidity mostly just means somebody’s cigarette. The book is three parts, a scientist on Earth stumbles onto a tungsten isotope that shouldn’t exist, which turns out to be a message from a parallel universe, and the whole thing builds into an energy trade between universes that’s quietly cooking our sun.

First part is a slow, talky setup, mostly people arguing in rooms about credit and stupidity and academia, and I’ll admit I had to push through some of it with the radio silent and nothing else pulling my attention. Then part two switches to the alien universe entirely, told from creatures called para-men who live as triads, three sexes, left, mid, and rest, and it is the best stretch of the book by a wide margin, genuinely strange, an alien society thought through instead of just described. A lot of what people remember this book for is the alien sex in that section, and fair enough, it earns the reputation, but what actually got me was the emotional shape of the triad relationship, not the mechanics of it.

Third part moves to the moon and drops back into more familiar Asimov terrain, competent people solving a problem through dialogue, and after the strangeness of the middle it felt like a comedown, a bit dry, the romance in it doesn’t quite land. Structurally it’s really three novellas wearing one book’s clothes, but the middle one alone is worth the trip.

Four stars. Read it for the aliens, forgive the rest.