These are some thoughts on The Gods Themselves (free), Isaac Asimov. Spoilers.

First of all, I read this a while back and had some thoughts then.

This time I really caught the whole “academia can be a very toxic environment”. Oh boy. It’s a wonder anybody survives.

The aliens are wonderfully different. Interestingly their psychology is like ours some of the time. Like, they will get embarrassed, but for weird reasons. I think the genders would’ve been handled differently today.

Oh, and there’s the, ahem, procreation. With the aliens it’s kind of sweet. Can those descriptions upset anybody? It’s a little more complicated on the Moon. She’s 24, he’s 48? Really?

Other big themes are: truth, the me-first attitude, politics, the answer to scientific disaster is more and better science (not restraint) and chemistry/physics.