I never could finish the whole Foundation series, just through it got too weird at the end. But I enjoy the first 4-5 books.

IMHO the Lynch version is the benchmark. I couldn't watch the sci-fi channel's version at all.

Let me guess, probably the Foundation books which were NOT written by Asimov were the weaker ones huh?

IIRC, all 7 of them were written by Asimov. Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation were written first, many years ago. He then revisited this series and wrote Foundation's edge. Later, he also wrote the prequels "Prelude to Foundation" and "Forward the Foundation", and finally wrapped up the series with "Foundation and Earth".

Personally, I like the original trilogy and the prequel best, but all 7 of them are good reads. Hope you enjoy them PanzerMeyer.

I also think the original trilogy is by far the best. These sci-fi books often go a bit downhill when sequels come out. A good example is Clarke's Rama and Niven and Pounelle's The Mote in God's Eye. The sequels to both of those stunk to high heaven...

The Mote in God's Eye is, to me, the best sci-fi novel I've ever read, a fabulous description of humanity's first encounter with aliens.

No, as a general rule I avoid ghost-written novels like the plague, or books that says "Writer X's blabla" (like Tom Clancy's WhateverHeSoldthisWeek).

Only exception to that for me is Christopher Tolkien, as he mainly only organizes the papers/threads/fragments that his father left behind, and doesn't write new fiction with JRRTs name on it.

Thanks Walter. I'm almost halfway through "Foundation" so far and I'm really liking it. This Psychohistory stuff is interesting.

Yea, I started the same way with the original Foundation trilogy before getting ALL the other books eventually...takes up a whole shelf all by itself.

As far as Dune goes, my wife had it pretty much nailed in considering the movie/miniseries versions:

David Lynch got the 'look' right, but fairly tore up the story.

The SciFi channel got the look wrong, but stuck a lot closer to the story. She enjoyed the 'Children of Dune' mini-series more so than the 'Dune' miniseries (oh look at the funny hats).

FastCargo

The Children of Dune miniseries was a huge improvement over the Dune miniseries. It just had a lot more polish to it, better production design and a better cast.

LOL at your comment about the funny hats. The costume design in the Dune miniseries was so laughably bad, it got distracting.

I completely agree. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the purple clown suits that the Sardaukars wore in the miniseries. As to the miniseries, a change of director from "Dune" to "Children of Dune" made a huge improvement. Just compare the performances of Alec Newman (Paul) and Julie Cox (Irulan).