The Gods Themselves

The Gods Themselves is a science fiction novel from 1972 by Isaac Asimov, marking his first wholly original novel in fifteen years (a 1966 novelization of *Fantastic Voyage* is not counted). It received the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel the following year. The work is structured in three sections, which originally appeared as three consecutive stories—Part I in *Galaxy*, and Parts II and III in *Worlds of If* magazines.

The first section takes place on Earth, the second on a planet in a parallel universe, and the third on a lunar colony. The opening section begins with chapter six, which provides context for the preceding chapters by alternating timelines: chapter six gives an overview of chapter one, then chapter one follows; then chapter six overviews chapter two, followed by chapter two. After chapters three through five, chapter six concludes, and the narrative continues with chapter seven.

The central plot involves inhabitants of a parallel universe—the para-Universe—where physical laws differ from our own. They exchange matter between their universe and ours to exploit these differences, generating an alternative energy source to sustain their own reality. However, this exchange risks collapsing Earth’s Sun into a supernova and potentially turning a large portion of the Milky Way into a quasar. Some in the para-Universe hope this explosion occurs in our universe.

In Part I, the novel specifies October 3, 2070, as the date when the character Hallam first entered the laboratory. Later, it notes that Peter Lamont was two years old when Hallam’s work occurred in 2070, and Lamont was twenty-five when he began working at the Pump Station. Thus, the bulk of the novel is set around 2093. Part III states that Earth’s population has fallen to two billion after a “Great Crisis,” which caused severe ecological damage—all apes except gibbons are extinct outside zoos—and fostered suspicion of technology, with genetic engineering research banned outright. This section occurs on a lunar colony of about 20,000 people, half of whom are “native Lunarites,” described as the last remnant of pre-Crisis humanity and a leader in many sciences.

The first part, “Against Stupidity,” is set on Earth nearly a century after the Great Crisis.