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Alternate History and Terry Pratchett. Part 6: Strata

Another good article (I must find another way of saying that, it's getting repetitive...). I guess I'll have to re-read Strata...again (re-re-read? again again?). I first read it at university and remember being struck by 'Reme' which made me go back and re-read previous pages, only then spotting some of the other subtle hints I'd missed. It's not vintage* Pratchett since, as Thande says, he was still honing his craft, but the 'sneaking in serious points using humour' style is still there.
* yes, okay, technically it is, since it's one of his older books - allow me some leeway here... :rolleyes:​
 
In particular, our former editor Gary Oswald and I have a never-ending periodic argument about whether The Dark Side of the Sun is more a thematic parody of Dune (as he contends) or Asimov’s Foundation series (as is my view).
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My view is that it is a parody of Asimov’s work in general rather than just Foundation. The story features Probability Math, based upon Foundation’s Psychohistory, but also parodies the Laws of Robotics - “Eleventh Law of Robotics, Clause C, As Amended”.

It was written in 1976, well before Asimov started combining his robot stories with the Foundation Trilogy.
 
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