Two decades removed from his career-defining Foundation trilogy, a series I respect for its influence and ideas but have never found particularly exciting to read, The Gods Themselves is Isaac Asimov at his best. His characters are more interesting and his prose is much smoother than it was in the early stories. In these three interconnected novellas, he explores a wild scientific idea (a parallel universe with a stronger strong nuclear force bleeding its laws of physics into ours) and takes it to its logical ends, from the political (Could we give up a source of free energy that might destroy us?) to the fantastical (Could a misanthrope harness the energy of the big bang from another parallel universe to steal the moon?) to the beautiful — the middle section, a domestic drama set in the parallel universe, was apparently among Asimov's favorites of his own work.