The first two parts of
The Gods Themselves
seem unusually style-conscious for Asimov. The sentences are straightforward, and, except for the scientific explanations, the vocabulary is unadorned. A sense of place is no more evident than ever (and less so than in
The Caves of Steel
and
The Naked Sun
) even the alien landscape, often the colorful foreground of science fiction, is described simply as rocks and caverns. But the conscious arrangement of narrative elements and the way in which Asimov shares this artfulness with the reader is clearly a matter of style. Part I starts with section 6 and then flashes back to pick up the beginnings of the plutonium-186 story. In Part II, Asimov echoes the tripartite nature of the aliens by dividing the narration into segments labeled "a" for those in which Dua is the viewpoint character, "b" in which it is Odeen, and ''c" in which it is Tritt, with numbers to designate the progressing sections as "1a," "1b," "1c," "2a," and so forth. In their individual narratives, Dua, Odeen, and Tritt recall the parts of the story that are appropriate to each Dua, the parting with her Parental; Odeen, the meeting with Tritt; Tritt, the asking for an Emotional who turned out to be Dua and each subsection moves the basic story forward as well. The logical progression falters only after "6b," at which point it skips Tritt's narrative segment (all three view-points are represented at the end of "6b," as the melting into the Hard One occurs) and moves directly to "7abc," in which Estwald steps forward. This is fully as stylist a device as any cast up by the New Wave.