alt Hacker NewsThe triteness was more in the ending than the overall exposition. Humans create computer, computer creates universe->humans.
> I suspect you've read a lot of works derived from Asimov
You're probably right, although the transitive chain of derivation is necessarily long. Clarke - probably not derivative. Blish and Cherryh (some), Stapeton, Lem, Heinlein (the juveniles, as a kid), Baxter, Banks, Gibson, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross, Peter Watts... I dunno.
I did grind through the Robot books as a child, and the Foundation books that he wrote. But just because they're foundational (no pun intended) doesn't stop them feeling stuffy and dated now.
(And as an aside, it strikes me now that Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God is kind of the anti-particle to The Last Question.)
the penultimate line of "the nine billion names of god" has always stayed with me: "there is always a last time for everything". sounds a bit trite just by itself, but it was an incredibly powerful line when I encountered it in the story and that feeling has stayed attached to it for me.