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Foundation by Isaac Asimov is the first book in the Foundation trilogy, set about 50,000 years in the future. The second and third volumes in the trilogy are Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. With many, many reviews describing the books, there is little need for a description of the plot here. Instead, I'll give a few incidental notes on the SciFi ideas embedded in Foundation trilogy and my recommendations for potential readers.
"Foundation" is from the 1940's, when some of the ubiquitous ideas of modern science fiction were born. In the 1940's, it was already clear that the universe was a very large and complex place (though it is even larger and more complex now than was known then!). So, writers, including Asimov, invented the devices of transport and communication faster than the speed of light. This brought the stars within "reach" and opened wide horizons for imagining how the future might develop if such technologies existed. "Foundation" and its original trilogy brought forth one of Asimov's unique contributions to the imagined future of science: "psychohistory." The concept of psychohistory is that large-scale social and political events can be mathematically forecast in the form of event probabilities. Asimov's various writings use these assumptions to write stories dealing with social, political, and individual challenges of an imagined future.Read more ›
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Apparently the whole foundation series is linked and cannot be reviewed separately, so this covers several books.
Why review a classic book with over 1000 reviews? Because many of them are not objective and some reader might want a perspective of what they are getting into.
FOUNDATION This seems to be an early book with an immature writing style. It is a series of novelettes with only a general framework connection, separated by 100s of years, and not much depth to any of them. Most of the characters of male and all smoke, typical of the time of its writing. In each story, one character is a super genius, and everyone else either follows him (never a her), or opposes for silly reasons. None of this matters except to fill in a bit of history to set up the sequel.
Moreover, the extremely ambitious series, eventually combining with the robot series, is missing a big gap which Asimov came back and started to fill in later in his life. His estate has contracted other authors to complete it, but I have not read the ones by other authors. All of the early Asimov writing is a bit immature, but the idea of plotting over centuries and taking responsibility for shaping the future is very interesting. Much later in the series we will learn that humans didn't directly do this, but still Asimov's sweeping view of inevitable developments in history over time has proved a compelling legacy of his life, and it inspired me personally to work on crash rate theory. If the real world version of psychohistory interests you, at least the beginning of it, search for Economic Optimization of Innovation and Risk.
FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE We have significant female characters in this one, who aren't just decoration.Read more ›
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It was a lot of fun to re-read, after many years, Isaac Asimov's "Foundation", the first book of the classic "Foundation" trilogy (prequels and sequels to the trilogy were added in subsequent years). Once again, it was cool to read about a planet of scientists secretly working to alter events around the galaxy to avert the 30,000 years of universal barbarism that their "psychohistorical" equations have predicted will occur if nothing is done.
What's also fun about the book is that we soon see that the scientists really aren't up to the task, so it falls to the Foundation planet's politicians and traders- with their earthier political skills- to interpret and implement the scientific data and act accordingly. The bulk of the book then consists of a series of episodes where moves, countermoves, and Machiavellian undercurrents all work together to minimize galactic warfare and chaos, and to keep the generally defenseless Foundation planet safe and independent so its work can continue.
More than half a century old, "Foundation" remains thoughtful, smart, and entertaining, making it not surprising that HBO is currently developing a weekly drama based on the books.
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I read this story over 45 years ago and I just repurchased it to read again on my Kindle. I like the book but I don't really consider it to really be true Science Fiction. Yes, I know it is about a galactic civilization that is collapsing and how they are using science and mathematics to help it recover as quickly as possible and predict the future. For me though it is more about using guile and politics and planning to cunningly take over solar systems without war. After all; the entire objective is to save mankind and not kill them.
Perhaps this should be mandatory reading for all of our global leaders today as part of their education to become politicians. This book will make you think. It can move slowly at times and I was not crazy about the jabberwocky language spoken by one of the characters. That is why I gave it 4 stars.
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This item: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
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