Customer Reviews

The Foundation Trilogy

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Asimov's classic original trilogy comes to a close in this ambitious finale. Here Asimov has really gone over the top with political and intellectual intrigue, which propels the two main plot elements. As with the two previous Foundation novels, there are actually two shorter stories here that take place decades apart. In this installment Hari Seldon's plan gets back on track after being disrupted by the mutant known as the Mule, with the mythical Second Foundation starting to peek out from behind the scenes. Who works for whom, who's a traitor or not, and whether or not the Second Foundation even really exists are all intricately played out by a series of intelligent and conspiratorial characters in relentlessly tangled webs of intrigue. In fact, this book has the most well-defined characters yet to appear in the Foundation series, especially the young Arcadia. The original Foundation saga is wrapped up nicely here as the original trilogy comes to a close. Of course, Asimov's creation is so expansive that there was plenty of room for more speculation and development of the story, leading to the prequels and sequels that Asimov continued to crank out for this classic series.

Foundation owes its genesis to young Asimov reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As the author explains, he started thinking, what would happen if he described the fall of a GALACTIC Empire? Armed with a "science" of history known as psychohistory, Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell set about trying to describe the fall and rebirth of that mythic Empire. While the trilogy (and even the subsequent sequels) did not finish the 1,000-year cycle, enough was described to bring about some rather intriguing fiction.

Asimov, of course, is fond of puzzles involving logic. While logic is rather hazy regarding human behavior (the "Laws of Psychohistory" are deliberately kept off-stage), the characters are nevertheless able to make guesses that fall within the expectations of said logic.

The prime element in the resurrection of the Empire is, of course, Hari Seldon, the greatest psychohistorian in history. Seeing through his equations that the galaxy is about to fall into ruin, Seldon strives to create a "Foundation" which will preserve the wisdom of the old empire when the collapse comes. This Foundation will ensure that, instead of thousands of years of barbarism following the collapse, only 1,000 years will ensue. The Foundation begins harmlessly enough, as a scientific organization, designed to write the "Encyclopedia Galactica," a repository for all the galaxy's knowledge. However, as the Empire falls and the scientists of the Foundation are isolated by the barbarism on the galactic periphery (in a series of "Seldon Crises"), it becomes much more. That is the basic context of the first book in the series.

Seldon also creates a "Second Foundation." The purpose of this organization, located at "Star's End," is to monitor the Seldon plan and make sure the First Foundation comes to no harm in its slow quest to restore the Empire.

If some of this sounds vaguely like Star Wars, you wouldn't be far wrong. Much of that trilogy owes its existence to Asimov's work. The most blatant example is the planet Coruscant, which echoes Asimov's Trantor, the capital world of the Empire, which is an entire world-city.

My favorite book in the Foundation series is Foundation and Empire, because they offer the most opportunity for action and challenge for the Foundation. As the series originally appeared as a series of short stories and novellas in Campbell's Astounding, the "novel" is really two stories. In the first story, the Foundation finds itself facing its first real threat--a strong Empire at the galactic core, with a strong general capable of defeating the Foundation. In the next contest, the Foundation comes up against a telepathic enemy known as "The Mule," who starts mucking about with the Foundation's path toward eventual Empire.

The third book, Second Foundation, describes a search for the "Second Foundation." This search comes in earnest, after the setbacks the First Foundation faced in the second book. Asimov manages to end the stories well, and Asimov manages to keep the reader guessing.

I really enjoyed the series when I read it in high school. The stories were great exercises in logic and managed to provide some sense of adventure. Looking back, I can see some "primitive" technological aspects of Asimov's "Future History," but that takes little away from the story. One innovation for this series was the invention of the pocket calculator (the stories appeared in the early '40s). Asimov took reluctant credit for the invention since, like Heinlein's water bed, he never thought of patenting it.

This is actually an excellent, kid-friendly introduction to science fiction, as it presents a lot of mental puzzles and very little violence. Given the time it was written and Asimov's own literary tastes, it is rather free from violence, sex, or other "adult situations." There have been grander epics, but this is one of the first to appear in science fiction form. Read from the master, and learn.

In this third volume of the first Foundation series (originally consisting of two stories published in a magazine in 1948 and 1949), survivers of the First Foundation, as well as the Mule, hunt for the Second Foundation. Asimov later published a sequel, "Foundation's Edge" in 1982. I've now read this series twice (I first read them in the early 1960s). But, my father has read them ten times. It just shows how popular the series has been. In Part I, titled "Search by the Mule," five years have passed after the end of the events described in "Foundation and Empire." The Mule (now, in effect, ruler of the Galactic Empire) goes in search of the Second Foundation which he regards as a serious threat to his rule. The Second Foundation, which is quite vulnerable, has to find some way to dissuade him and return the galaxy to the path outline by psychohistory. In Part II, titled "Search by The Foundation," the history begins about 95 years after the end of Part I. A small group of individuals in the First Foundation, including an electroneurophysiologist, come to the conclusion that the Second Foundation's ability to control people's minds is repellant. They attempt to locate the secret center of the Second Foundation. At the same time, a warlord on another planet seeks to defeat the First Foundation in battle.

This final installment of Asimov's classic Foundation trilogy contains all of the excitement and subterfuge of a well-played game of chess. Actually, in this book, you get two games for the price of one, since the book consists of two novellas detailing the search for the ellusive Second Foundation.

If you've read the first two books in the series, you know that there was a man named Seldon who had a plan to save our future society from a long cold winter of discontent. Then came along an unpredicted rogue element, the mysterious Mule, the perfect monkey wrench to foul up Seldon's works.

In the first novella of this book, the Mule uses his emotion-controlling abilities to search for the Second Foundation. This section is very tightly plotted and there are enough well placed zigs and zags along the way to keep you addictively turning the pages.

The second novella deals with the search by the First Foundation for its shadowy twin. Here Asimov introduces Arkadia Darell, a precocious 14-year old girl who has the ability to out-wit most of the adults around her. I only wish Asimov had spent more of the story with her, because I thought she was probably the most interesting character in the book, along with the Mule. The tightness of plotting in this second novella is probably twice that of the first. The suspense and tension just builds and builds until you don't think you can take it much more. If you're a slow reader, like I am, you'll find that the need to find out what happens will make you into a fast one.

I don't think "Second Foundation" is a perfect book, so I hesitate to give it five stars, but it definitely is a very good, very entertaining book. Having read the entire original trilogy now, I'd say most of the same strengths and weaknesses apply to all three books. Asimov is clearly a master of "the great idea". I love the whole concept of Psychohistory and the Seldon plan and the Seldon crises. He's an excellent story-teller in terms of knowing how to turn the tuning pegs of his plot until the strings are so tight that they sing every time a light breeze blows through.

I'd say Asimov's one weakness is in the writing of his characters. It's sort of ironic that in this trilogy all about the psychology of human motivation there would be relatively little psychological subtext to the characters. We never get to know many of the characters much more than from skin-level. I felt I never really identified with any of the characters in a truly human way.

I don't mean to be overly critical of this one aspect of the trilogy. I still think they're very very good books and in fact feel that Asimov's purpose was to draw attention away from the individual characters. As Seldon himself repeatedly says, there's no accounting for indiviudal behavior. I think Asimov knew that his strengths were in analyzing and commenting on humanity as a whole. He's brilliant at that, and his ideas and concepts are terrific. He paints on a wide enough canvas here that the dance of ideas he presents can be appreciated in much the same way that the fine dance of human emotion might be appreciated in the works of other great authors.

This trilogy is a must-read for any lover of science fiction, psychology, or great ideas. It's also good reading for any chess players out there.

The final--and arguably the best--volume of the original trilogy, "Second Foundation" expands Asimov's premise that a solution found in one era is often the grief of the next generation.

"Search by the Mule," the first half of this book, follows the race between the Mule and remnant members of the First Foundation to find the location of the keepers of the secret Second Foundation--or whether such a civilization exists at all. The very presence of a mutant like the Mule has thrown off course the inexorable historical trajectory plotted by the psychohistorian Hari Seldon, who (as readers of the previous volumes know) planted the seeds for an accelerated rebirth of a new empire after a thousand-year intergalactic Dark Ages. The second half, "Search by the Foundation," pits several of the leaders of the resurrected First Foundation against the (real or imagined?) threat posed by the Second Foundation.

The Foundation books were originally written as a series of eight interconnected stories (plus an opening chapter written for book publication), so their arrangement as a trilogy is rather random--and that leads to this book's only significant fault. The first half of "Second Foundation" is a continuation of the Mule's reign of terror that began in the second half of "Foundation and Empire"; they are the only two stories in the series that share a lead character. Their separation into two books arbitrarily contributes to an odd lack of cohesion, and if it has been a while since you read the second volume you might find yourself confused. (Had Asimov originally planned these books as a trilogy rather than a series, these two halves would have, together, comprised a nearly seamless novel.)

On the plus side, what is noticeable in this final volume is how much better Asimov's writing had become by the time he wrote the last story. (The first Foundation story, "The Encyclopedists," was written when he was only 21; the final installment was published when he was 28 and after he had completed graduate school.) In addition, his humor is more mature, his science more speculative, and his characterizations more complex.

Even the multiple twists and turns in "Second Foundation" are the sign of a more confident writer. With a choice of over four hundred books, Asimov's fans may differ over which is their favorite, but this is certainly one of his best.

This series generally has total enthusiastic acclaimation. Those very few who criticize the Foundation "Septology", are nit pickers. They are so enthralled with the concept behind the story, that all they can do it find the flaws, which include a detached perspective (it is written as history after all!), lack of depth of female characters, etc. The reality is, how many books can you give a 10 year old, or a 70 year senior, and be ensured both will enjoy it equally, even if they already have read it?

Asimov was in his early 20's when he wrote this, and modern readers forget this was pulp fiction. My only negative is the complete lack of insight as to our society's current computerization, leaving this subject vague and mysterious.

It is refreshing to read a series so fresh in its approach, and "psychohistory" is still an incredible, yet realistic, concept.

The Seldon moments, which are a highlight of the series, contain an unexplained mystery, namely "Did Seldon create his Hologram appearances beforehand, just letting the Second Foundation-ers time their release, or were the Holo-appearances complete fabrications created by the Second Foundation-ers to keep the Psycho-Historical time line on course?"

So not only read this initial series, but all of the books around it! If you read Sci-Fi, this is one of the MUST reads for ALL Sci-Fi readers. the worst you will come away with is "wow, incredible, but maybe if it also had...". You will be thinking about the book afterwards for weeks or even months.

really.

By the time you get to "Second Foundation," which despite its title is the final volume in the original Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, there is no real need to keep on with the effort to persuade you to keep on reading. Instead it would be more beneficial to look at the original trilogy as a whole and consider why it stands out as one of the greatest in the realm of Science Fiction & Fantasy.

Simply compare the Foundation Trilogy with the two other, admittedly more popular, trilogies: "The Lord of the Rings" and (the original) "Star Wars." In the former it is established that the One Ring has to be destroyed and from that point on Tolkien's story is devoted to getting that accomplished and trying to return peace to Middle Earth. In the latter it becomes clear at the end of the first film (of the original trilogy) that the story will end when Luke Skywalker kills Darth Vader at the end of the third film, which means that Darth will have to defeat Luke at the end of the second. That is indeed what happens, although George Lucas did throw a big twist into the picture.

In comparison the genius of the Foundation Trilogy is that the three volumes are so different. "Foundation" establishes the theory and practice of psychohistory, as Hari Seldon's master plan for reducing the inevitable barbarism of the time between galactic empires to a single millennium. But then "Foundation and Empire" finds the plan disrupted by the threat of the genetic mutant the Mule, and the careful progression of the first novel is replaced by a crisis that is an unforeseen Seldon Crisis. However, with "Second Foundation" there is a new agenda, as both the Foundation and the Mule search for the location of the titular entity. The purpose of the hidden Second Foundation is to protect the first, but the members of the original Foundation do not like the idea of its existence any more than does the Mule. Consequently, the race is on to discover the truth.

What Asimov has created is a classic example of a dialectic, more so in terms of claim, challenge, and correction rather than thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Not only does it represent the dialectic, the Foundation Trilogy embodies it as well, because that is the principle behind how the Seldon Plan works and adjusts to changes both small and large as the universe plays outs its history. It does not have the great depth and richness of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," or the style and flair of Lucas's "Star Wars." But then Asimov always represented striped down narratives, where the characters would have intense discussions about scientific principles, which usually boiled down to his belief that science could solve any and all human problems.

Because the Foundation Trilogy is a landmark in the history of science fiction it now enjoys a significance that goes beyond its merit as a story. Eventually Asimov would connect this series with both his Empire and his Robot novels, but it is still important to remember the Foundation Trilogy on its own terms. Even with "Second Foundation," there is something intrinsically enjoyable in the way that Asimov offers plausible solution after plausible solution before revealing the solution that was true.

This book is the last in the classic Foundation Trilogy and is a perfect example of a truly captivating story. The series builds up exponentially into this finale and the plot moves faster and faster, not dropping off until the very last sentence and being easily the greatest conclusion to a story I have ever read, leaving me laughing maniacally and wondering how such a profound literary mind could possibly exist. The sheer grandness of it all is simply superhuman, and the best part is the way you would never suspect it before the point, but once you get there, everything falls into place perfectly and you know that no matter how much you had to struggle through the first two books, it was worth the ride. And such a ride it was.

This is the last part of the trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation) where everything seems to be explained. Asimov could stop the Foundation series right here. However, there were still too many things unanswered. If you want to find out what was REALLY going on, read Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth as well as the robot series The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire.

I enjoyed Foundation, and Foundation and Empire even more, but Second Foundation is truly the pinnacle of the series, and a masterpiece. Very tightly and interestingly written, it begins with the story of the Mule's search for the second Foundation. This is an extremely interesting portion of the story, and makes for a great, fascinating read. It picks up on the semi-cliffhanger ending of Foundation and Empire, and wraps up that part of the story in worthy style. The second (and lengthier) part of the book deals with first Foundation's search for the said second Foundation. This is truly interesting as well, and the plot goes through so many twists and turns that your head will be reeling by the end! You really have to give it up for Asimov, as he truly wrote it masterfully, tying up nearly every single loosed end in the series, and creating a reel of suspense and intrigue that should be commended on any level. I guarantee you, the last couple of chapters will have you frantically flicking back to earlier ones to look over tiny little points that you may have missed. A truly compelling read.

A masterpiece. Read it.