Foundation's Triumph [Import] [Hardcover]

David (Issac Asimov Interest) Brin (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Orbit; Book Club edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857237536
• ISBN-13: 978-1857237535
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,494,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Brin is a scientist, public speaker and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.

His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. David's novel Kiln People has been called a book of ideas disguised as a fast-moving and fun noir detective story, set in a future when new technology enables people to physically be in more than two places at once. A hardcover graphic novel The Life Eaters explored alternate outcomes to WWII, winning nominations and high praise.

David's science fictional Uplift Universe explores a future when humans genetically engineer higher animals like dolphins to become equal members of our civilization. These include the award-winning Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach. He also recently tied up the loose ends left behind by the late Isaac Asimov: Foundation's Triumph brings to a grand finale Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.

Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy. His non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.

As a public speaker, Brin shares unique insights -- serious and humorous -- about ways that changing technology may affect our future lives. He appears frequently on TV, including several episodes of "The Universe" and History Channel's "Life After People." He also was a regular cast member on "The ArciTECHS."

Brin's scientific work covers an eclectic range of topics, from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. His Ph.D in Physics from UCSD - the University of California at San Diego (the lab of nobelist Hannes Alfven) - followed a masters in optics and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Caltech. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Space Institute. His technical patents directly confront some of the faults of old-fashioned screen-based interaction, aiming to improve the way human beings converse online.

Brin lives in San Diego County with his wife and three children.

You can follow David Brin:
Website: http://www.davidbrin.com/
Blog: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DavidBrin1
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cab801

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Killer B Foundation book, December 19, 1999

By 

David N. Reiss (Haymarket, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy) (Hardcover)

First, I believe that the Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are one of the best novel series in all of modern SF.

Second, I liked the later Foundation novels by Asimov almost as much as I liked the orginal three novels.

Third, I didn't like Gregory Benford's first novel expanding into Foundation terrotory. I did like Greg Bears second novel of this newer Foundation series. And I like this treatment by Brin the best of the new series of Foundation material.

Now... It really isn't the good Doctor's writing style. But then, the Good Doctor had that styleless style that never gets in the way of the Story. But, Brin has one of the better writing styles in modern SF/F. Which makes this very much worth reading. It is pretty much required that you have read both Benford's and Bear's books in the series first. But then, that is why it is called a "series".

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No worse than any of Asimov's later Foundation books, February 18, 2000

By 

Scott Holder (Bonnots Mill Missouri) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy) (Hardcover)

Not as good as Bear's effort in this series but light years ahead of Benford's attrocious book, Brin actually does too neat a job trying to tie everything together. At the same time, he deliberately throws out a few loose ends on the outside chance someone wants to use them later on in the series.

What really makes this book not so good is the fact that the reader must engage in a huge amount of "willing sense of disbelief" when it comes to an 80 year old scientist trapsing around the galaxy one last time. And there are simply too many pat plot devices to get around this plain fact. Plus, we're now expected to believe that mankind's 12K years of lassitude was once again brought about by massive behind the scenes efforts of robots.

At the same time, Brin does an excellent job of exploring the entire "robot sect" theory--that in itself makes the book a worthwhile read.

Like many of the other reviewers, I hope that we've now explored Hari Seldon's life for the absolute last time. The whole Foundation Universe would have been better off with less detail about Seldon's "adventures" and more work on other interesting aspects of the story.

Is this book worth purchasing? Not in hard copy it isn't. Go to your library. If you want all the Foundation/Robot books on one shelf, wait for the paperback version.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but not necessary., September 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy) (Hardcover)

I am surprised that others think that Brin's book is better than Bear's book. Is this because it is the most recent or because it attempts to answer so many questions ? Benford's book did not add anything useful to the Foundation story (I HATE the pans, sims, memes, wormholes, etc). Bear's book expanded on the "Epilogue" of "Forward the Foundation" (which I assume that Asimov intended to do). I think that the plot and the characters are best in "Foundation and Chaos".

"Foundation's Triumph" spends a lot of time referencing things from other Foundation books and attempting to add insight into things that we already know. The main plot is that the Daneel robots want Hari to give the robots permission to destroy the ships that were used to teraform the planets 20,000 year ago, and the anti-Daneel robots (and cyborgs) want Hari to go 500 years in the future to judge the things that Daneel plans to do. It ties in "I, Robot", "Caliban", "Pebble in the Sky", "Blind Alley", and many of the other Foundation books.

Unfortunately, the pans, sims, and wormholes are also in the story, although not as heavily as in "Foundation's Fear". But, unfortunately it does introduce cyborgs, and fountain-of-youth-machines.

The story makes Daneel sound like a god. He created the Empire, and the class structure. He used genetic engineering to make Hari a genius and to introduce mentalic people. He developed persuasion satellites and brain fever to keep humans from creating robots and to fight the chaos plague. A wave of robot terraforming ships secretly prepared the planets for the colonists (and may have killed other life in process). Daneel setup the pan immersion assassination attempt (Foundation's Fear) to test Hari for the roll of First Minister. Daneel plans to find (or rather create genetically) a human 500 years in the future who is always right to judge Gaia 500 year before "Foundation's Edge".

The biggest thing that I could not swallow is that chaos is a virus developed by Earth. It also says that the Empire death can be stopped, but it needs to occur so that the bureaucracy dies. What ?

I do like the fact that the book indirectly states that Gaia does not take over in it pure form since the Encyclopedia Galactica quotes are from 1054 F.E. and Hari and Daneel agree that there will be no need for the Encyclopedia if Galaxia occurs in it's pure form.

It leaves room for a future book when two characters go to the future via the time warp on Earth.

The book introduces some interesting ideas, and the plot has a lot of twists and turns. But, overall I do not think that it is as good as Bear or Asimov (Of course it is better than Benford). Only Bear captured the spirit of Asimov in my opinion.