The Foundation Trilogy [UNABRIDGED] (Paperback)

by ISAAC ASIMOV (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A THOUSAND-YEAR EPIC, A GALACTIC STRUGGLE, A MONUMENTAL WORK IN THE ANNALS OF SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION begins a new chapter in the story of man's future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation-dedicated to art, science, and technology-as the beginning of a new empire. FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism. SECOND FOUNDATION follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire's defeat and describes its greatest threat-a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men's wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.

Product Details

• Paperback: 678 pages
• Publisher: AVON (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380508567
• ISBN-13: 978-0380508563
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #411,644 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice Omnibus - if you like Foundation, February 18, 2007

By	J. Stoner "Plants and Books" (Parkville, MO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book contains the first three "Foundation" novels: "Foundation," "Foundation and Empire," and, "Second Foundation." Honestly, I was not a huge fan of the first foundation; but, I appreciate the scope of text. This is a great way to have all the original foundation novels in one. The only problem with this collection, and every collection, is the fact that it is a little bit cumbersome since it is rather large. Below are the reviews I posted about the individual books.


FOUNDATION (**)
Superman sydrome and weak characterization

I can understand why this book is considered one of the best science fiction books ever written, especially considering the time period it was written in. It has a very interesting concept of destination and cause and effect (although it is weak in execution and very weak in explanation). For these reasons and other I should only give this book a one star, but instead I gave it two and I will explain why later.

There is almost zero character development in this book. The extremely short chapters jump thirty years to eighty years and more between chapters. Almost every "book" within this book has a new set of characters with only a few references of the "heroes" from the previous "books." At times, this makes for very confusing reading because I had no idea who the new people were in the successive chapters.

As mentioned in the title, this book suffers greatly from the Superman sydrome. By this I mean that you know the outcome before the events have unfolded. Superman can't be beat (except for by Doomsday in the comics but he comes back anyway) and therefor when watching the movies you know he wins. So there just has to be more elaborate plans and more complex ways of defeating him but he still will win. The same is true with the foundation. Harry Seldon, the prophet who esentially created the foundation, knew what was going to happen because he could see the future. Every "book" in "Foundation" will ultimately see the Foundation as the victor, so there just must be more complex problems arising, but of course the Foundation will ultimately prevail. And in this book, the problems are not really that complex, just different social economies arising to counter the previously established social economy that prevailed in the previous "book." I can only imagine that in the later books the problems will get ridiculously complex - maybe even too complex for enjoyment.

Because this book has almost zero characterization and is very predictable I would give this book one star, but instead I gave it two. The reason for this is because I have read the backs of the other books in the Foundation series and other reviews of them and I am interested in the storyline. I want to read about the Mule in Foundation and Empire, and I want to read about Earth in Foundations Edge. If not for that this book would recieve a one star rating from me and I would also never recommend this book or ever pick it up again.

It may be a classic, but it's not that great. It's not great at all.

----

FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE (***)
Better than "Foundation" by ten-fold but....

That's not saying much since I thought that "Foundation" was pretty poor.
"Foundation and Empire" was pretty good, but still lacked in certain
areas - mainly character development and also the first third of the
book had a very weak story line. The whole battle with the Empire by
the Foundation was very very weak, I cannot stress that enough. Maybe I
was just hoping for an epic battle between the renegade Foundation and
the dying Empire. Nothing really happened to spur the victory of the
Foundation, there wasn't even really a battle. But I guess that might
be the point that Asimov was making since Seldon predicted the choices
and decisions of the Emperor about the passion that the characters had
for the battle. It wasn't even a battle between the Empire, it was some
mission designed and orchestrated by some general in the navy that
thought it would be a good idea to take over the Foundation.

This book also lacked in strong characterizations, but not as much as
the first "Foundation" by a long shot. The last two thirds of the book
stick with the same characters the whole time. It also enters a
powerful mutant, the Mule. I won't give much away about the Mule and
his plans because I don't want to spoil the book but it sets up for the
sequel, "Second Foundation." Once again the idea of the Mule is a good
idea but is somewhat poorly executed until the ened when everything is
explained about the effects the Mule has on the Foundation and the
people in the main storyline.

Get ready for "Second Foundation" because it will probably be the best
of the first trilogy. This book is worth reading and if "Second
Foundation" is better than this book then I will recommend the
"Foundation Series" to anybody who can persist in their reading and
doesn't mind a long slow beginning.

----

SECOND FOUNDATION (****)
Decent, and better writing than the previous "Foundation's"

"Second Foundation" is the third book in the "Foundation Novels," and is pretty good. It is a nice conclusion to the original trilogy. One big problem, however, is the fact that the writing style is so much different than the first book. It is almost like another author wrote this book. This is not such a bad thing, except it just has a totally different feel to it from the rest of the series thus far. I like my multi-book series's to have a continuity of voice and prose that make it just seem like one big novel, broken up into little pieces.

The problem lies in the characters (or lack there of) between the books. "Foundation" had so many more characters and each of them was in the book for a very short amount of time. Then, in "Foundation and Empire," there are fewer characters, and each is in for a little more time - not much, but a little. Then in "Second Foundation," the characters are in the book for... [wait for it...] the WHOLE BOOK! It's a good book, just drasically different from the previous books in the terms of writing style. It seems that each book in the series has grown by a factor of ten as being a well written story.

Hopefully if this continues, then "Foundation's Edge" will be a blowout, except I think I recall saying that in my "Foundation and Empire" review. All in all, good book, but definately not the best.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, a Classic, November 25, 2007

By	Just Another Reader (Terre Haute, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews

I read this trilogy for the first time when I was 10-11 years old. It held my attention quite well (so good even a kid can't put it down). My favorite part is about the Mule. He's not your ordinary, everyday villian...a man to be feared and pittied at the same time. I thought of this trilogy when I first saw Star Wars, especially with regard to the size of the Empirical warships. The idea of psyco-history is pretty much a straightforward application of quantum mechanics theory to human psychology: the individual's actions are impossible to fully predict, but large populations follow trends that are predictable via probabilistic models. He also depicts advancements in technology as being represented by miniaturization: truly prophetic (look at microprocessors). He also showed a realistic grasp of politics in a scene where an empirical official visits the foundation at the edge of the galaxy (1st book). Asimov was a true man of genius.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Galactic Empire is falling..., July 1, 2005

By	Richard W Little "I am a maple leaf on the wind." (Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China) - See all my reviews

Gentle Readers, this work was written when Asimov was young, and ine one of his most creative spurts. Asimov illustrates how order might be brought to the chaos of social behavior...and how things might go wrong. Asimov's writing style is that of the Reasonable Man...something I've always tried to emulate. The Galactic Empire studied in the trilogy is the basis for the Empire in "Star Wars".