Customer Reviews

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Without second thought I would say Asimov is my favourite SF author and the Foundation series is one my SF favourites. Precisely because I am so fond of both, I was very disappointed with Foundation and Earth.

The storyline does have its interesting moments and on the whole I found the quest for Earth ironically amusing from the reader's point of view. The fluency of the plot however, is continually hampered by long and unnecessary lectures. I have always respected and admired Asimov's scientific philosophy but in this occasion his reflections on individuality as opposed to collectivism are embedded in an endless and tiring debate between the Gaian Bliss and Trevize. The debate of this single topic is repeated so many times with such great length that after some time you become annoyed every time they start lecturing, wishing that they would arrange a scientific forum somewhere else, resolve the issue for once and all, then shut up for the rest of the plot.

The plot aside, the problem with this Foundation novel is that it is without the Foundation! Having been taken care of in the previous novel, the First and Second Foundations are only vague and trivial references within the novel. While two of the main characters (Trevize and Pelorat) are Foundationers, it wouldn't have altered the plot much if they weren't.

The real disappointment for me however was how the novel was concluded. The motivation of Asimov for this and the previous Foundation novel, I believe, was the fusion of the Foundation series with his excellent Robot literature. While he does so, in a reasonabl elegant fashion, the result and the ending, I am afraid, ridicules the Foundation saga in favour of the robots. It is almost as if one might not have read the Foundation trilogy at all.

Still I do not regret having bought and read this book. While I did not want the Foundation saga to end in this way I certainly would not leave the concluding book out of my shelf. I recommend this book only to devoted fans of the great master.

This is the last book (chronologically) in the Foundation Series, and with Prelude to Foundation, the earliest, the Foundation Series has two excellent bookends, or, perhaps, "foundations", to keep it in place.

F&E is a continuation of Foundation's Edge, and is the story of Trevize, Pelorat and Bliss/Gaia's quest to find Earth, in an attempt to determine why Trevize's choice for the future of mankind is the right one.

The book deviates substantially from the rest of the series, but generally in a positive way. Whereas Asimov has a habit of making his primary characters out of cardboard, presumably to avoid the people getting in the way of the ideas he wants to express, F&E fleshes out the characters with a certain amount of personality. Whereas the rest of the Foundation Series tends to concentrate on worlds which, after a while, all appear similar, the worlds of F&E are different, frightening, and yet serve Asimov's agendas well. F&E also ties together the Robot series universe with that of the Foundation series far more substantially than the other books in the Foundation Series attempted to, portraying the futures of the Spacer worlds that Robot fans will be familiar with.

I'm guessing that the differences are ultimately why this has gotten a lower average review than the others in the series - it's not classic Foundation Series material, and any one expecting a collecton of stories involving a renegade Foundation leader visiting various rebelling worlds and outwitting the dimwitted monarchs that rule over them with some sort of smartarsed politics is going to be sorely disappointed. Hari Seldon makes no appearance. I don't recall even seeing the term "Seldon Crisis" in this book.

If you genuinely want more of the same, you'll probably be disappointed by this book. If you've never read any of the series before, it's probably best to start at the beginning with the equally excellent Prelude to Foundation (or even the Robot series.) But if you're excited by Asimov's ability to paint new worlds, to visualise the future directions for humanity, you cannot afford to miss this. Foundation and Earth is the best yet.

As the last chronological addition to the Foundation series before he died, Isaac Asimov gave SF readers a gem. The story begins immediately after the ending of Foundation's Edge, when Golan Trevize decided the fate of humanity that all should eventually form a single superorganism called Galaxia, enlarging the present superorganism called Gaia. The main characters are Trevize; Bliss, a part of Gaia; and Pelorat, a scholar. The drive of the story is a continuation of the previous book, in that Trevize seeks Earth, mainly to determine why all records of it have been expunged. Additionally, Trevize is allowing his previous decision to hinge upon the end result of their odyssey across the Milky Way - if he wants, he can reverse his choice and Galaxia will NOT go forward, and humans will remain the independent interactors we are today.

There are few clues remaining to direct them, and they first visit a planet the readers saw in Robots and Empire, though it was under a different name. The path of the three is constantly accompanied by debates between Trevize and Bliss about the nature of life and whether a superorganism is the best option. Based on the obstacles and encounters they meet, the end decision is relatively predictable.

In this novel, we see two of the spacer worlds, one which was the first, Aurora, and one which was the last, Soloria. First stop among the spacer worlds is Aurora, which gives a grim picture of what happens to a terraformed planet once the humans have gone extinct. Their trip to Solaria solves a riddle from R&E as to what happened to the Solarians. Again, not the most pleasant evolution of an advanced society. The implications of this visit really affect Trevize's decision. Their next stop is a nearly completely dead world, but one that gives them a clue to Earth.

After a brief stop at Alpha Centauri, they finally locate the home system of humanity, but Earth is as readers of the series would expect from R&E and from the Empire series: Earth is a completely uninhabitable radioactive wasteland. The actual endpoint of their voyage is a nice surprise, in my opinion, but not nearly so much as who we meet at the end, a dear old friend. This meeting wraps up many issues, and Trevize makes his final decision regarding the fate of mankind.

This book is excellent, though not quite a "Foundation" book in my opinion, as we never really deal with that government, save in very tertiary ways. Like most of Asimov's novels, the story is the main thing, but there is some good character development. And if you couldn't guess from the rest of this review, it was really nice to re-visit so many once-familiar places and to meet some old friends. I hope you enjoy it, too.

If you enjoyed the ending of Foundation's Edge then you will probably like this book. You will find more analogies comparing Gaia to things in the isolate world, and Bliss squaring off with Trevize about stuff you really don't care about. Asimov does, however, succeed in making you feel the fustration that the characters feel when they don't discover ANYTHING about Earth for the first 450 pages. The most annoying character is Fallom. I found myself wanting Trevize to kill Fallom as he suggests he will do several times in the book. The "twist" revealed in the last sentence is all but a surprise as Trevize foreshadows it several times in the book. I just read a review that this was more part of the Robot series than the Foundation series. I had only read the first four Foundation novels so perhaps that is why I didn't care for the portion of the book where they meander through space accomplishing nothing.

I think this is the only Foundation book not in print anymore, and I have no idea why. Not only is this the most important one in the series in the way that it provides a sort of conclusion to everything, it's just a great book.

I liked Trevize in Foundation's Edge and we see more to his character here, which is great. We also see more of that fun planet Gaia. I found the arguments between Bliss and Trevize particularly amusing and what was interesting was that Trevize won just about all of them. Give me the Seldon Plan anyday.

The search for Earth took up some much of the book, but when we finally get there it's almost anti-climatic (though any readers of Robots and Empire will know what they find long before the characters do). Fortunately Asimov doesn't allow us to dwell on that by springing the top surprise of the novel on us (which I won't say because I don't want to tip any readers off beforehand).

In the process he clarifies and adds to his histories and weaves the Robot, Empire, and Foundation sagas even closer together. What more can one ask in a novel, especially from Asimov?

Oh, and I heard about the error, but I didn't see anything that seemed wrong. If anybody knows what it is, the curiousity is killing me and I don't have the patience (or the time) to reread the book more carefully. E-mail if you know!

A forward to this book written by Asimov himself makes reference to his publisher's wish that he write additional foundation novels, and implies that their incessant demands eventually overcame his own reluctance to do so. Almost as if he's saying to the reader, "Hey, don't blame me for this steaming pile. They made me do it."

If I had Asimov's resume, I'd be reluctant to put my name on this book as well.

As the title implies, Foundation and Earth is about the protagonists' continued search for the world of origin. Unfortunately, unlike Foundation's Edge, the journey itself is not long enough to fill the requisite 500 pages, so we're subjected to endless interludes of casual conversation between protagonists which are completely irrelevant to character or story progression. A simple question will launch a character into a tedious three-page monologue that reads more like an essay than dialogue.

As other reviewers have said, the primary purpose of these later books was to tie each of Asimov's sci-fi series together into one universe. This works alright for the robots, but does more harm than good to the legacy of The Foundation.

If you've read the original Foundation novels, It's likely that no negative review will dissuade you from reading this one. Therefore, I commiserate with you in advance.

If you're an Asimov junkie like me, you'll buy and read this book no matter what anybody says. But if you were thrilled with the first three books in the series, ecstatic over the addition of Prelude to Foundation, and slightly less than pleased with Foundation's Edge, then you'll be disappointed with this one.

I felt Isaac was preaching at me in some sort of new age galactic godspeak rather than entertaining me with a good story. Maybe that's the danger of writing so many good adventure books: eventually you want to advertise your beliefs. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that this book was a terrible letdown for me in an otherwise brilliant series.

The ending didn't gather together the threads of the story, but only seemed to serve as a steppingstone for books that were never to be written. The Foundation Series is a grand adventure, standing up for the most part over forty years after some of the volumes were written. Well, five out of six of them do, at least.

Wow! This last book in the Foundation series definately kept me turning the pages way past my bed time. It was generally less gripping and satisfying than the original series. However since this book was written much more recently than the trilogy, Asimov's adaptation of 30+ years of scientific theories and insights is very insightful and intriquing.

The ending however, is quite a disturbing one. It hints that there is indeed more to this supposed "ending" to the Foundation series. I cannot say anymore in fear of throwing spoilers into this review... all I can write is that it's killing me... for there seems to be more than meets the eye to the formation of Galaxia.

Oh ya, very strongly recommended you read Asimov's Robot series and of course the original Foundation series and Foundation's Edge. I read Edge before the Robot novels and frankly in hindsight it would have been much more enjoyable and made more sense if I had done otherwise.

Aismov continued the Foundation series reluctantly under pressure from fans and his publisher in "Foundation's Edge," which precedes this novel. "Edge" is a disappointing book and "Earth" falls even shorter. The plot is very slow, the characters are only mildly interesting, the dialogue is wooden and the ideas just don't materialize in the end. I find the Gaia concept (which was introduced at the end of "Edge but plays a prominent role throughout "Earth) to be extremely far-fetched, and Asimov sinks to new literary lows as a writer here--gratuitous sex, a planet of hermaphrodites, and a planet where the women are topless. The lack of taste only makes things worse. There was very little substance in this book and it is a dismal way to end the "Foundation" trilogy, which is the best sci-fi series in history in my opinion. I do not recommened except for those who must have their curiousity to see how it all ends satisfied, but be warned this book is nothing like Asimov in his prime, some 30 years prior.

I feel pretty sure that Asimov has a huge ego - that his protagonist is some sort of projection of his self image. Trevise is supposed to be a rigorous scientist of the highest intelligence, and in this novel his quest is to find out why he is always right.
Hubris city, but with no ironic undercutting.

Worlds and characters are flagrantly constructed merely as 2D sets for the strutting Trevise. His two companions acknowledge his greatness and tread around him accordingly. Pel is a sort of Dr. Watson. Every female is absurdly stylised : vain (jealous of any other female), motherly, and devoted. Oh, and stacked. We're deep in James Bond/Star Trek 1 territory here.

There are plenty of contradictions and places where supposedly intelligent characters do stupid things.

This is obviously a book written on commission: he didn't have any idea for another Foundation book, let alone a 500 pager, but his publishers wanted the money for a guaranteed seller. Asimov really should stick to short stories where you don't need insight (particularly into character) or imagination, but can get by with a single novel 'what if'. He reveals far too much about himself here, which in some authors is intriguing, but in him is disappointing.