Foundation (Foundation Novels)
by Isaac Asimov
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Book Summary Information
Author: Isaac AsimovEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0553382578
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Spectra
Book Reviews of Foundation (Foundation Novels)
Book Review: The Greatest Illusion of Scope in SF History?
Summary: 5 Stars
I realize that it is a fairly arrogant thing to think that I have something new to say about this classic work that the 335 people who reviewed it before me haven't said already, so if you are reading this, you must REALLY be interested in this series.
The only reason I'm bothering is because I tend to write personal reviews with personal musings, a habit which has cost me more than a few "helpful" votes here and there.
My purpose here (really) is to be a sort of compass for people, especially newer SF fans who are just learning about the genre.
If you are a member of this group then you need to ask yourself a question. That question is: Are you interested in rich, well drawn characters that develop over time and make you love them? If the answer is yes, for God sake, go read something else. This is no insult to these books, they are great, but if you want character development, you really need to look elsewhere. SF in this time period in general tended to be rather, um.. what's the word... DULL, THAT'S THE WORD. Notice I didn't say bad, I said DULL. SF books of this period read more like philosophy tracts then what we would think of as novels.
NOW!! With all that being said, when I first read this book in the 8th grade I thought it was the best thing since Dune (I didn't have a real sense of copyright dates so Dune came first.
The reason I liked this book so much had something very much to do with my love of history and the underlying idea that you could use math (another interest of mine) to predict it. For me that was great, my fellow 8th graders thought I was In-SANE. They didn't get it, as they didn't get most things I was interested in and so I sluffed them off like the useless intellectual baggage they were.
Now, at 34, I reread these books, and now I think they may have had a point. This book (and the ones after it) are just people having long political discussions as time goes by in a series of increments. Because the book is comprised of short stories that are set decades apart, you get all the grandeur and scope of a great epic with almost none of the action.
To make this clear and simple, this book is about politics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a book about politics, but if you read the description and you think this is a grand epic full of action and war and complex politics then you are going to get one out of three. If you want ALL three, I suggest that you read the original Dune series instead.
It should be noted that when I was reading Foundation, the normal children were reading The Pigman and their idea of SF was William Sleator's Interstellar Pig and Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood. These are all good books, but it just so happened that I wasn't normal and so I was reading Dune and Foundation.
My point is this: your average run-of-the-mill younger reader will probably find this incredibly boring, but if you are one of the odd ones, the geeky ones, the ones who watch TV Sci-Fi and think "There has to be more than this," you know, the kind who actually don't think that a movie being old doesn't automatically equate to a movie being BAD and/or isn't afraid of a book because it has more than 24 pages, this one just might be for you.
If on the other hand, you think Star Trek or even Star Wars are the peak of SF (I did at one point) you may not be ready until you have a couple of years on you. Lucky for us the people immigrating to print SF are growing up with much more mature SF then I had on TV. Babylon 5, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, the first season of Heroes and the British New Wave shows like Doctor Who and Torchwood, completely and especially Torchwood are ensuring that the people who change over to print SF are much more well balanced then I was at that age. I had Robotech as my big Sci-fi epic and that was IT, and anyone who is a fan of THAT show knows that blueballs is no myth, we've been waiting for the end of that story for 25 years and.. but that's a different review.
These books are a cornerstone of SF because they deserve to be. That doesn't mean you'll like them, but I hope I've given you a clue as to whether you want to pick them up. I hope so, but make sure it's the right time.
Good Reading.
P.S. If you still aren't sure, try to get your hands on the very cool BBC adaptation of the Foundation Trilogy. It's rather spacey and is more like Doctor Who meets Foundation, but if you can deal with that, you're probably a fan :)
Summary of Foundation (Foundation Novels)
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future?to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire?both scientists and scholars?and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun?or fight them and be destroyed.
Foundation marks the first of a series of tales set so far in the future that Earth is all but forgotten by humans who live throughout the galaxy. Yet all is not well with the Galactic Empire. Its vast size is crippling to it. In particular, the administrative planet, honeycombed and tunneled with offices and staff, is vulnerable to attack or breakdown. The only person willing to confront this imminent catastrophe is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian and mathematician. Seldon can scientifically predict the future, and it doesn't look pretty: a new Dark Age is scheduled to send humanity into barbarism in 500 years. He concocts a scheme to save the knowledge of the race in an Encyclopedia Galactica. But this project will take generations to complete, and who will take up the torch after him? The first Foundation trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation) won a Hugo Award in 1965 for "Best All-Time Series." It's science fiction on the grand scale; one of the classics of the field. --Brooks Peck
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