Foundation (original 1951; edition 1966)

http://ninecats.org/margaret/blog/2013/06/17/foundation-isaac-asimov ( )

Intriguing setup, but now I have to read the rest of them... ( )

This was one of my favorite books as a teenager. I revisited this one recently as an audiobook with my son, expecting to love it. Although the book still had much of its original charm, it didn't seem as amazing or revolutionary. Maybe because there has been so much new in sci-fi? Even today's movies, like Inception or Matrix, are innovative and mind blowing. Still, the plot was good and I love the whole concept of predicting the future of a society with psycho-history. ( )

I'm sure this was groundbreaking when it was first published, but I'm not sure it's necessarily a great story of itself. The Galactic Empire is in decline when Hari Seldon, a great mathematician is put on trial for predicting the empire will fall. He predicts that the duration of the dark ages that follow can be reduced if the entire store of human knowledge is documented into an Encyclopedia. So of they trot to some remote corner of the galaxy and start writing their book. Only things aren't quite that simple. A crisis comes along when the neighbouring planet systems start breaking away from the Empire and declaring themselves Kingdoms. The Exiles face a crisis, the first of 3 in this book, where the role of the society undergoes a change in leadership or societal organisation.
It's an interesting surmise, that a society will go through a series of phases (this book has kingdoms, religion and trade as the means of controlling society and expanding an empire). But this is also the books weakness, you move from one crisis to the next, with no character development inbetween, they each spring fully formed to play their parts but there's nothing of what drives them or makes them interesting as people. Each crisis section was, of itself, interesting, but just too brief to be really interesting. The idea that society can be described by mathematical rules is interesting enough, but it would be a more engaging rad if the characters had been more engaging or well presented, instead of being 2 dimensional cardboard cut outs with made up names. ( )

I'm glad this was not my first introduction to Asimov because it would have turned me off for good. The characters are wooden, superficial, and virtually all men. The story leads the reader along with no surprises. It's just not very fun or interesting. ( )