Foundation

A classic early example of a "fix-up," the gathering together of a group of stories with a little tinkering to shape them into something more novel-ish. In this case, four previously published stories have been gathered (and given new names), along with a new introductory story; whatever tinkering has been done, this feels more like a collection of separate stories than it does like a single narrative.

It's typical of early 40s SF. Ideas are more important than characters, who serve primarily as mouthpieces for those ideas; "the future" is depicted mostly through giving characters names that sound like rejected pharmaceutical products ("Ask your doctor if Hari Seldon is right for you!").

Hari Seldon is the dominant figure in this book, show more though he doesn't actually appear in most of the stories. He is the great genius of Asimov's imagined science, psychohistory, which posits that while the actions of individuals are unpredictable, the actions of societies can be predicted with (astonishingly precise) accuracy. What he does after he forecasts the coming downfall of the great galactic Empire sets in motion the events of these stories, which take place over the course of roughly a century, with a different set of characters featured in each chapter.

Alas, I fear that "stories" is a generous description for what's in this book. These are primarily exchanges of political and philosophical speeches, dressed up in the guise of stories. But the costume is a little too thin, and the alternating "here's how I will destroy you" and "but you have not foreseen my brilliant strategy" monologues get tired very quickly.

The Foundation series was enormously popular in its day, and Asimov returned to it late in his career as part of an attempt (rather misguided, if you ask me) to tie all of his novels into one grand future history. All four of the previously published stories gathered here were eventually nominated for Retro Hugos as the best of their year, as were stories gathered for the second volume in the series (so I'll eventually be reading that one, too).

But as a reading experience 80 years after their original publication, they really don't hold up very well. show less

This is one of the all time classics of science fiction that I first read 30 years ago as a student. Asimov has been my favourite science fiction writer ever since, and this still delights in its simple but intelligent and epic storyline covering a period of some 150 years, its crisp prose and sharp dialogue. Of course like most science fiction, it says more about the time in which it was written (1940s) than about the far future after 12,000 years of galactic empire, where there are almost no female characters (and almost everyone smokes like a chimney). But it is a memorable start to the Foundation series, the later books are even more diverse in scope.

If you like sci-fi, they say, you must read the classics.
After reading this book, I can claim with certainty that's BS, plain and simple, and forgive me the French.
My reason for giving this book a two-star review—in addition to what other two-star reviews rightfully claim about the boredom of the characters—is that I had to get around the 75% of the book to see a female character on scene. She didn't even deserve a name and vanished in a blip.
This is the first book I read in my life—and I've read a few—where women aren't present at all, not even as secondary (and badly written) characters.
And people complain about The Lord of the Rings for lack of female characters. Sheesh, what about Galadriel? She's a fundamental element to show more the story, not to mention her connection with all the past of the Noldor.
Even Heinlein, who never primed in writing women, uses them as characters.
I'm appalled, speechless even.
Unfortunately, I can't return the series because I bought it last year, otherwise I would take my money back. Since I have thrown it in the bin, I'll try to read the other books—after all I'm curious to see how it ends, although I can hope to see it in the TV series. Now that I think about it, despite not loving the series, I think it's better than the books, at least the one I read so far.
This story could have been so more interesting if Asimov had shown some kind of enlightenment in the social sciences, like he did in biochemistry. show less

First, I love the Asimov robot books, so don't hate me when I say that [Foundation] just wasn't very good. Certainly, my expectations may have been too high, given my love for other Asimov tales and the frenzied fandom of [Foundation]. But I didn't expect a dry political satire. I was looking more for the carnage and tension of the robot tales and what I got was a royal parlor treatise. Again, to be fair, perhaps Asimov was laying the groundwork for the larger series, but he left me with so little interest that I won't be going on to the rest of the series. On balance, I preferred Heinlein's [Double Star] for this kind of political satire set in the stars.

3 bones!!!

I’ve never read an Asimov novel before (only short stories) and I was a little intimidated by this grandfather of the science fiction genre, having heard his work was idea focused and somewhat dry. This initial novel mostly bears that description out, however it was also gripping and addicting reading. The chapters, which are short, function just like Pringles or popcorn, you sit down to have a handful or two and after a while find you’ve emptied the bowl. Asimov does seem most interested in his ideas and his sweeping narratives, his characters tend to be a bit static and one dimensional, his prose fairly Spartan and matter of fact, but this is no impediment as the ideas and narrative really do excel and shine.

Foundation

I grew up on Isaac Asimov. From ages 8 to 13 I read all of his fiction that I could get my hands on, and most of the non-fiction as well: hundreds of thousands of words. He was one of my heroes.

So fifty years later, when I came across his Foundation Trilogy in the same Science Fiction Book Club edition that I read as a kid, I found it an irresistible pickup. I’ve now reread “Foundation,” the first of the trilogy. And let me tell you, it is awful. I almost don’t know where to start.

Let’s start with a ludicrously unimaginative view of the far future. In the first chapter, the protagonist takes a kind of interstellar commuter train (he chats with the conductor) to his destination planet, which is New York City, but more show more so (its tall buildings and impressive infrastructure amaze the provincials). At the spaceport (whose description is indistinguishable from that of Penn Station), he hops in a cab. At the end of the ride, he pays the cabbie with coins.

Every man smokes tobacco: either cigarettes or cigars. If I had a quarter for every time a man lights up in Foundation, it would pay for the trilogy. There isn’t any sociological or historical reason given for this; apparently, all of Asimov’s peers smoked, so all of the men in his fiction smoke. It seems to be that simple.

The decline of the galactic empire is illustrated when the hostile neighbors of Terminus, the Foundation planet, have fallen back on coal and gas power. It’s shown repeatedly that these economies have reverted because the knowledge necessary to maintain atomic power has been lost. Nevertheless, these coal and gas economies maintain their interstellar fleets. Although it’s funny to imagine a coal-fired starship, it tends to break you out of the suspension of disbelief.

Next let’s look at “Foundation” as a reading experience. I’ll start with characterization, of which there is virtually none. All the characters are stock puppetry, each of whom embodies exactly one trait: wise, canny, scheming, or naive. Now, the book was written as four novellas, published in the monthly magazines of the day. Asimov then added a prologue story to fill things out. What this means to the reader is that even the bare-minimum characterization established for each character has no room to be developed.

You’ll have noted that above I said that “every man” smokes tobacco. I couldn’t speak more generally because women not only barely appear in this book, they are never mentioned or referred to when they don’t appear. It’s positively uncanny, like the novel written entirely without the letter “e.” The two women who do appear? A servant girl brought in to coo over the special high-tech dress the trader hero hopes to sell, and the shrewish wife of a high provincial official. I’m not sure what purpose she serves in the book.

“Foundation” has a single strength, and that’s the interesting concept of a “psychohistorian” genius who is able to predict the fall and renaissance of a galactic society over thousands of years by applying large-scale sociological principles. But without characterization, without recurring characters, and without a trace of imagination beyond the broad strokes of the plot, this is a depressing and downright alarming read, neither fun nor challenging, and without excitement of any kind. show less

Yes, I have read Foundation before, chances are you have too! However, for some reason I missed out on the later Foundation books from [b:Foundation's Edge|76683|Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)|Isaac Asimov|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442201382s/76683.jpg|1725527], I can barely remember who Hari Seldon is or why “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”. So reread the series from the beginning it is then; no great hardship really, a fun time is already guaranteed, and the three volumes combined are shorter than a single book by [a:Peter F. Hamilton|25375|Peter F. Hamilton|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1235123752p2/25375.jpg].

The very first Foundation story was published in 1942, around the time poor Anne Frank was show more writing her diary. I first read the trilogy in an omnibus volume in the early 80s, before [b:Foundation's Edge|76683|Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)|Isaac Asimov|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442201382s/76683.jpg|1725527] came out. I did, of course, gobble up all three books up at once, and I did love it, in fact I have never met anyone who does not like the Foundation Trilogy (and I don’t want to, I suspect they are all churls).

The trilogy is auspiciously my first sci-fi series, I have since read many others, though I don’t think I have read a better one (yes, I prefer it to the [b:Dune|234225|Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)|Frank Herbert|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1434908555s/234225.jpg|3634639] trilogy). This first Foundation book is a fix-up novel of connected short stories, unlike some fix-up novels I have read these stories join up beautifully into one cohesive novel. In this volume we meet the legendary Hari Seldon, the founder of the Foundation and ultra-brilliant “psychohistorian”, who is able to predict the future through mathematical algorithms combined with history, sociology and goodness knows what else. Such prediction is necessarily based on aggregate behavioral trends of vast numbers of people (billions). Seldon predicts the fall of the Galactic Empire and makes it his life’s mission to reduce the span of the dark ages which will inevitably follow. To this end the Foundation is established on a remote planet called Terminus ostensibly to compile a mega Encyclopedia Galactica but in truth to save mankind as a whole from an extended period of dark ages, and eventually to set up a Second Empire.

Seldon is not the only protagonist of Foundation, as the book spans hundreds of years and several generations three other heroes (no anti-heroes here) follow him: Salvor Hardin, Linmar Ponyets, and Hober Mallow. The first is a politician and the other two are traders. What they have in common is a can-do attitude, a disdain of violence, and the instinctive wiliness to outwit just about anybody they come across. In fact this series is a fine example of “The Triumph of Intellect and Romance Over Brute Force and Cynicism” (thank you Craig Ferguson). The showdown between these heroes and their antagonists are all battles of wit, no ass kicking is ever implemented.

What I did not appreciate in my teens is what a good writer and story teller Asimov is. He is not great prose stylist (witness the ample use of exclamation marks in the narrative), nor did he need to be for the type of stories he wanted to tell. However, there is a sincere and infectious enthusiasm in his story telling and a clarity that render the narrative very readable and entertaining; not to mention the witty and sardonic humour in much of the dialog. The scene where the Foundation citizens are waiting outside a vault for a hologram of Seldon to appear after 50 years is really quite thrilling.

The futuristic tech and world building are a lot of fun of course, though you will have to allow for some dated tech ideas or anachronisms such as messages printed on tapes, the use of microfilms and lack of AI (computers are not mentioned).

As good as this first Foundation volume is I find it to be the least exciting of the trilogy. I distinctly remember some edge of the seat developments in the two follow-up volumes; more on them very soon.

Personally I can’t wait to read [b:Foundation's Edge|76683|Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)|Isaac Asimov|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442201382s/76683.jpg|1725527]. show less