J.L. Sutton's Reviews > Foundation

“A fire-eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.”



Second reading: I really like that Isaac Asimov's The Foundation holds up! I'd been looking forward to reading the first three books in the series in one go and I'm excited to continue.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation is a good start to a great series! Really like the idea of Hari Seldon, the psychohistorian at the heart of the Foundation Series. Even though he largely disappears after the book's beginning, much of the subsequent action is based on his predictions. Seldon predicts the collapse of the 12,000 year galactic empire and what it will take to preserve the knowledge of mankind so that the period of barbarism between civilized life is shortened. That beacon of hope is the Foundation. With his team of mathematicians, Seldon looks at trends and makes predictions about crisis/critical points in history. During this reading, he reminded me of futurists I've been following who tell us about trends and what our world will look like in 20 or 30 or 50 years from now. For Seldon, though, his most consequential predictions are for thousands of years in the future.

Seldon's nearly prophetic vision (based on scientific reasoning) made me think of Asimov himself. He was also one of those visionaries (or futurists). His I Robot Series, for instance, envisions human/robot interaction nearly 70 years ago. Asimov also anticipated the ubiquity of personal computers and how the internet could be used for education. Asimov was clearly a visionary! It's no surprise that Foundation is an innovative and engaging space opera that has shaped science fiction since it was published. The downside is that the actual writing isn't great for this first book in the series. It does improve in subsequent books, though. Even though I am dinging Foundation a bit for the writing, it is an important and recommended book which I still enjoyed!

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”