Baba's Reviews > Foundation

Robot/Empire/Foundation. Book #9: Chronologically the third book in the Foundation series, although this was the first Foundation novel published way back in 1953. Psycho-history has predicted the fall of a universe spanning Galactic Empire and led Hari Seldon into creating Foundation. The first Foundation, the one featured in this book, is a collective of scientists settled on a planet on the very outskirts of the dying Empire. Five interconnected stories map the progress of the planet and how it manages the relations with its neighbours, often using the knowledge and guidance of Seldon's legacy.

Although this is a hugely well recognised series, the first book doesn't really stand up, when read outside the full first trilogy. I found it OK, pretty interesting and liked the ongoing theme of the superiority of science / facts over everything else, regardless of the issue at hand, be it politics, war, economics etc; it didn't really blow me away though, although the core concept of mapping data to foretell and plan the future really fascinated me.

On reading this book a second time (originally I read the entire trilogy in a single book), it's hard to not see the pyscho-historian planet / Foundation as just another form of colonialism, that, armed with what they see as superior knowledge seek to better all reality, whilst enriching themselves and abusing and/or negating other peoples' (planets') cultures? 7 out of 12.