Isaac Asimov

The first volume in Issac Asimov's world-famous saga, winner of the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Novel Series. Long after Earth was forgotten, a peaceful and unified galaxy took shape, an Empire governed from the majestic city-planet of Trantor. The system worked, and grew, for countless generations. Everyone believed it would work forever. Everyone except Hari Seldon. As the great scienctific thinker of his age Seldon could not be ignored. Reluctantly, the Commission of Public Safety agreed to finance the Seldon Plan. The coming disaster was predicted by Seldon's advances in psychohistory, the mathematics of very large human numbers, and it could not be averted. The Empire was doomed. Soon Trantor would lie in ruins. Chaos would overtake humanity. But the Seldon Plan was a long term strategy to minimize the worst of what was to come. Two Foundations were set up at opposite ends of the galaxy. Of the Second nothing can be told. It guards the secrets of psychohisotry. FOUNDATION is the story of the First Foundation, on the remote planet of Terminus, from which those secrets were withheld.

Foundation

Gavin

The face that launched a thousand woolly research programmes.

The only interesting thing about psychohistory is its contrast with social science. Both are admittedly the exquisite products of a decadent and vastly powerful empire. Both give a pretext to social engineers. But psychohistory works, and it’s interesting to consider why social science doesn’t. 

Part of it is the distinction between real science and the cargo cult kind:

  “It amounts to a diseased attitude—a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or Hari Seldon wiser. And that’s wrong, don’t you see? … “It isn’t just you. It’s the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin’s idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject—written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections” 

As well as the distinction between "scientific" socialism and actual science.

Can you think of a better way to doom a project than to convince its leadership that success is inevitable?

Nice touch: to make his forecast stable, Seldon has to impose a simple structure on his subjects - to predict by forcing the world to become predictable. (“That which is unstable we shall control.”)

One of Asimov’s vices is too closely allying intelligence and virtue. You can always tell a turncoat in this - before he turns - by his being a bit dim. Another is the repetitiveness and cliche of his historical cycles. He has the peripheral worlds turn to literal feudalism (“strange world! You have no peasantry”) before the tech Empire has even properly fallen. Seldon’s categories are well-worn and leave no room for social development and the weird shapes people grow into. The schlock religion which takes over the educated sector in less than 30 years was also pretty dumb.

Clumsy prose, almost entirely free of imagery. Identikit characters, largely smug. Starts weakly, ends abruptly in artless and pulpy fashion. Tune in next week.

Charlotte Dann

Undoubtedly a hugely inflencial and beloved sci-fi series, but for me this was a pretty dry read. A litany of cunning and pacification (any jot of action was duly pacified) complete with a string of slippery important men, none of which you spent enough time with to actually care about. I liked the scope of the story and grandiosity of this inevitable imperial conflict, but don't think I'll wait the few thousand years to see how things shakes out.

Foundation and Empire ; Second Foundation ; The Stars, Like Dust ; The Naked Sun ; I, Robot

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

This is indeed the beginnings of the Foundation, divided into three pivotal periods of Hari Sheldon's plan. Took a while to finish but this requires a bit of focus, as Asimov sets in motion events that will influence the succeeding books.

Nick Gracilla

With the upcoming Apple produced TV series Foundation due to release soon, I wanted a sense of the original. I started with excitement, imagining an immersive, world-building experience akin to Frank Herbert's Dune. Instead, while there are interesting reflections, on the whole, I found it plodding, with expository-lead dialogues, odd character names, and regular anachronistic references to products, devices, and ways of thinking (a physical newspaper? Cigar smoking on space ships? The value of gold, tin, and steel, or coal?) that kept me conscious of its written period. While it captures well a sense of political change over the centuries, and the potential role of religion as a future-defying multi-generational conservative force, the challenges kept me from becoming lost in his world or caring too much about the characters, quickly introduced then left to history, chapter to chapter.

Felipe Saldarriaga 

Las premisas de Asimov siguen siendo sumamente inspiradoras para el desarrollo de la humanidad

James Eaton

A sci-fi classic. I really enjoyed this book. I wanted to read a book in my birthday and this was the perfect book. 

It was easy to read and the pacing is quick. If you want an entry into sci-fi, this is a great place to start. 

I’m excited to watch the Apple TV + to see how they brought the world Asimov created to life.

Todd Luallen

I prefer books that focus on one set of main characters and follow them predominantly. This book takes place over a large span of time, and as such has quite a few jumps in which we are suddenly introduced to new characters, and the old are never heard from again. Each time this happened, I lost a little more interest and wanted to put the book down. 

However, I will say that Asimov has tremendous dialogue throughout the book. It was rather easy to get a sense of the characters from just a few lines of dialogue. In addition, the twists and turns of the book in the political arena are rather entertaining. 

I'm a little surprised this book was so high on the all-time sci-fi reading list. I'm not sure what to make of it. It is well down the list of sci-fi books in my opinion. As my first Asimov novel, I came away with an appreciation for his dialogue and plot development. Perhaps my novel of his should be one that doesn't span such a large time frame.

Adam

When looking into Sci-Fi books that I should have already read, this trilogy kept coming up. It won the Hugo award for "Best Trilogy" - an award created just to give it to this series. It was short, but lived up to the hype. The premise relies on “psychohistory”, a way of mathematically predicting the future. The first book was actually based on a number of short stories and parallels the fall of Rome. I enjoyed the series, but not enough to read the other 11 books in the series.

Dave Perkins

** spoiler alert **
           Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting to explore the ideas of how to build and control a society, that Asimov explores. Also, there were some interesting twists and turns, but by and large I found it a bit frustrating that the story zooms so quickly across eras and to new people. Still really interested to see how Apple interpret it. 

Some of the ideas of future tech are pretty funny, the atomic focus. The whole idea that nuclear is central to the whole of the future. So glad things have moved on from this in reality!

Nikka Lowe

An interesting look at the forces that shape and shift societies, tip the balance of powers, generations reacting to previous generations, the consequences when systems initially built from good intentions can transform into damaging forces when individuals or groups in power take that same system and exploit it for their own devices. For a book published in 1951, it very much stands as a lens to examine our current world. 

As a fan of sci-fi, I came to this book quite late surprisingly. Maybe it's a good thing, the exploration of societies and politics that this book is interested in exploring is something I probably would not have been able to appreciate when I was younger and I'm glad I can appreciate that now.

The characters are quite wooden, which is common knowledge among those familiar with Asimov's series, it still works well to serve that these characters can be reflected in people around us or maybe even ourselves.

Elinor

The first time i read this book i dont think i understood it properly, but now when i re-read it it made much more sense and deserves 5 stars. Im currently re-reading this series for the foundation show that's supposed to come out this year and i hope that it will be good but i have no idea how they will go about adopting this sociological story.

Science Fiction-Roman

Der Tausendjahresplan

Kaya

Was mir fehlt sind Frauen. Die sind zwar vorhanden, jedoch ohne tragende Rolle. "Die Revolution der Hausfrauen" gab es in der Welt schon öfters und es ist bedauerlich, dass sie von Männern nicht vorausgesagt werden kann, sondern nur als Witz gemeint stattfindet.

Mir gefiel besonders gut die Referenz auf Viktor Frankenstein.

Brianna

“What business of mine is the future? [...] Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today.” 

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. I’m a character driven reader so things on this scale I tend to avoid, but I’ve been in an abnormal reading binge and am pleased to say my horizons are expanding. I found the layout of this book, as well as concept, quite engaging.

Omar AlHashmi

Great Sci-Fi read. On the surface it goes into science fiction and politics, but underneath it is a huge piece on society, religion, and capitalism. Although this was published in 1951. Everything in it still applies today and its scary to think about that. And the final paragraph just makes me think that we are currently in the edge of that crisis. However the crisis has become social rather trade based. That is the next "Seldon Crisis" of our modern world. And I am wary to see what might happen from all of this.

Fraser Simons

Having read the two prequels... which you’re supposed to read last, but my library put first, a bunch of this was telegraphed already for me. Because this was published first it was a bit jarring going into something that sounds very dated when discussing science and technology. Terminology and hand waving ‘gadgets’ and things like that. And here I thought the prequels feel outdated with this stuff sometimes!

I did appreciate this clips along much better than the prequels, which are much, much slower. I liked the pacing of this way more. It’s still an interesting concept. It’s pretty clever plot wise. I just seem to grind against Asimov’s writing style and the fact that much of this is dialogue annunciated that problem for me. It was never a chore, but I was also never very invested, either.

Omar Fernandez

I liked the ideas, the exploration of religion, science, trading, etc. Lots of interesting concepts. I intend to read more of the series. 

On the downside, not much character development at all, and male heavy. The ideas kept me reading, but the lack of connection to the characters made it less exciting. 

Donald

I loved this trilogy as a teenager. I never read sci-fi, but this was a lot of fun.

Josie McQueen

Really interesting story line, flows nicely despite huge jumps in time. Asimov's dialogue is very witty and thoughtful. I did get a bit lost because there isn't a lot of world building. However, this is understandable because of the size of the world.

Barry Hess

Karim Nas

I was expecting a grand epic and didn't really expect a series of, albeit connected, novelettes. But the content is very good. I understand why Asimov had been very influential in the Sci-fi genre. His depiction of the Foundation universe is captivating.

Daryl Houston

The book introduces an interesting premise and I like the rakish cleverness of some of the characters, but it's ultimately probably not compelling enough to me aesthetically to make me want to read more.

Margo Lindner

2.5 rounded up
I have a lot to say about this book. And I do respect Asimov as both a person and a story-teller. I can see how Asimov's story can be seen as masterful and genius, however, his writing leaves something to be desired. It appears he excels at conversation, but not so much as description, so if you want to see more than just conversations on the page, you will be mostly disappointed. 
Furthermore, this book should not be considered a staple of the sci-fi genre. The only thing sci-fi about this is that it takes place way in the future, and we see an advancement of technology. This book is primarily socio-political, and that's fine. I still completely understand how this work influenced many sci-fi authors and certain movie corporations. 
I recognize that Asimov was very progressive for his time, however, am I supposed to operate under the assumption that no women will come to power in the next 10,000 years? Obviously this book was written a long time ago, and women weren't the main characters yet. However, it would have been nice to see a woman who wasn't rather problematic and thriving off of daddy's money make a statement every once in awhile. 
I will continue reading this series. I do want to see where this will go, but I'm not rushing to enter the next book just yet.

Alexia Cambaling

This is the first SFF book I read since I burnt out on the genre and as far as getting back into the genre goes, it's not a bad choice. I actually decided to read this because I watched the first episode of the Apple TV series and after getting into it, it's best to treat the show and the book as separate.

In reading Foundation, I can see how influential it has been to the genre. It introduced the space empire and the complicated political struggles we now see in a lot of science fiction. However, it's also a work that's very much more concerned with ideas rather than characters. It also has the pitfalls of classic sci-fi regarding its treatment of women. The dry writing style is okay, if you're into that. It's easy to read, just a bit dry. 

Overall, Foundation is an interesting book as far as classic science fiction goes. It's not your traditional novel, but a collection of five short stories. If you want to see where so much of sci-fi media gets its influences from, read Foundation.

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST ALL-TIME SERIES The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov's iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon's two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one whose unprecedented scale shaped science fiction as we know it today. The Galactic Empire has prospered for twelve thousand years. Nobody suspects that the heart of the thriving Empire is rotten, until psychohistorian Hari Seldon uses his new science to foresee its terrible fate. Exiled to the desolate planet Terminus, Seldon establishes a colony of the greatest minds in the Empire, a Foundation which holds the key to changing the fate of the galaxy. However, the death throes of the Empire breed hostile new enemies, and the young Foundation's fate will be threatened first.

Foundation

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