Mass Market Paperback, 200 pages
English language
Published Aug. 13, 1966 by Avon.
One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building.
The story of our future begins with the history of Foundation and its greatest psychohistorian: Hari Seldon. For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of …
One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building.
The story of our future begins with the history of Foundation and its greatest psychohistorian: Hari Seldon. For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves--or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.
Really did not enjoy this book. I was attracted by the plot idea and it starts well enough but found it lacking in the scripting in places and lacking action.
What if you could mathematically prove that the government was going to fail? More, what if you had magical math showing you the one path forward to limit how long chaos would reign following that fall? That's the premise for Foundation: Hari Seldon's psychohistory predicts the fall of the Galactic Empire and he must act to plant the seeds of the future to come to limit how long humanity will be subject to the whims of arbitrary and capricious kings splitting up the territory as the scientific knowledge of the empire is lost.
I really enjoy the separate stories of the Foundation.
I'm reading science fiction classics to get a feel for what led to the Traveller RPG right now and revisiting this one was well worth it.
Asimov isn't great at character development, the characters tend to fall off and be replaced by the next generation right as they …
What if you could mathematically prove that the government was going to fail? More, what if you had magical math showing you the one path forward to limit how long chaos would reign following that fall? That's the premise for Foundation: Hari Seldon's psychohistory predicts the fall of the Galactic Empire and he must act to plant the seeds of the future to come to limit how long humanity will be subject to the whims of arbitrary and capricious kings splitting up the territory as the scientific knowledge of the empire is lost.
I really enjoy the separate stories of the Foundation.
I'm reading science fiction classics to get a feel for what led to the Traveller RPG right now and revisiting this one was well worth it.
Asimov isn't great at character development, the characters tend to fall off and be replaced by the next generation right as they would need to change to meet the new times. But the situations are great and keep you engaged as you see how the history of the foundation has been carried forward by each generation.
This is honestly one of the science fiction classics that has aged pretty gracefully.
The Foundation series are some of my favorite books. They're definitely a product of their time (Asimov was clearly more comfortable with writing short stories for magazines than with writing novels, and his biases are obvious in the misogynistic treatment of the few women in the story) but their basic ideas hold up well.
I personally really enjoy the rather dry political tone, and both the lack of focus on character development and the long time-skips are fitting given the premise of the story (which posits a theory of "psychohistory" in which the overall trajectory of a large group is emphasized over the actions of individuals, and which can be used to predict and direct the future over long periods of time). The plot twists and reveals also never come out of nowhere, and sufficiently tie back to previous details to make each individual part feel neat and tidy.
I wonder why th I didn't read this book before. Almost all modern scifi is borrowing ideas from it.
Would give it a 3.5 if I could. Read like a radio play. Roil of confusing characters, mostly bellicose, repetitive men.
Boring from page 10 on, I just did not connect with anything in this book. I counted the things stolen by Lucas for Star Wars, but otherwise, nothing in this book interested me in the slightest. I only finished it because it was short enough not to finish.
If you don't know, this book basically is the reference for all great movies in this category...
There are so many classic ideas introduced here, it's essential reading if you are interested in scifi.
Great book, reminds me a lot of Dune, which I really love.
This is a very good novel- the beginning of a major life's work. Clearly no one should expect this novel comes to a closure. It is instead a beginning of a' mystery' and tale of evolution.
This book was lovely.
Content warning Plots and themes revealed broadly
Now that I am getting an understanding of Bookwyrm, this is my first useful Review. We tend to critically review literature through the lens of evolutionary psychology.
What we find in both sci-fi and all fiction really is the ignorance of how enslaved we are to evolutionary drives, behaviors, and thinking. In this fabulous book, once again mankind has surpassed all imaginable science and technology. Yet, humanity's nature destroys it all, taking the universal Empire back to chaos.
You might argue, well ain't that showing our evolutionary natures. Why, yes, it is. My critique is, why can't we grow in intrinsic self-awareness as we grow cerebrally? The problem always is in fiction is such intrinsic self-awareness cannot be attained in a top-down manner. The ability to manage our primitive drives, behaviors, and beliefs, is attained through somatic and mindful awareness.
But, if we evolved beyond our evolutionary behaviors along with our progress in science and technology, we'd have no good science fiction to read!
Voilà un auteur et une œuvre dont j’ai évidement entendu parlé depuis longtemps. Selon le 4ème de couverture, c’est « L’œuvre socle de la SF moderne, celle que tous les amateurs du genre ont lue ou liront un jour ». Rien que ça!
Mieux vaut tard que jamais, j’ai enfin sauté le pas, et je dois avouer que j’ai été immédiatement happé par le récit. La première partie nous plonge directement dans ce décor futuriste, où l’humanité a colonisé la Galaxie entière et où les voyages dans « l’hyperespace » sont aussi communs que nos vols long-courriers. Il faut atteindre la deuxième partie et les suivantes pour se rendre compte que les personnages ne sont pas le sujet le sujet principal de l’histoire. C’est bien de la Fondation elle-meme dont il s’agit, de sa naissance à son avènement. Son évolution, prévue près de mille ans à l’avance grâce au génie …
Voilà un auteur et une œuvre dont j’ai évidement entendu parlé depuis longtemps. Selon le 4ème de couverture, c’est « L’œuvre socle de la SF moderne, celle que tous les amateurs du genre ont lue ou liront un jour ». Rien que ça!
Mieux vaut tard que jamais, j’ai enfin sauté le pas, et je dois avouer que j’ai été immédiatement happé par le récit. La première partie nous plonge directement dans ce décor futuriste, où l’humanité a colonisé la Galaxie entière et où les voyages dans « l’hyperespace » sont aussi communs que nos vols long-courriers. Il faut atteindre la deuxième partie et les suivantes pour se rendre compte que les personnages ne sont pas le sujet le sujet principal de l’histoire. C’est bien de la Fondation elle-meme dont il s’agit, de sa naissance à son avènement. Son évolution, prévue près de mille ans à l’avance grâce au génie scientifique de la psycho-histoire, la verra succéder à un Empire, d’abord déclinant puis complètement décadent. Chaque partie nous fait faire un bon dans le temps, afin que l’on puisse observer les moments clé de l’histoire de la Foundation.
Ce premier volume m’a donné l’impression que l’auteur ne fait que poser les bases, et qu’on ne fait que gratter la surface d’une œuvre bien plus riche. On y retrouve de nombreux codes populaires du genre (et pour cause). Je trouve fascinant de se dire que le livre original a été écrit dans les années 40, à une époque où l’exploration spatiale était encore balbutiante. Il faudra attendre 10 ans après la publication du livre (1951) avant que le premier humain soit envoyé dans l’espace!
I expected to like this more than I did. It blandly assumes "empire" is a good thing and equates imperialism with civilization, while simultaneously equating the old Empire with decay. This is an unsophisticated approach that should have been apparent even in Asimov's time.
hhhhh
