A book I'd heard about many time but never made the time to read. Foundation is rightly a classic of Sci-Fi, although perhaps slightly dated by todays standards. The big ideas are certainly here - psychohistory, fall and decline of empire and a new hope for the future, religion as a tool of power, economics as a tool of power etc. Its a fun read - essentially 5 novellas linked together in a single iver arching narrative.

My only reservations are that it is a book of its time - the technology forseen is firmly routed in the 1950s world as is the narrative and characters similarly shaped by the period (for example there is only a single female character and she is merely a template of a harridan wife, everyone smokes cigars, everything is nuclear etc). This is understandable and the scope of ideas and central plot are not affected by this but it is perhaps jarring to a modern reader.

Nonetheless this is a great book - big on ideas more than action but ideas that are engrossing and interesting, and I throughly recommned it.