Having read the first six books in this series, I found myself unexpectedly moved by this one. I’ve found Hari Seldon’s story as narrated in this and Prelude to Foundation to be far more compelling than those in the preceding books, save possibly the first, Foundation, if only because it sets the scene for everything. Those were stories about ideas only disguised as stories about people.

I think it is worth reading the books in the order they were written, starting with the original Foundation books, working through the sequels, before circling back round to the prequels. Things will make a lot more sense then, and certain themes will resonate a lot more strongly. Even if some of those earlier books are a bit dry (I found the sequels in particular to be somewhat tedious), they are worth working through for the prequels.