In My Humble Opinion: Foundation
Let’s talk about a true science fiction classic. Foundation, the first book written in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. He was a prolific writer and a professor of biochemistry, so it goes without saying that he thought things through in his stories. At the moment, I have just gotten done reading his second book in the Foundation series, Foundation and Empire, but this post will be about his first book in that series that I read, simply labeled Foundation.
When I first started reading, I was skeptical. It started by introducing through the eyes of another relatively unimportant character the persona that is Hari Seldon, the greatest Psychohistorian ever known. I didn’t realize it at first, but as with most content in these stories, this was very much intentional. Being in the head of Seldon would reveal far too much about the soon to be told story. Seldon is a science-fiction prophetic figure; he has studied human history and psychology to such an extent that he can predict the trends of the future thousands of years in advance with an almost disturbing mathematical accuracy. But this knowledge is a very dangerous thing to have when it very clearly suggests that the decline of the Galactic Empire is both imminent and unavoidable. What will follow is thirty thousand years of chaos, barbarism, and suffering.
Now, there is one important thing to note; most stories follow characters in a relatively short span of time. Other stories may follow characters over years, maybe decades. New stories might follow a previous story’s descendants as a sequel. But Foundation broke that kind of trend entirely by following characters over a span of centuries. Hari Seldon, naturally, died rather quickly in relation to the actual story. Each new character also technically died during the course of the story, though such deaths also aren’t really dwelt upon, if even mentioned at all.
But back to the story, now that it’s unique framing for time has been addressed. Seldon, after some negotiations with the still very much in power Empire, establishes two Foundations at either edge of the galaxy as part of his plan to reduce the span of instability from thirty thousand years to only one thousand. He specifies other details, like which people are to move to the fringe planets housing the Foundation, and what their goal will be while living there. The rest of the story is simply watching Seldon’s impossibly prescient plan unfold as events occur just as he predicts. Although, some of it is retroactively revealed via time capsule messages, as he occasionally counts on the masses not knowing the future in order to assure it happens exactly as he wants.
That’s about the gist of it. Though my opinion on this book won’t change its reputation or benefit the already deceased author in any way, I will say it anyways; this book is fantastic. The story is unique and intriguing, granting the existence of things like hyperspace and battles between space ships but not making them the focus of all the stories like most science fiction. It’s focused on politics, religion, cultural trends over time, and how those who fail to properly understand history are doomed to repeat it. I can’t do the book justice in such a short blurb, but I can say that it’s worth reading this one. I can only personally vouch for the first two(in the order they were written), but I think the reputation of the writer suggests the whole series is a standout amongst the science fiction genre.
So the tl;dr… you should read it. It’s unique, intriguing, and well written. I’m not sure what more could be asked for.