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Title: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0-553-29337-0 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 November, 1991 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (54 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Left Turn
Comment: We already knew that "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon had predicted the demise of the galactic empire and to shorten the length of time for "barbarism" he established two Foundations. He placed these at oppposite ends of the galaxy, one known, one unknown. Things were going smoothly until the periodic prediction (when Seldon appears holographically) was obviously wrong.
The cause is the Mule, a mutant of incredible mental powers who no one has ever seen. The introduction of this character was one of the best plot devices used in a long time and it gave the fledging story a much-needed boost. Who is this mutant and why does he do the things he does? What caused his mental powers? Can he be defeated? But most important, what is to happen now that Seldon's plans cannot be followed with accuracy?
Stay tuned for book III.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great!
Comment: The second book continues the storyline of Hari Seldon and the result of his mathematical equations that would predict the fall of the Empire and bring on a ten thousand year depression. Hari uses mathmatics to reset the prediction so only to allow for a millenium of darkness if a programme he sets up is followed to rule.
Banished to the Foundation planet he sets off a type of timetabled holographic calender that would guide the remains of humanity through a thousand years of darkness. However as we know you can't predict the future and eventually things start to go wrong. A new character arrives to totally disrupt everything he has planed out for the future, The Mule.
Humans are so unpredictable.
Rating: 5
Summary: Hari Seldon's plan receives a kick from the Mule
Comment: I totally liked the pattern that Isaac Asimov established in "Foundation," the first volume in what we know refer to as the original Foundation trilogy. Hari Seldon created the revolutionary science of psychohistory and mapped out a future for humanity that would allow thirty thousand years of barbarism between the existing galactic empire and the future one to be reduced to only one thousand years. Through the effort of the psychohistorians the Foundation was established with its encyclopedists. Then we saw the rise of the Mayors, the Traders, and the Merchant Princes, each representing a step on the path laid out with mathematical precision by Hari Seldon over the first two centuries of the millennium he plotted out.
I was looking forward to a continuing series of Seldon Crises as the Foundation played out the rise of human civilization, thinking that what we had hear with what Arnold Toynbee had done with his study of ancient civilizations extended into a future that covered an entire galaxy. But Asimov was setting us up for something unexpected in "Foundation and Empire"; the idea was that at this stage the Foundation would be threatened by the final power play of the dying Empire. But the universe is apparently tired of Hari Seldon playing with his mathematically loaded dice and has thrown the entire plan into doubt by creating a mutant, nicknamed "The Mule." Now the Foundation, the Seldon Plan and the entire galaxy is facing a new and powerful threat.
When I first read "Foundation and Empire" I was rather dismayed at the big change in direction. But, of course, Asimov knew what he was doing. He had already proven the validity of psychohistory, at least within the context of his futuristic novel, and there really is no reason to put out another four books (at two hundred years apiece) to complete the plan. Historians might find this interesting, but Science Fiction fans were going to want more than that from Asimov. Indeed, the Mule proves to be, both in terms of the story and the trilogy, the link between the Foundation and the Second Foundation. The Foundation trilogy is classic science fiction from the genre's self-proclaimed Golden Age, and even if the writing style seems dated or quaint, it remains a seminal series.
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Title: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553293389 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553565079 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553278398 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: October, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0586071105 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 1987 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553293400 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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