After a prolonged absence in which I was mostly writing for my novel and getting caught up with the 'real world stuff', I return to my review blog to tell you all about what I've been reading recently. Starting with this...
The Foundation Trilogy was always one of those pieces of classic science fiction I was told I had to read from an early age. I never quite got around to it until about two months ago, when I borrowed the trilogy from my mum and started devouring them page by page. They deserve every bit of praise they ever receive, even if the first book starts quite slowly.
A very long time into the future, Hari Seldon develops the field of psychohistory; an interesting social science, which uses statistics and implied complex mathematics to predict, with startling accuracy, trends in culture and probable future courses. Asimov explains this science as well as is possible without it actually existing; he always explains that it wouldn't be possible in a population of millions, or even billions... but with the galactic population numbering in the multi-trillions, it becomes possible to predict mob mentalities. And thus, Hari Seldon predicts the fall of the Empire, and thirty thousand years of chaos and barbarism before the rise of the next. In an effort to reduce the length of this barbaric period, Seldon sets up two foundations... plotting out the course of their future with a series of crises they must overcome on their inexorable rise to the beginning of the next Empire. The novels follow the story of the first Foundation, set up on a small planet at the edge of the galaxy called Terminus.
The first book, as I have said starts slowly. Perhaps this is not quite fair; the very beginning is as instantly intriguing and interesting as one could expect from any novel, and it draws the reader into the world of psychohistory. However, the first book is a slow progression, waiting for the Foundation to overcome the inevitable crises with equal inevitability; it's just a question of seeing what happens and how it is resolved. This is not a weakness, because the results are always interesting, but it does lend a certain security for the reader, which is not perhaps as powerful as a plot where events are assumed to be random and unpredictable.
Another minor issue I had with the first book was that it was very episodic. Each section follows a different character and just as you are becoming accustomed to one character, another takes his place as the lead role, and the story moves on. However, this is probably a limitation of telling a story that spans 300 years, and so I can forgive it.
The second book follows two crisis stages. In the first, a strong general has appeared in the Empire, under the last strong Emperor, set on conquest of the Foundation. In the second crisis, it begins to look as though Seldon was not as omniscient as he appeared through the first book and a half. Psychohistory is a tool for predicting the behaviour of civilisations, moves and movements, and motives of entire cultures; when it comes to individuals, the tool is much less effective. And so, when a rather singular and completely unpredictable individual known only as 'The Mule' appears, the Seldon plan is set off course by some degrees, and it becomes impossible to tell what will happen next. Suddenly, the actions of individuals are important again.
This turn in the book means that the story keeps on getting more and more interesting. From the relatively small victories and stories in the first book, the first tale in the second book is considerably more epic, following a wider cast of characters. In the second tale, the characters are suddenly more than just tools of the wider plot and the whole story becomes easier to relate to, and a whole lot more interesting. The twists and turns in the plot are the work of a real master story-teller, and at the end of the book I was left in awe of the way everything was set up so quietly and perfectly.
The third book continues in form, with intriguing and intense plot lines and increasing excitement. With the longer plots, there is more time to grow to like the cast for each of the sections, and they remain prominent for longer than in the first novel.
The conclusion of the last book completes the trilogy very nicely, although I can see why many fans, and Asimov himself, considered it unfinished. In some ways, I would have been happy had he stopped there, but the book does not complete the thousand year's interregnum, so the reader is left with a sense of the yawning time gap ahead.
Plot and storyline is definitely the huge strength of these books. However, the individual characters that are involved are also very strong, and each and every one of them was incredibly likeable – or dislikeable- in their own way. While some of the cultural trends and attitudes may seem very dated now, for its time it also had some very progressive elements. As long as the reader is prepared to accept that the writer belonged to a slightly different time (as one does when reading Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or Dickens) then none of these things should interfere with the enjoyment of the rich and well-woven world that Asimov has created for this story.
The Foundation Trilogy rightfully takes its place among the science fiction classics, and I look forward to reading more Asimov in the future. I recommend this to any science fiction fan who has not yet read it.
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