the second of the initial Foundation trilogy, and to be blunt it was downhill from there (Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov)

Member Name: jdkane

Product:	Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov
Date:	14/11/00 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Overall; not terrible, but it doesn't match the reputation; C-

Disadvantages: Characterisation; thin, stereotypical and silly; D

Once we've started, we might as well go on. This is the second of the initial Foundation trilogy, and to be blunt it was downhill from there. It is several stories cobbled together; the last throw of the dying Empire against the Foundation; the fossilisation of the Foundation into inertia spawning the would-be rebellion of the outer parts of it - and the forestalling of this by the appearance of a Seldon Plan-defying anomaly; the search by a frantic band of heroes for something to fight him with.

At the end of Foundation, Hober Mallow replaced Salvor Hardin's policy of disguising failed, betraying science as religion - wouldn't work, would it? Try getting a fusion reactor to go by worshipping it and you'll see what I mean - with trade alone, expanding by economic warfare. Which I doubt would work in the unelectronic environment ofthe novels. A rich, soft state can't defend itself around a desperate poor state without using it's riches to fund superior military technology. Look at our friends the Mongols if you don't believe me - and does anyone seriously imagine a cruise missile-less America would get any international respect?

The Empire, although crumbling at the edges - on the verge of complete disintegration, really - is still hanging on there, and it has a few people brought to life by the times; including one imperial general (the details of whose past career are pure four-colour stuff), he sees the Foundation as the greatest threat to the security of the Empire and sets out to defeat it. General Riose, who is portrayed as as good a man as he could be in that position, actually succeeds - as far as presence on the ground is concerned. It isn't enough; he is suspected of trying to sieze the power of the Foundation as a potential base for rebellion and a bid from the imperial throne himself - not true, incidentally; arrested and executed - and the invasion falls apart. Barr's explanation of the psychohistor
ic forces behind events here are one of the few genuine flashes of the kind of writing the Foundation series was supposed to be.

Asimov writes a politician's war; this is not military SF by any means. (It doesn't make military sense, but let's not quibble.) His technology is vaguer than it probably could have been, considering this is post-fusion and post-maser also, I think, but it's supposed to be symbolic. Therein lies a difficulty. Symbols are largely man made, and you need people to make them; you have to anchor your message in your characters, or you aren't writing fiction at all, but politics and philosophy-which I have nothing against in principle, but even first rate science fiction usually involves third rate politics and philosophy. The second story element shows this up.

There is a real problem in the second and third story elements. As Asimov points out, the equations Seldon used in drafting the Plan have several fundamental assumptions; on is that the number of people be sufficiently numerous as to have their reactions average out to a statistically predictable whole; the other is that they remain unaware of precisely what the future is plotted as being. There are other minor axioms - which presumably Seldon lied about - for instance that the spectrum of stimuli to which human can be exposed, and the human reaction spectrum to stimuli, not change in any significant detail. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Foundation, in ultraminiaturisation, has already done exactly that. The microminiaturisation that played such a part in the war against Korell, how could that be supposed to be in the Plan? How can the pattern of need and demand not be part of it, and how can that remain static?

Any radical change in human qualities would also upset the Plan. Can you say 'cybernetics?' of course you can. We are in an ever changing sociey. There have been a few examples of undead walking, chiefly China- whic
h was overrun how many times? Many. Survived how? Culture, civilisation, deep rooted beliefs. The Foundation - and the Empire - has and had none of those. Such Western-patterned cultures are like sharks, without swim bladders - we have to keep moving to maintain bouyancy, if we stop we'll sink. So whither the constancy required for Seldon's Plan?

The Mule is introduced here, a quite ridiculous character - just like Star Trek, you set up your own invincible heroes and civilisation and then spend the rest of the run trying to find increasingly ridiculous loopholes in our own creation; but it would be interesting to know if Asimov had any idea of Gaia in advance. It would require foreshadowing and a coherent vision of the future that would be quite disturbing in a writer of that age and era. I mean, generally you knit things into place between novels, or work in different quadrants of the same setting, if you actually have this in mind, or become captivated by the potential in something and begin working backards and forwards from it. You could, I suppose, look at an older writer for inspiration and take example as to how to sketch out a long term plot arc, but whom? E.E. 'Doc' Smith? If so, it would explain a lot. (More of him later). He's a mind controlling mutant. Curse you, John W. Campbell, for wishing such things upon us. Reality aside - assuming such things are possible - Asimov himself doesn't take the Mule seriously. Just another problem to aim at the Foundation, nothing securely rooted in it's own consciousness - and when we finally get to Gaia, in Fondation and Earth, tell me exactly how it is that they could have produced an aberrant? A liberal society better insulated against rogues and deviants has not yet been put down. Olivaw's doing, obviously.

A large part of the problem is that, like America, there's no reasonably valid way to threaten the Foundation, so things get increasngly marginal, or incre
asingly farfetched; I also have to say that a look inside the Foundation didn't impress. Not as dubious as the next in the series, though.

Imagination; followup, strained- C-
Science; what science? D
Scene- setting; still not playing to his strengths; C-
Characterisation; thin, stereotypical and silly; D
Overall; not terrible, but it doesn't match the reputation; C-

Summary: