Sci-Fi Even Wampy Can Understand (Foundation - Isaac Asimov)

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Date:	04/01/03 (144 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 1000 miles from an Amazon voucher

Disadvantages: Takes too long to get there these days *sigh*

Science fiction doesn't get much of a look in on wampy's bookshelf, in fact Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is the set of sci-fi books there AND they have been there around 10 years and never touched...until last week. Y'see Christmas was fun, but there comes a time when you have enough of being sociable and just feel like receding quiety to some secluded corner away from all the family members who invited themselves around...and for some reason I picked up this instead of the latest James Patterson book which has been sitting there for far too long as well! Was it worth it? I should say so!

I know these are widely regarded as a classic and Asimov one of sci-fi's greatest authors etc. but I know pretty much bugger all about Asimov or his novels so you'll have to go nosing around elsewhere for a potted history and erm, probably for a decent book review as well for that matter! :oP~ This is an opinion, little more...but then, I seem to remember that's what this site is all about ;o) Foundation, to me, takes the interesting premise that individual's actions can not be predicted with any accuracy, but through mathematician Hari Seldon, the founding father of a planet called Terminus, Asimov hypothesises that the future actions of 'the mob' can be and through Seldon, offers mathematical proof for it.

Labelling his work 'psychohistory', Seldon predicts the fall of the galactic Empire within a few hundred years, something which is in itself blasphemous to the ruling aristocracy and fortells 30,000 years of barbarism, warring and untold human suffering in which technology and history is forgotten before a new stabilising Empire is formed. He also puts forward the notion to the ruling aristocracy that he can reduce this suffering to a mere 1,000 years if a vast encyclopedia of galactic knowledge is created, The Encyclopedia Gallactica, something which is in itself in many ways a ruse but secures him and his e
ncyclopedists a planet on the very periphery of the Empire, out of harms way for the Empire itself but also where Seldon's prophecies can be forgotten and the real plan put into effect. Jumping forward 50 years we find the Empire already collapsing, particularly in the outer reaches which are returning to warlike barbarism as Seldon predicted and the plan really starts to come into play. We watch as the governors of Terminus try to rebuild the Empire by manipulating the effectively more powerful barabarian planets around them both through their own decisions and through those of Hari Seldon himself who, long dead, still apparently has much to say for himself.

I suppose for me one of the most interesting things about this book was the way in which there is so little of what I have come to see as science fiction, at least in modern times. Forget a play on lasers, holograms, marauding aliens etc. this is more a study of humanity than anything else and an intruiging one at that. It's fascinating to watch how religion is introduced as a stabilising control factor by Terminus and how they walk a tightrope of disaster by playing each side off against the other in order to make themselves, a tiny planet with no defence other than bluff, a non-target despite holding the key to ruling the whole Empire again. Some of the political manouvering, especially that aided by psychohistory, is rivetting stuff and of course, the thought of being able to predict the behaviour of the masses and move against it to counter-act problems is a fascinating concept in itself. There really isn't a lot of 'action' in the traditional sense of the word in Foundation, but the story itself is so well told, the characters so strong and well developed and the pacing so good that this becomes totally unimportant, it's just as fascinating nonetheless.

I'm usually not a fan of this kind of thing as I've said but the story really flows and never once desce
nds into a mumbo-jumbo mess of techie blathering I've suffered from others who've written in the genre. Maybe it was written too early to do so and maybe all the talk of nuclear energy would have been considered techie blathering when it was written but now it comes across as an intruiging novel with a heavy basis in tangible fact which ought not to lose anyone because it is written in such an accessible way. Oh I'm sure I've missed some deep and meaningfulness behind it all, I never was one for picking out all the worthy bits and bobs in novels and I'm totally not tuned in to sci-fi - all I know is, I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series...and it isn't going to be 10 years again before I do! Expect a review of "Foundation and Empire" soon.

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