Converted (Foundation - Isaac Asimov)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Date:	06/09/00 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see above

Disadvantages: none

I was stuck at a station, with three minutes before my train arrived, and nothing to read. Under pressure I just bought the first thing that fell into my hand. Thus it was that I, a non Sci-fi reader, (apart from the humorous Terry Pratchett type stuff), found myself stuck on a four hour journey with nothing but a book by an author I'd never heard of. But I had nothing else to do, so I decided to give it a go......And when I got off the train I bought three of the sequels. I am totally converted to Sci-fi.

The Foundation saga starts when Hari Seldon, the greatest thinker of his age, realises that the Galactic Empire has gone stagnant, and is going to collapse. He places a bunch of scientists on a planet at the edge of the galaxy to be the germ of a new empire after this demise. Using his unique science called psychohistory he also foresees their entire history, and places various crises in their way to steer them the right way. But in order for these scientists to behave in a mathematically predictable way, they mustn't know any of this, and must believe they are their own masters. Will their history stay on course?

The format of the book is a little hard to get used to. Because it covers the unfolding of a whole Empire, there are no central characters as such; or rather the central characters change frequently. No sooner have you begun to sympathize with a hero than you are transported 100 years into the future to observe the next crucial turning point in the Foundation's history. At first this is unsettling, but you quickly realise that it couldn't be done any other way; at least not at first - the later books settle down to describe shorter periods in more depth. The power of Asimov's imagination is what won me over. Despite writing quite a while ago, his ideas are still on a par with Sci-fi such as the Matrix. He was simply a genius, a visionary.

The only disadvantage to the book is that you will be hooked. You will
have to read the others, and when you finally finish them you will wish there were more.

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