Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov

It turns out that Hari Seldon has a backup plan. Granted, this plan pushes the credibility of the series to its limits but from a narrative point of view it really works! Seldon has foreseen that there may be times when the first Foundation may go astray and so has planted a second foundation full of competent psychohistorians and telepaths at the other end of the galaxy in order to watch over them. The location of the second Foundation however cannot be known to the first otherwise they will attempt to use the information gained by them to sttemopt to alter the future and the Galactic Empire will never be reinstated. The first half of "Second ...  Read the complete review

For many years the First Foundation had been following the Seldon Plan, quite unaware that there was a Second Foundation out there. In fact it merely referred to itself as “The Foundation”. Hari Seldon, using the science of Psychohistory, which he had developed, foresaw the way the future would turn out. He foresaw the end of the Galactic Empire, the fall of the galaxy into anarchy and barbarism for 30,000 years; he foresaw, more importantly, the way to reduce those 30 millennia into a single millennium, and the development of a new, better empire. Using Psychohistory, the application of mathematical formulae to the response of large groups of people to stimuli, he also ...  Read the complete review

On reading 'Foundation and Empire' I was fairly staggered by Asimov's planning, and the intricacy of the plot. Time after time my perception of events changed as new light was shed on them. Second Foundation takes this to extremes. Just when you believe you know what's what it gets turned on its head, and then turned on its head again...and again...and again! It focusses on the second of Hari Seldon's two foundations, set up at opposite ends of the galaxy, to be the germs of a new Empire. The First was the seat of all physical science, whilst the Second is the seat of mental science, and the guardians of the Plan. The First Foundation get ...  Read the complete review