I’m guessing a good number of you have read these books. If you haven’t, you should. I’ve been rereading them lately, and I’d forgotten how good they are. I’m not all that enamored of “Foundation’s Edge” or “Foundation and Earth”, but they did take the series in an interesting direction. I think that if you count the Second Trilogy (three prequel books written by Bear, Brin, and Benford), there are some interesting possibilites for continuing the series after F&E. Mind you, Benford’s “Foundation’s Fear” SUCKED, but since nothing really happened in that book it’s not all that important.
So what do y’all think of the books? The Second Trilogy? Possibilities for the future of the series? Asimov in general?
I’ve never read the second trilogy or any of the other follow-on books, but the first trilogy is a classic piece of space opera. The scope of the plot was wonderful, but the characters, aside from The Mule and Hari Seldon, left little impression on me. Characterization didn’t seem to be Asimov’s strongsuit.
Characterization wasnt something Asimov was interested in. He was a situations man. I liked the first three pretty well. When the robot novels merged into Foundation it got preachy. I really hated Prelude to foundation I knew the answer about half way thru the book. In fact I knew WHO the Mule was from the moment he walked into the story. It was a given.
As soon as Dors was thrown the knife and she IMMEDIATELY was an expert on knife use, I knew she was a robot. Wasn’t much climax to the tale after that.
I read the original series when I was in high school – 30+ years ago. I think it was the first sci-fi I ever read.
I still remember making one of my friends drive me down to the main branch of the San Diego library to get the third book – waiting till the next day wasn’t an option.
So you think it holds up? I like to think my tastes are a little more sophisticated now …
I read the original trilogy some three-four years ago and was fully absorbed by it. While it’s true that characterization didn’t come out too strong, the overall story was enough to make me a fan of the series.
I’ve never read any of the other books because I could never find anything listing them in chronological order, course, I wasn’t trying too hard.
Psychopachik Vampire
I’ve only read the original books as well. I read them in high school, and really liked them. Then I reread them a few years ago, and was kind of disappointed. I was unable to really get into them, because I kind of “saw through” what he was trying to do. It seemed to me that the series was basically Asimov lecturing on the main forces involved in history. In each section, the Foundationers use a different historical force to influence events. At one point, they use economic power. At another, religious power. The Mule was kind of symbolic of, say, Hitler - occasionally one person can influence history.
Once I got that concept in my head, the story suddenly seemed really secondary and hard to care about. I found myself thinking, “Yes, yes, so now we’re going to use religion. Fine, just get on with it already.” I hope that makes some sort of sense. I don’t know. I’ve never had that kind of reaction to any other book.
I really liked the original trilogy. Kind of get annoyed by the later books, as it seems that Dr. A. is undermining my love for his first three books! I guess that is his right, but I didn’t like it. Still love those first three, though…Timmy
Well, of course the originals were more about situations than about characters. The first book is in fact a set of situations, watching how history is manipulated by logical “mathematics”. I found that lots of fun as a concept. And the characters are deliberately unimportant, that’s the whole point.
However, in Asimov’s other books, I can’t say that the characters are very memorable, either. Except Lucky Starr, of course.
They are… and they are a “what if” as well. The books preceding the Foundation Series are called the **Empire ** books, I believe. They are : **The Currents of Space, The Stars Like Dust ** and Pebble in the Sky. They are somewhat an allegory for the end of the Roman Empire.
When he got into “Foundation” he started into the “what if”. What if history could be manipulated by mathematics? So that by doing this ultra high level math someone could chart the whole of human history. Several of the later “Foundation” books are attempts to pull the history of humanity back in line with the predictions of Hari Seldon.
I disagree. The Empire books were thousands of year before the Fall of the empire. There was nothing in them to suggest the end of the Empire. In fact, one of them charts the rise of Trantor’s grip over the galaxy.
Emmmmmmm Did you even read what I said? They are somewhat an allegory for the end of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire collapsed some fifteen hundred years before PRESENT. Each book read separately doesn’t indicate a fall but read together and with the early “Foundation” books becomes an allegory.
First of all, the Empire books were written after the Foundation books (which ran in Astounding during the '40s and early '50s.)
The Foundation books were based on the fall of the Roman empire. The Good Doctor had just finished reading Gibbons when he got the idea. (Source: I, Asimov, p. 117)
I also don’t see the Empire books as foreshadowing the fall of anything. They’re more the bridge between Earth and the Empire.
You mean the ones that ran in Astounding? How much did he change them when Gnome came out with the books? I must admit that when I read those issues I skipped over the stories for lack of time.
