Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov

   1951; 255 pages.  Book 2 (out of 7) in the “Foundation” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Classic Science Fiction; Colonization Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    It’s all happening according to plan, just like Hari Seldon said it would.  The Galactic Empire is now a shadow of its universe-encompassing past, and the Foundation, originally a bunch of exiled thinkers, is on the upswing.

 

    General Bel Riose of the Galactic Empire and military governor of Siwenna faces an important decision: Fight or Flight.  If Seldon’s “psychohistory” calculations hold true—and so far they always have—to fight the Foundation will surely end in disaster for the Empire.

 

    By the same token, for Bayta and Toran, supporters of the Foundation, the chances of success are much greater.  True, as individuals, they could die in combat.  Seldon’s predictions apply to galactic powers, not to the individuals thereof.  Still, it’s nice to be confident you’d be on the winning side.

 

    But what if something new arises, something which the psychohistory calculations could not have factored in?  Something that could finally cause an error in Hari Seldon’s perfect predicting record?

 

    Oh, come on.  What are the odds of that happening?

 

What’s To Like...

    Foundation and Empire was published in 1952, but it’s actually a combination of two novellas which first appeared in a magazine called Astounding Science Fiction way back in 1945.  Most sci-fi authors had only one way of getting published back then: write episodic tales short enough to be sold to some sci-fi magazine publisher.  This needs to be kept in mind when reading any Science Fiction work from prior to the 1960s.

 

    The two parts of Foundation and Empire are set in the same areas of the Galaxy, but at different time periods, and with different sets of characters.  The first part, The General, focuses on the aforementioned Bel Riose and his Foundation opponents, and is roughly one-third of the book.  The second part is titled The Mule, and focuses on an upstart stranger who is does not ally himself with either The Galactic Empire or The Foundation, much to the annoyance of both.

 

    Isaac Asimov comes up with lots of fascinating places for our adventurers to visit.  Seven worlds are featured, the most interesting being “Trantor”, the former home planet of the Galactic Empire, now reduced to desolation and replaced by a nearby orb called “Neotrantor”.  Asimov invents some nifty gadgets as well, including a “Time Vault” which allows Hari Seldon to speak from beyond the grave, and a “Visi-Sonor”, which—well, to give details would be a spoiler.  Let’s just say I need to get me one of those.

 

    The main “mystery” in Foundation and Empire, for both the reader and most of the characters, is discovering the whereabouts and the identity of The Mule.  The book’s ending resolves this adequately via an exciting plot twist which I had considered previously, then discarded.  Things close at a logical point, but I wouldn’t consider this to be a standalone story.  The resolution of the conflict between The Foundation and The Empire is not resolved, nor is the role that The Mule will play in it.  I presume this is addressed in Book 3, Second Foundation, which fortunately sits on my TBR shelf.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 13,400 ratings and 493 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.22/5 based on 217,316 ratings and 5,846 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Mayor Indbur—successively the third of that name—was the grandson of the first Indbur, who had been brutal and capable; and who had exhibited the first quality in spectacular fashion by his manner of seizing power, and the latter by the skill with which he put an end to the last farcical remnants of free election and the even greater skill with which he maintained a relatively peaceful rule.

    Mayor Indbur was also the son of the second Indbur, who was the first Mayor of the Foundation to succeed to his post by right of birth—and who was only half his father, for he was merely brutal.

    So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable—but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.  (pg. 119)

 

    “We came right through the war-zone to get here—on purpose.  We traveled about a light-minute or so, in neutral, right past Horleggor—”

    “Horleggor?” broke in a long-legged native, who was playing host to that particular gathering.  “That’s where the Mule got the guts beat out of him last week, wasn’t it?”

    “Where’d you hear that the Mule got the guts beat out of him?” demanded the pilot, loftily.

    “Foundation radio.”

    “Yeah?  Well, the Mule’s got Horleggor.  We almost ran into a convoy of his ships, and that’s where they were coming from.  It isn’t a gut-beating when you stay where you fought, and the gut-beater leaves in a hurry.”  (pg. 162)

 

“So far there’s been more drinking than thinking, and more wooing than doing.”  (pg. 169)

    There is zero cussing in Foundation and Empire which was the norm for science fiction written in the 1940s.  When situations arise where profanity is called for, Asimov comes up with some innovative euphemisms, such as “unprintable” (as in “my unprintable eye”) and “Bescuppered” (as in “Bescuppered if I know”).

 

    There are no “adult situations” as well, but keep in mind, in the 1940s, there were no adult situations in books of any genre.

 

    My big problem with Foundation and Empire is the storytelling style.  There are almost zero firsthand thrills-&-spills to read about.  It’s not a matter of “telling vs. showing”, it’s a matter of “action versus talking about it”.  Even when epic space battles occur, the reader only finds out about it when somebody later relays the news to somebody else.

 

    Still, this is the way sci-fi was written eighty years ago.  I was aware of that when I started reading this series.  For me, Foundation and Empire was an entertaining read, but mostly as a benchmark for appreciating just how far the Science Fiction genre has evolved since then.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  On page 68, the subject of "Transmutation of Elements" comes up.  Specifically, a process for turning Iridium into Iron is discussed.  It would be great if this were even theoretically feasible, but it isn’t.  Trust me, I'm a chemist.

Foundation - Isaac Asimov

   1951; 255 pages.  Book 1 (out of 7) in the “Foundation” series.  New Author? : Yes, surprisingly.  Genres: Classic Science Fiction; Colonization Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    All hail the Galactic Empire!  It’s the dominant power in the Milky Way, and it’s been around for 12,000 years.  Yeah, it may be a bit past its prime, but who’s big enough to try to knock them off?

 

    Enter Hari Seldon.  He’s a Psychohistorian (a what?!) and he’s been doing some calculating, and has come to a startling conclusion: the Galactic Empire will collapse within 300 years.  And that will lead to a “Dark Ages” period on a galactic scale, which will last for 30,000 years.  Ain’t mathematics amazing!?

 

    Needless to say, the present rulers of the Galactic Empire are not amused, but Hari’s calculations also show a way out of the disaster.  Sorta.  The Empire needs to commit to writing the sum total of all the knowledge in the galaxy.  Hari says it won’t prevent the collapse of the Galactic Empire, but it will shorten the duration of the Dark Ages to maybe as little as 1,000 years.

 

    The path forward is clear.  The Empire will exile Hari Seldon to the far-flung fringes of the galaxy and tell him to get busy writing down all that knowledge.  It’s not that they believe his predictions.  But it’s imperative that this rabble-rouser gets put somewhere so out-of-the-way that his message never gets heard by the rabble.

 

What’s To Like...

    Foundation is composed of five novelettes, four of which had been published previously in a sci-fi magazine called Astounding Stories in the 1940s.  A fifth novelette was written and the combined result was published as a full-sized novel in 1951.  Its five sections are:

    Part 1. The Psychohistorians  (3% Kindle)

    Part 2. The Encyclopedists  (17% Kindle)

    Part 3. The Mayors  (34% Kindle)

    Part 4. The Traders  (59% Kindle)

    Part 5. The Merchant Princes (68% Kindle)

 

    Foundation is the first book in what would eventually be a 7-book series by Isaac Asimov.  This tale focuses on the onset of the disintegration of the Galactic Empire, which I’m assuming will be the main storyline throughout the series.  It covers a time-span of about 155 years and, for now, has only human characters, which means that those alive in Part 1 will not still be alive by the end of the book, although the aforementioned Hari Seldon still occasionally pops up as a hologram.

 

    The title refers to the group of psychohistorians who have traveled with Hari to the aptly-named planet Terminus, located on the edge of the galaxy.  They are officially known as “The Encyclopedia Foundation”, and ostensibly tasked with chronicling the sum total of human knowledge.  But they have a hidden agenda as well.

 

    The first territorial losses suffered by the Galactic Empire will occur out here.  Five rebellious planets, including Terminus, break away, and frankly they're just too far out in the galactic sticks to be worth the expense and trouble of the Empire sending a force out to quash the uprising.  Besides, the inhabitants of these planets spend much of their time squabbling among themselves, so maybe they'll do each other in.  It is more of an economic style of warfare anyway, and the titles of the five sections give the reader a hint as to what faction in society is top dog at any given time. 

 

    Asimov gives the development of nuclear power as an energy source a lot of ink, which impressed me, given that Foundation was published in 1951.  I chuckled at the choicest smoking material being called “Vegan Tobacco” until I realized it referred to the star named Vega, and not a meatless designation.

 

    Each chapter starts off with an excerpt from the “Encyclopedia Galactica”, which is the massive tome the Foundation is busy writing.  They give some background to the world-building, but aren’t crucial to the understanding the storyline.  There are 48 chapters in all, which averages out to about 5 pages/chapter, so you’ll always have a convenient place to stop reading for the night.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 16,346 ratings and 1,893 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.17/5 based on 486,117 ratings and 13,717 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “I’ve been sent here for no other purpose than to assure you that you need not fear.  It will end well; almost certainly so for the project and with reasonable probability for you.

    “What are the figures?” demanded Gaal.

    “For the project, 99.9%.”

    “And for myself?”

    “I am instructed that this probability is 77.2%”

    “Then I’ve got a better than one chance in five of being sentenced to prison or to death.”

    “The last is under one percent.”  (loc. 368)

 

    “I’m here in the capacity of your spiritual advisor.  There’s something about a pious man such as he.  He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul.  It’s just a piece of empirical psychology.”  (loc. 2070)

 

Kindle Details…

    Foundation presently costs $7.99 at Amazon.  The other six books in the series are all priced either $7.99 or $8.99.  There are dozens more Isaac Asimov e-books available, most of them in the $6.99-$12.99 range.  Asimov's books are occasionally discounted, but not very often, and I've never seen Books 2-7 in this series in those discounts.

 

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!”  (loc. 1974)

    The thing to keep in mind when reading Foundation is that it is science fiction written in the 1940s and 50s.  The genre was in its infancy back then, the stories were usually short so that they could be submitted to monthly magazines.  Epic Star Wars-type battles were rare, and character development was a low priority.

 

    All of that is true here, at least in this first book in the series.  Asimov wrote the first three Foundation books in the 50’s, so I expect this will hold true of Books 2 and 3 as well.  The last four books were published in the years 1982-1993, so they may have a more “modern” style.

 

    It should also be noted that 1950s sci-fi had very little cussing and adult situations, and that also holds true here.  I counted only four cusswords in the first 50% of the book, and no R-rated situations.  When the plotline called for swearing, Asimov usually opted for “made-up” phrases, including “Space knows”, “by the Galaxy”, “I don’t care an electron”, “by Seldon”, and my favorite: “Son-of-a-Spacer”.

 

    Last of all, keep in mind this was intended to be a series from the very start.  The ending is thankfully not a cliffhanger, but certainly a “to be continued” sort of thing, and just about all of the plot threads remain unresolved.

 

    7 Stars.  Science-fiction writing has come a long way in the last 70 years.  I wasn’t expecting Ewoks, phasers, or blue-skinned aliens, so wasn’t disappointed when none of those showed up.  This book was groundbreaking in its time – a doomsday scenario for mankind, and a target audience of both adults and YA readers, instead of just the latter.  Unfortunately, since Asimov’s Foundation books are rarely discounted in e-book format, I'll need to hit the used-book stores if I want to delve deeper into this series.