Product Description

The first volume in Issac Asimov's world-famous saga, winner of the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Novel Series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3907 in Books
• Published on: 1994-03-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Foundation marks the first of a series of tales set so far in the future that Earth is all but forgotten by humans who live throughout the galaxy. Yet all is not well with the Galactic Empire. Its vast size is crippling to it. In particular, the administrative planet, honeycombed and tunneled with offices and staff, is vulnerable to attack or breakdown. The only person willing to confront this imminent catastrophe is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian and mathematician. Seldon can scientifically predict the future, and it doesn't look pretty: a new Dark Age is scheduled to send humanity into barbarism in 500 years. He concocts a scheme to save the knowledge of the race in an Encyclopedia Galactica. But this project will take generations to complete, and who will take up the torch after him? The first Foundation trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation) won a Hugo Award in 1965 for "Best All-Time Series". It's science fiction on the grand scale; one of the classics of the field. -- Brooks Peck

About the Author
Isaac Asimov was the Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the founder of robot ethics, the world's most prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. The Good Doctor's fiction has been enjoyed by millions for more than half a century.

Customer Reviews

laid the foundation for much of today's scifi
Asimov's Foundation series was more aptly named than many suspect. Over the years it has served as an inspiration to many science fiction masterpieces, and became the benchmark by which all other epic science fiction was based. Much of today's space opera owes much to the original vast planet-spanning tale of the birth of a civilisation guided through the ages by the God-like hand of Seldon, and its testament to the enduring legacy of the work that its still as awe inspiring a tale as it was more than half a century ago. True, some of the technologies and settings are a little dated but that's not where the strength of the series lies.

If you're unfamiliar with the Foundation work, they are basically a series of short stories taking place over a number of centuries that chart the rise of an intergalactic civilisation from humble origins to a vast galactic power, and the trials and tribulations that shaped it, narrated from the perspective of its major historical figures, such as prominent civic leaders, military heroes, merchant traders, brilliant scientists etc. Underpinning all this is the strange figure of genius Hari Seldon, who predicted the whole course of future events through his discipline of psychohistory, a science that predicts the actions of whole civilisations and societies over a grand time-scale.

Each chapter starts with an excerpt from the fictional Encyclopedia Galactica on the events portrayed in the following scene as if the whole series is a look back at history from some undisclosed future. It lends a wonderful sense of grandness to the stories as well as being an original and novel way of introducing the new setting. As I mentioned earlier, each chapter takes place several decades after the previous one so characters who were 'upstart young rebels' in one story become 'noble visionaires' in the next scene, and 'legendery heroes' in the one after that. The chapters all focus on a Seldon Crisis, which are a series of predicted crises that would mark a new stepping stone to greatness, and are accompanied at the conclusion of the section by the appearance of the long dead hologram of Hari Seldon popping up every few centuries describing the events that have just occured.

The character of Seldon and the way he evolves from crackpot theorist, to brilliant but misunderstood genius, to an almost prophetic role is wonderfully moving, as are the other important characters throughout the novel, and the development of the Foundation and its gradual dominance through various means (including religion, trade and war) is spell binding. Asimov touches on many themes here: the role of religion as a tool of conquest, the magicianry associated with any highly advanced technological society, the inevitable bureaucracy that any establishment eventually succumbs to, the predictability of mob-mentality. Unfortunately, many of these wonderful themes are only lightly touched upon, which is a shame although Asimov's clear simple writing style and light humour make his work accessible to anyone.

If you can ignore the surface details and the slightly comic-bookish settings then you will enjoy one of the most pivotal and ambitious science fiction series written. I also highly recommend the two sequels.

The seed from which modern Sci-Fi grew
Having never read any of Isaac Asimov's Story's but knowing of his reputation, I eventually decided to take the plunge and read Asimov's Foundation. In my experience, so many books have praise heaped upon them but they never quite live up to their reviews, however that cannot be said for Foundation.

From the moment you turn the first page, you are gripped by Asimov's words, from the conversation of his characters to the description of his environments to the grandure of the story itself.

Even though Foundation was written over half a century ago, the story, the technology, eveything about it is timeless, unlike some stories that become dated, Foundation not only feels Modern and futuristic but shows no sign of age.

The Story itself is is enthralling, as you progress from the beginning, excerpt's from the Encyclopedia Galactica set the stage for the forthcoming pages, we as the reader are propelled through events that Hari seldon had Calculated to be the focal points in his Psychohistory of the Future. Having predicted that the Galactic Empire would fall and cause an interregnum of 30,000 years of barbaric dark ages, Hari seldon sets his Plan, the Seldon Plan, in motion to create two "Foundation's" at either end of the Galaxy to shorten this interregnum to 1,000 years. Eventually becoming the Foundations of the Second Galactic Empire.

I found myself unable to set this book down, stealing myself away only when I had reached the end of a chapter, each page left me in anticipation of what would happen next, and in only 2 evenings I had finished the whole book. And the result, I was desperate to read Foundation and Empire to find out what would happen next.

I cannot praise Foundation enough, from the word go you begin to realise where many modern Sci-fi films, shows and books have emulated many parts of their story's from, and the influence of Foundation can even be seen in some of the biggest block buster Sci-fi movies, the Planet Trantor being a world completely covered by a single city for example, emulated in a well know 6 part movie series.

Foundation is a Joy waiting to happen to any reader willing to pick it up, I have already ordered "Foundation and Empire", and even if it's only half as good as Foundation, I will definately be reading "Second Foundation". You cannot be dissapointed with this book, anyone who says they are, hasn't actually read it.

First of the �Best All-Time Series�. A classic.
It is rare enough for a book to win the Hugo Award. Rarer still to have a trilogy so outstanding that a special category is needed for it to be included in the nominations. It happened in 1966, with the Foundation trilogy (as it was at that time) winning that unique award. That record was to remain unsurpassed for twenty years and more.

Here is the work of a unique genius at the age of 22. Over the next seven years, he was to complete a period of enlistment in the Army and gain a Doctoral degree; paid for by the publication of these and many other stories, including those of the classic, 'I, Robot'.

32 years and over 150 books later came the next 'Foundation' story. 'Foundation's Edge' published in 1982 won the Hugo Award for the best Science Fiction Novel, hit the New York Times Best Seller list at once and stayed there for half a year. Three more 'Foundation' stories were to follow. Here then is a unique opportunity to compare and enjoy the creation of a Grand Master, at two ends of his long career.

I first read the 'Foundation' trilogy in the Fifties and was enthralled. Fifteen years later, on the next serious reading, the magic was undiminished. Thirty years later after reading the new trilogy, I returned to my old favourite to be spellbound once again. Small wonder that it is regarded as a classic.

The story begins in Trantor, capital of a Galactic Empire spanning 25 million inhabited worlds after 12,000 years of Imperial progress. The Empire seems prosperous, strong and stable. Yet one man predicts its fall and the subsequent 30,000 years of chaos, before a second Empire could emerge. Using his science of Psychohistory, he also developed a plan, which could shorten the 30 millennia of misery into just one! That man is Hari Seldon and the plan becomes known as the 'Seldon Plan'.

The plan requires the establishment of Foundation, a community dedicated to the compilation of all human knowledge in the form of an 'Encyclopaedia Galactica'. The 100,000 Foundationeers are banished to Terminus, an insignificant planet at the edge of the Galaxy. While the encyclopaedists toil with their mammoth task and the Foundationeers struggle to survive in a barren world, civilisation crumbles around them. Soon enough, they face their first major crisis when the warlord of a neighbouring world threatens to take over.

'Foundation' is a story on a stupendous scale narrating the first two centuries of survival and revival. It's a story of deadly conflicts, interplanetary intrigues and galactic gamble. Will the fledgling Foundation survive? Will the Foundationeers live up to the expectations of the prophetic Hari Seldon? How long can the fiercely independent 'Traders' hold off the greedy warlords who act to enslave the 'Foundation' and claim its scientific rewards for themselves?

Read this fantastic book and experience the magic.