Foundation series

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Second Foundation (1953), 1973 Panther paperback edition. 187 pages

The Foundation Series is an epic science fiction series written over a span of forty-nine years by Isaac Asimov. It consists of ten volumes (about one million words), which, although they can be read separately, are closely linked to one another. The term 'Foundation Series' is often used more generally to include the Robot Series and Empire Series, which are set in the same fictional universe. They have a combined length of fourteen novels and dozens of short stories written by Asimov, and six novels written by other authors after his death. It is widely considered the best, or at least the most influential, science fiction series ever.

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The premise of the series is that Hari Seldon has spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept devised by Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell. Using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is useless for anything smaller than a planet or an empire. Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. To shorten the period of barbarism, he decides to create the Foundation, a small secluded haven of technology on the planet Terminus, to preserve knowledge of the physical sciences after the collapse. If done properly, only a thousand years would be required before the next empire is established.

The trilogy

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Hari Seldon was the founder of the First and Second Foundations and inventor of Psychohistory (cover art for Foundation, by Stephen Youll)

The series started as a series of nine short stories, eight of which were published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine (between May 1942 and January 1950) and a ninth, which was written a few years later to serve as an introduction when the series was first published in book form. The stories vary in length from about 7,000 words to about 50,000 words. These were then collected and published as Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation in the early 1950s by Gnome Press. These three books are thus known collectively as The Foundation Trilogy.

The early stories are very closely based on Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Asimov said he did "a little bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward Gibbon" when describing the influence of that work on the Trilogy).

In many ways, the Foundation series is unique as a science fiction novel. The focus of the books are certainly the trends through which a civilization might progress, specifically seeking to analyze how they might progress over time using history as a precedent. Although many science fiction novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four or Fahrenheit 451 do this, they typically do so by how current trends in society might come to fruition, and act as a moral allegory on the modern world. The Foundation series, on the other hand, typically looks at the trends in a wider scope, not necessarily looking at what the societies change into, but how they change and adapt. Furthermore, the concept of psychohistory, which gives the events in the story a sense of rational fatalism, leaves little room for moralization, as events are often treated as inevitable and necessary rather than deviations from the greater good. For example, the Foundation slides gradually into oligarchy and dictatorship prior to the appearance of the Mule, but, for the most part, the book treats that change as being necessary in Hari Seldon's plan, rather than mulling over whether it is on the whole positive or negative.

The book also wrestles with the idea of individualism. Hari Seldon's plan is often treated as an inevitable mechanism of society, a vast mindless mob mentality of quintillions of humans across the galaxy, and many in the series struggle against it only to fail. However, the plan itself is reliant upon cunning individuals like Hardin and Mallow to make wise decisions, and capitalize on the trends. The Mule, a single individual with remarkable powers, topples the Foundation and nearly destroys the Seldon plan with his special, unforeseen abilities. In order to repair the damage the Mule inflicts, the Second Foundation deploys a plan which also turns upon individual reactions. Hari Seldon himself hopes that his Plan will "reduce 30,000 years of dark ages and barbarism to a single millennium". Psychohistory is based on group trends and cannot predict with sufficient accuracy the effects of these individuals, and the Second Foundation's true purpose was to counter this flaw.

The sequels

Asimov unsuccessfully tried to end the series at the end of Second Foundation. But, because of the predicted thousand years until the rise of the next Empire (of which, only a few hundred had elapsed), the series lacked a sense of closure. For decades, fans pressured him to write a sequel.

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In Foundation and Earth, chronologically the last book in the series, Golan Trevize searches for justification for a choice he made in Foundation's Edge, opening up a brand new line of thought in the last few pages.

In 1982, following a thirty-year hiatus, Asimov gave in and wrote what was at the time a fourth volume: Foundation's Edge. This was followed shortly thereafter by Foundation and Earth. Foundation and Earth (which takes place some 500 years after Seldon) ties up all the loose ends, but opens a brand new line of thought in the last dozen pages. As a result, many fans (wanting a tidy end to the series) consider this finale to be a failure. According to his widow Janet Asimov (in her biography of him, It's Been a Good Life), he had no idea how to continue after Foundation and Earth, so he started writing the prequels.

Merging with other series

The series is set in the same universe as Asimov's first published novel, Pebble in the Sky, although Foundation takes place approximately ten thousand years later. Pebble in the Sky became the basis for the Empire Series. Then, at some unknown date (prior to writing Foundation's Edge) Asimov decided to merge the Foundation series with his Robot series. Thus, all three series are set in the same universe, giving them a combined length of 15 novels and a total of about 1,500,000 words. The merge also created a time span of the series of approximately 20,000 years.

Timeline inconsistencies

Early on during Asimov's original world-building of the Foundation universe, he established within the first published stories a chronology placing the tales approximately some 50,000 years into the future from the time they were written (circa 1940 A.D.). This precept was maintained in the pages of his later novel Pebble in the Sky, wherein Imperial archaeologist Bel Arvardan refers to ancient human strata discovered in the Sirius sector dating back "some 50,000 years." However, when Asimov decided decades later to retroactively integrate the universe of his Foundation and Galactic Empire novels with that of his Robot stories, a number of changes and minor discrepancies surfaced — the character R. Daneel Olivaw was established as having existed for some 20,000 years, with the original Robot novels featuring the character occurring not more than a couple of millennia after the early-21st Century Susan Calvin short stories. Also, in Foundation's Edge, mankind was referred to as having possessed space travel for only 24,000 years, a far cry from the fifty millennia of earlier works.

In the spring of 1955, Asimov published an early timeline in the pages of Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine based upon his thought processes concerning the Foundation universe's history at that point in his life, which vastly differs from its modern-era counterpart in terms of stories included — many would later be jettisoned from the late-era chronology, or would experience temporal relocation by the author — and in terms of the aforementioned lengthier scope of time. (For example, in the original 1950s timeline, humanity does not discover the hyperspatial drive until approximately 5,000 A.D., whereas in the reincorporated Robot universe chronology, the first interstellar jump occurs in 2029 A.D., during the events of I, Robot.)[1]

Ultimately, the revised, retconned historical timeline implemented by Asimov during the 1980s is considered to be the canonical one, with the previous references serving as quaint anachronistic gaffes by the characters (perhaps due to in-universe reasons, such as the inevitable distortion of accurate historical recordkeeping over the vast gulf of tens of thousands of years).

The prequels

The prequels, written last in the series but chronologically first, tell the life story of Hari Seldon and (simultaneously) the development of Psychohistory. The first prequel, Prelude to Foundation, starts with a young Hari Seldon presenting a paper outlining the possibility of psychohistory, and ends about a year later. The second novel, Forward the Foundation, takes place at intervals starting about ten years after Prelude to Foundation. It tells how psychohistory becomes functional, all while Hari loses loved ones and the Galactic Empire continues to break apart. Forward the Foundation ends just as Hari finishes recording the messages to be played throughout the original trilogy.

Forward the Foundation, the last novel Asimov wrote, continues the story of Hari Seldon and his family.

Other authors

Asimov's novels covered only 500 of the expected 1,000 years it would take for the Foundation to become a galactic empire. After his death, the Asimov estate at the request of Janet Asimov approached Gregory Benford and asked him to write another Foundation story. He agreed, and at that same time suggested that it should form part of a trilogy with Greg Bear and David Brin writing the other two books, which they agreed to do. All three take place between Asimov's two prequels. These three books are now known collectively as the Second Foundation Trilogy. Many fans, eager for the second trilogy to fill in the gap, were disappointed.

Also, shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels, known as the Caliban Trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen, set between Robots and Empire and the Empire Series. The Caliban Trilogy describes the terraforming of the Spacer world Inferno, a planet where an ecological crisis forces the Spacers to abandon many long-cherished parts of their culture. Allen's novels echo the uncertainties which Asimov's later books express about the Three Laws of Robotics, and in particular the way that a thoroughly roboticized culture can degrade human initiative.

The Foundation universe was once again revisited in Foundation's Friends (ISBN 0312931743 hardback, ISBN 0812509803 paperback), a collection of short stories written by many prominent science fiction authors of today. Orson Scott Card's "The Originist" clarifies the founding of the Second Foundation shortly after Seldon's death; Harry Turtledove's "Trantor Falls" tells of the efforts by the Second Foundation to survive during the sacking of Trantor; and George Zebrowski's "Foundation's Conscience" is about the efforts of a historian to document Seldon's work following the rise of the second Galactic empire.

Science Fiction authors such as Orson Scott Card paid tribute to the Foundation series in the collection of short stories Foundation's Friends.

Most recently, the Asimov Estate authorized publication of another trilogy of robot mysteries by Mark W. Tiedemann. These novels, which take place several years before Asimov's Robots and Empire, are Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001) and Aurora (2002). These were followed by yet another robot mystery, Alexander C. Irvine's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), set five years after the Tiedemann trilogy.

There are novels by various authors (Asimov's Robot City series, Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series, and Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series) loosely connected to the Robot Series, but they contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered part of the Foundation Series.

Cultural impact

An eight-part radio adaptation of the original trilogy, with sound design by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1973 - one of the first BBC radio drama serials to be made in stereo. A BBC 7 rerun commenced in July 2003.

In 1965, the Foundation Trilogy beat several other science fiction and fantasy series (including The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien) to receive a special Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series". It is still the only series so honored. Asimov himself wrote that he assumed the one-time award had been created in order to honor The Lord of the Rings and he was amazed when his work won.

In the Star Wars universe Coruscant, the imperial capital planet covered completely with buildings, is a direct borrowing of Asimov's Trantor. (Visually they are not exactly similar: Trantor is covered in domed cities, while Coruscant's buildings are open to the air.)

In 1995, Donald Kingsbury wrote "Historical Crisis", which he later expanded into a novel, Psycho-historical Crisis (ISBN 0312861028). It is not set in the same fictional universe as the Foundation series, but the universe described in it is very much similar to that of the Foundation series, being a clear and conscious borrowing. The novel explores the ideas of psycho-history into a number of new directions, inspired by more recent developments in mathematics and computer science, as well as by new ideas in science fiction itself.

The oboe-like holophonor in Matt Groening's animated television series Futurama is based directly upon the "Visi-Sonor" which Magnifico plays in Foundation and Empire. (See the DVD commentary for the series' final episode, "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings".)

It has been speculated—most prominently in the science fiction magazines Ansible (No. 172, November 2001) and Locus—that the Foundation trilogy, which has had considerable success in the Middle East, was the source of the name of the terrorist group Al-Qaida. This speculation, however, fails to account for the fact that the term Al-Qaida, Arabic for "The Foundation", was first used by the United States to describe followers of Osama bin Laden and is not used by that group to refer to itself.

Also, the highly controversial Aum Shinrikyo sect in Japan (which attacked the Tokyo subway with Sarin gas) was trying to build a community of scientists after the model of the Foundation and used this book as its inspiration.

To the contrary, however, a noted political blog has used the Foundation trilogy as the cornerstone of an essay arguing that such terrorist groups will ultimately fail in their missions.[2]

List of books

Prelude to Foundation contains Asimov's suggested reading order/chronology for his science fiction books in the introduction. This recommended reading order for the books is listed below. However, many critics argue that the books should be read in publication order. Specifically, the argument is made that reading the Foundation prequels prior to reading the Foundation Trilogy fundamentally alters the original narrative structure of the Trilogy by spoiling plot surprises.

Robot short stories

The Robot novels

The Caliban trilogy

The Empire series

The Foundation novels

The Second Foundation Trilogy

The Foundation Trilogy

Note that this list corrects several mistakes found in the list in Asimov's Prelude to Foundation. It also adds six novels that were published after Asimov's death in 1992, and another which was entering publication at the time of his death.

Books not included

While not mentioned in the above list, some consider the books The End of Eternity (1955) and Nemesis (1989) part of the series.

The End of Eternity is vaguely referenced in Foundation's Edge, where a character mentions the Eternals, whose "task it was to choose a reality that would be most suitable to Humanity". (The End of Eternity also refers to a "Foundation" within its story.) In Forward the Foundation Hari Seldon refers to a twenty thousand year old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis," an obvious reference to Nemesis.

On the other hand, these references might be just jokes by Asimov, and the stories mentioned could be just those really written by himself. Furthermore, Asimov himself did not mention The End of Eternity in the series listing from Prelude to Foundation. As for Nemesis, it was written after Prelude to Foundation, but in the author's note Asimov explicitly states that the book is not part of the Foundation series, but that some day he might tie it to the others.

Major characters

See also

External links


Preceded by: Series:
Empire Series Foundation Universe
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