Rating: 
Summary: Best book EVER!
Review: This book is my all-time favourite book. It is so amazing, especially the science Asimov created. And it made sense too! The story is awesome, and leaves you wanting more. This book (and the next two) beat of Lord of the Rings for all-time sci-fi/fantasy trilogy. Hopefully it will be made into a movie one day. Might even beat out LOTR with oscars too. It is a must read for anyone who loves sci-fi.
Rating:
Summary: Not only the greatest trilogy ever...
Review: But Asimov is one of the greatest science-fiction authors to have every lived. His massive work adding itself to works by other such sci-fi masters: "Childhood's End", "Rendezvous with Rama", "Stranger in a Strange Land" as well as the more modern cyberpunk works like "Neuromancer", "Mona Lisa Overdrive", "Snow Crash", "Prey", and "Darkeye: Cyber Hunter". All are must-reads for any hardcore science-fiction and cyberpunk collector.
Rating:
Summary: A Rational Science Fiction Saga
Review: Recently, I picked up a copy of the first book in Issac Asimov's Foundation series, for which this review is written. I will not spoil the book in this review as some others have done. The theme was quite interesting. Essentially, one man somewhat manipulates humanity into protecting its knowledge and creative abilities by setting them apart from the "masses", so that they can weather the coming dark ages. The great joke of this book is that Asimov almost makes it seem as if history is pushed forward by the "masses" themselves but in reality, his apparent humanism and rationality comes through as he shows that it is always the "individual" who in the end can save or destroy humanity. If you are a man (or woman) who cares about how ideas move history, if you believe in the sanctity of the individual, if you love life, then this is a book for you. Asimov is a man of reason and he shows it well throughout this first, in what I hope to be an excellent sci-fi series. Often times, contemporary authors infuse their lack of values into their books and characters, making one wonder who one should be rooting for. Asimov paints a clear picture of the values within man that make him worthy of praise (or not) - reason, justice and a love of life. This book can proudly stand side by side with Ayn Rand's Anthem and Orwell's 1984 as a warning to society about the dangers of the "irrational" in all its glorious forms.
Rating:
Summary: The foundation of the Foundation
Review: This is where Asimov really began the series, and it reads much drier and more technical than his later stories (he definitely developed and honed his craft). Still, it is an epic story not to be passed on by any true sci-fi fan!
Rating:
Summary: Foundation is Astounding!
Review: This book is amazing science fiction novel. Asimov's straightforward and simple way of writing presents the reader with a concise and well formed novel. The plot is amazing with its many twists and turns, although the character development isn't very strong. However, the lack in character development comes from Asimov's style of writing in which he presents the reader with several major characters. The entire book revolves around foreshadowing of a point in history where knowledge will be lost and barbarians will rule over an ingorant civilization. In order to shroten the period of ignorance and barbarianism, Hari Seldon forms the Foundation, a group of scholars on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. Asimov uses foreshadwing to great effect throughout the entire novel to form the plot. Another device well used by asimov is symbolism. One example is the Foundation, which is used as a symbol for hope for the future. The symbols placed throughout the novel bring about a sense of profound revelation to the reader. Irony is also used very effectively in one instance. When the encyclopedists realize that all their work was all in vain, Asimov reveals the fragility of the human intellect. He explains how the composition of human knowledge is not in one single person, but is spread out throughout all of humanity, and cannot be contained within one book or one set of books.
Rating:
Summary: More for the Idea than the Writing
Review: Isaac Asimov has always been a better science writer than a science fiction writer. He does not have the turn of phrase, the poetic endownment, the ability to have characters change and grow and become interesting...but, his ideas have always been cutting edge without being over the top. The vision of the breakdown of the future empire, of Hari Seldon and the school of psychohistory, the idea of setting up two Foundations at each end of the galaxy...great elements of a story. There has been talk that Asimov "borrowed" these ideas from Campbell but if so, he gave them a polish and a new direction that completely transformed the otiginal ones. One must grant literary, historical and scientific license to the writer in that many of the inventions we take for granted were only glimmers in the eye of a teenager in the 50's. The ideas are stunning in scope if not in execution. I would have loved to have seen a Heinlein or Pamela Sargent with this material. Still, it retains the reader throughout...and sets up the next novel in the trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Just as good the second time around
Review: I first read the Foundation series many years ago and made the mistake of loaning the books to a friend - of course, I never got them back. Recently I decided to buy the series again and once again I was amazed with how ahead of their time they were, considering how long ago they were written. The central premise of the story is imaginitive, and the plot devices by which Asimov drives the book forward are cleverly thought out. I'm not a fan of "laser guns and spaceships" science fiction, and I hold to the idea that people living hundreds of years from now will fundamentally be the same as us. We won't be wearing silver suits and living on a diet of vitamin pills. So it's refreshing to read a "sci-fi" story that doesn't get bogged down with high-tech stuff, but focusses on human development. I'd recommend it to any one, whether you're a sci-fi geek or not.
Rating:
Summary: Excelente'
Review: Iaasic Asimov is one of the best known Science-Fiction Writers, and for good reason. He wrote this award-winning book at the age of 21. Foundation is one of the best books I have read to this date. Science Fiction is a broad area and can only be defined by these two words, hence the name. Asimov utilizes very realistic facts in a novel placed 15,000+ years in the future. In the year 1951 when the novel was written was just 5 years after the first computer showed its face. Yet Asimov utizlizes the common computer and calculator in many scenes in this novel.
The use of nuclear power for showing superiority is also used often. This book was way ahead of its time. Anyone who enjoys science fiction or even one who just enjoys being entertained by realistic facts put into a story will enjoy this book. Foundation is also very suspenseful. Such as life-changing decisions to be made, assination attempts, spaceflight, and the exploration of new worlds in detail, the reader feels like he is in the mix of the action.
Rating:
Summary: Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov is an excellent read for any fan of literature, not just readers of science fiction. It is the first novel in what is known by many as the greatest science fiction trilogy of all time. The story envelops the reader from cover to cover and never stops. The characters are real, with great development from the author.
The story itself is about the trials gone through by a small group started by the great scientist Hari Seldon. The goal of the group is to rebuild the Empire after its inevitable fall. The characters are actiive, and the plot is always moving, never letting the reader go for a second. Asimov also uses his great knowledge of science to his advantage in the novel. Foundation is a great read and will not disappoint any who read it.
Rating:
Summary: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Review: [The quotation is from Salvor Hardin, Mayor of Terminus.] Let's say it's around 1940 or so; you're studying chemistry in grad school but your true love is history; you've read Edward Gibbon's _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, but writing a historical novel set in the _past_ would require just too much research; you get the bright idea of writing a historical tale set in the _future_, about the decline and fall of a _Galactic_ Empire, and you suggest as much to John W. Campbell, Jr. Campbell's response: he gets excited and suggests that you introduce some pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo about "psychohistory". Do you: (a) drop the idea and write something else?
(b) write the story just as Campbell describes it?
(c) use a little imagination, make Campbell's idea a bit more intellectually presentable, and crank out, not just a single story, but a Hugo-award-winning series? If you picked (c), congratulations; you're Isaac Asimov. The Hugo didn't come until 1965, when the Foundation series won for best all-time series (defeating even Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_ books). By then Asimov had long ago tired of the series; you can tell by the first part of the third book. (But the _second_ part of the third book is probably the best part of the original three volumes.) And heck, even in order to keep it going _that_ long, he had to introduce a radical departure from the Seldon Plan, in which the Mule initiates not just another Seldon Crisis but a new element altogether, one that wasn't accounted for in the Plan. (And in even later installments, it becomes pretty clear that Asimov isn't exactly thrilled by either the Plan or the Empire it's supposed to bring about.) But in the first volume, all of it is still fresh. Here we meet Hari Seldon for the first time, get slightly acquainted with his mathematical science of psychohistory, and learn what he's done to keep the decline of the Galactic Empire from leading humanity into 30,000 years of barbarism. He can't avert the decline, but he's got a way to reduce the period of barbarism to a mere millennium. He's set up two Foundations at opposite ends of the galaxy. And he's carefully set the ball rolling so that every so often there will be some sort of sociopolitical crisis, to which there's only one possible resolution. All the Foundation has to do is wait until the crisis narrows everything down to just one option, and then figure out what the heck that option _is_ . . . Well, I think you can see that the pattern leaves some room for the exercise of intelligence, but not a lot for individual initiative. No wonder Asimov let the Plan start going awry; the story might have lasted a thousand years, but the dramatic possibilities wouldn't. Anyway, it's a great, great series. This is where it begins in realtime, although the later novel _Prelude to Foundation_ is "first" according to the chronology of the Foundation universe. (And the Empire novels -- _Pebble in the Sky_, _The Stars, Like Dust_, and _The Currents of Space_ -- take place even earlier. So do most of the robot stories.) If you haven't read it yet and you think you might be an SF fan, you'll want to get around to it pretty soon. Start here, and enjoy.
| 
