Foundation

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Summary: The first book of the best series ever. Period.
Review:

This book is the perfect kickoff to the greatest and most amazing Science-Fiction series ever. Asimov and his Foundation are the foundation of all modern science fiction. This book especially is a fascinating story full of characters so real you could expect to bump into them on the street, to speak nothing of the Doctor's amazing - and totally beleivable - futuristic technology.

If you want to get a transcendental, literary experience or you just want to read a damn fine story, the Foundation series - and especially this book - are what you're looking for.

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Summary: One of the best scifi stories available
Review: Foundation is certainly a marvellous book. Asimov combines action, mystery, drama, and the almost Utopian futuristic world in his book. However, things aren't always what they seem, and Asimov weaves the plots and subplots together very nicely

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Summary: A required book (& series) for any sf readers.
Review: Even though the original stories and ideas were written in the 50's, these books read as if they were written yesterday. All other sf was, and is, trying to measure up to this classic. (Apologies to the grave of Dr. Asimov for misspelling the first name of his character.

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Summary: History of the Future by Asimov
Review: I think that one should read the foundation trilogy at least twice: once knowing just a few about the history of ancient Rome, and once after learning a lot about it. You will notice the strong link between the past and Asimov's future. You will also be estonished by a man, who seems to have every word of the book in mind, at the moment he starts to write it. The book is superb, as its creator.

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Summary: A life-changing and mind-opening classic
Review: The instant I read this wonderful series, my life changedin some very significant ways. I have two degrees inmathematics, and am working on a Ph.D. in mathematics as a DIRECT RESULT of these books. Asimov explores the whole notion that human behavior is predictable on a very large scale, but completely unpredictable on an individual scale. The marriage between the clockwork Universe and the humanistic feeling that we have free-will is masterfully completed in this award-winning work. The Foundation series is classified as Sci-fi, but it is in a league of its own!

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Summary: Best of the genre
Review: Simply the best science fiction series ever. No one macthes Asimov in the combination of thought provoking futurism and sheer out and out entertainment. This book will get you started on the rest of the series (which you will immediately want to read) and hopefully on a long career of reading all of Asimov's fiction. The Good Doctor's greatest contribution to the genre is the notion that brains will always win out over brawn. His plot twists never turn on major battles or laser fights, but always with the triumph of reason. It's all here in abundance.

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Summary: One of the classics of 1940s and 1950s science fiction.
Review: This is the first published volume (which was originally published as four short stories in "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine, 1942-1944, with an introductory section written in 1949) of Asimov's famous trilogy, which affected many later works. This trilogy, which won a special Hugo Award in 1966 for the best science fiction series of all time, was later expanded into further volumes by Asimov (in fact, two prequels are Asimov's "Prelude to Foundation" and "Forward the Foundation"; after Asimov's death in 1992, other authors [for example, Gregory Benford's "Foundation's Fear," Greg Bear's "Foundation and Chaos," and David Brin's "Foundation's Triumph"] have contributed to the series [note that there are now five novels that serve as prequels to Asimov's first published Foundation book!]) . In these stories, spacecraft travel over large distances via "jumps." The ships spend most of their time in a form of hyperspace, each jump being aimed at a certain target star. The central character, Hari Seldon, is a psychohistorian. Psychohistory is the mathematics dealing with the reactions of very large masses of mankind to social and economic stimuli (and the recent advances in chaos theory in advanced mathematics lends credibility to Asimov's psychohistory). His calculations predicts an end to the Galactic Empire (an empire remarkably similar to the Roman Empire on Earth). Two Foundations are set up to ease mankind through the dark area predicted (or else, the dark period will last 30000 years) and, after a thousand years, will join together to form a second Empire. Although Asimov's early writing style leaves much to be desired (recall this was all put together in his early 20s during World War II when he worked for the U. S. Navy and when he was finishing his graduate work at Columbia Univ.), it is still fun reading; I enjoy every time I reread it. It is particularly enjoyable in the context of the other volumes. This first published volume has five parts. In "The Psychohistorians," an introductory tale (which begins about 46 years after the events described in "Prelude to Foundation" and thirteen years after the events described in the last story of "Forward the Foundation"), Dr. Hari Seldon and a young colleague are arrested on the planet Trantor (the governing center of the Galactic Empire) and tried for treason. Seldon's group are to be exiled to the planet Terminus on the galactic rim where they will form a scientific refuge. Seldon also plans to set up another group somewhere else. We later learn, in Part III, that this other group (the Second Foundation) is located at a place known as Star's End at the other end of the galaxy. In "The Encyclopedists," taking place about fifty years later, a large number of members of the original Foundation are on the planet Terminus and are compiling a massive encyclopedia to prepare for the upcoming dark age. But, why were no psychobiologists and only one psychologist present among the original colonists? The remaining three parts continue the development of the Foundation on Terminus.

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Summary: The "Foundation" series was mesmerizing!
Review: But, then, how could it not be when its author was the incomparable Isaac Asimov? There are, of course, plenty of other noteworthy works by all manner of Old Masters as well as newer authors that, in my opinion, at least belong next to the "Foundation" series simply because they, too, are great sci-fi adventures and space opera: "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Puppet Masters", "2001", "2010", "Rendezvous with Rama", "Ringworld", all the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" books, as well as books as new to the genre as "Advent of the Corps" and others. I mention them only to show that what great sci-fi authors like Isaac Asimov started decades ago still lives and breeds more and more fantastic works!

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Summary: True classic
Review: Personally, I don't like "classic" sci-fi. It can be preachy, dated, dry, corny or just not as "mature" as modern science fiction. However, Asimov gives just enough characterization, not too much science and the right amount of action adventure and conceptual gems to keep your mind racing. He truly is the grand daddy of science fiction.

Quirky lines like "Galaxy knows!" or "By Seldon!" evoke nostalgia for the time of space rangers and laser guns. So what if nuclear power is a thing of the past? Asimov doesn't beat you down with tecnobabble. You just know that thats the prime power source in his idea of the future. Remember, this was written in 1941. Furthermore, the writing style and dialogue don't seem dated at all. Asimov's writing is simple, clean, and doesn't get bogged down with excess ramblings. His true talent is in plotting unexpected twists and turns that make this book a pageturner.

Hari Seldon created psychohistory. It is mathematics applied to the development of human society on a grand scale. Seldon's new science predicts the path of human civilization with no regard to individual actions. Religion has given us fate vs. free will. Asimov poses a perhaps even more frustrating question, what if science tells us that one man's will cannot change the path of history?

You're not going to get soliquoys droning on and on about a lost love or a crumbled courage; But what you do get is a brilliant collection of short stories Asimov wrote separately that later were compiled as one novel.

The four(?) stories are brief yet cohesive glimpses into the developing stages of the Foundation's rise amidst the decay of the Imperial Empire. Each character driven event propels the Foundation through its first stages of development: political autonomy, technology protected by religion, and economy. I think Asimov did a great job in breathing life into these characters. After I finished the book, I remembered Hari Seldon's mystic wisdom, Salvor Hardin's determination and Hober Mallow's money hungry practicality and what remains is an overwhelming sense of awe and satisfaction. You will get that too.

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Summary: Waste of time;Stick to Robot novels.
Review: This book is one of the most overrated books I have ever read. There is very little in the way of plot and character development. There is no climax in this book. The book reads like a historical record, similar to Tolkiens Silmarillion, rather than an actual story. If you like reading historical records, you may like this book. If you are looking for an exciting novel.... better luck elsewhere.