Rating: 
Summary: Overcome Stalled Thinking about Predestination with Vision
Review:
Twenty Stars ********************
Long before the notion of using a vision of the future to help shape the future, there was Foundation by Isaac Asimov. This popular book and series have undoubtedly played a role in developing the importance of vision in our society in the 50 years since these stories were first written.
The book is also prescient in another way. The current best thinking about problem solving is that scenario-based exercises are the best way to prepare to influence the future. Sure enough, that is what Asimov was talking about with Seldon's forecasting techniques.
If that was all that Asimov accomplished, this would be one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time. But he did even more. He conceptualized the significance of finding offsets to the kind of bureaucratic stalls that can delay progress. While Joseph Heller was inventing Catch 22 to identify the problem, Asimov was already onto the cure. Asimov's solution: a secret second foundation that works behind the scenes without bureaucracy to do the real work of making a difference. In my own research on how change happens in organizations, it is always the stealth activities that work best.
In a sense, any view of history would lead to the same conclusion -- that progress and regression will usually succeed one another in that order. That was the point of Toynbee's work on history. Asimov has made that point very elegantly here.
What I love about this book are the many brilliant philosophical perspectives woven into the story. I wish my philosophy classes had been this interesting!
The drawback of the book is that Asimov is not one to overly polish his writing. So it works, but lacks the beauty we normally associate with great books. Don't let that hold you back.
These ideas and concepts for dealing with them are among the most irresitible ever conceived of for thinking about our futures. As you read and enjoy this wonderful novel, be sure to consider what its lessons are for existing organizations, like the one your work for, the schools your children or grandchildren attend, the government, and volunteer organizations like the Red Cross. You'll be amazed how much more you will get from this book if you do. For this is really a management book, as well as a science fiction book.
This book has constantly inspired me. I hope it will do the same for you!
Rating:
Summary: asimov's best
Review: Asimov participated in American science fiction's golden age, helping to convert pulp fantasy stories into realistic predictions of the future based on current science. It is remarkable that he wrote the Foundation while a young man, barely 20 I believe, a work with grand themes and the cornerstone of his massive and sprawling future history of mankind, which I believe went into more than 50 volumes.The basic plot is that a scientists created a new discipline, psycho-statistics I believe, that could predict the future behavior of huge masses of humans. He then attempts to mold - or at least influence - man's fate over the next 30,000 years. What is truly amazing is that Asimov succeeds in these volumes. In a way, he should have stopped here with the series. The ideas are crisp and not yoked into a determined framework, so are fresh with lively characters. Later novels in the series feel more stilted, bound by concepts more than by a plain old good story. A sci fi classic.
Rating:
Summary: asimov's best
Review: Asimov participated in American science fiction's golden age, helping to convert pulp fantasy stories into realistic predictions of the future based on current science. It is remarkable that he wrote the Foundation while a young man, barely 20 I believe, a work with grand themes and the cornerstone of his massive and sprawling future history of mankind, which I believe went into more than 50 volumes. The basic plot is that a scientists created a new discipline, psycho-statistics I believe, that could predict the future behavior of huge masses of humans. He then attempts to mold - or at least influence - man's fate over the next 30,000 years. What is truly amazing is that Asimov succeeds in these volumes. In a way, he should have stopped here with the series. The ideas are crisp and not yoked into a determined framework, so are fresh with lively characters. Later novels in the series feel more stilted, bound by concepts more than by a plain old good story. A sci fi classic.
Rating:
Summary: Foundation Trilogy
Review: First of all up until I read the Foundation Trilogy back in 1986 I was not one for reading fiction, never mind Sci Fi. I bought the book, used, from a friend and one quiet weekend started to read it, I could not put it down, I was smitten by the Asimov bug. Read what ever reviews you wish but remember it is fiction,...Science Fiction and at the time of writing it was Isaac Asimov's, one persons, vision/opinion/thoughts of the future of mankind. As of a result of reading the Trilogy edition I now have most of his books and as to date have not been able to find another comparable author, although Arthur C Clarke has come close with his Rama series. Read it and I am sure the vast majority of you will thoroughly enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Way to Start Your SF Education
Review: Foundation owes its genesis to young Asimov reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As the author explains, he started thinking, what would happen if he described the fall of a GALACTIC Empire? Armed with a "science" of history known as psychohistory, Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell set about trying to describe the fall and rebirth of that mythic Empire. While the trilogy (and even the subsequent sequels) did not finish the 1,000-year cycle, enough was described to bring about some rather intriguing fiction. Asimov, of course, is fond of puzzles involving logic. While logic is rather hazy regarding human behavior (the "Laws of Psychohistory" are deliberately kept off-stage), the characters are nevertheless able to make guesses that fall within the expectations of said logic. The prime element in the resurrection of the Empire is, of course, Hari Seldon, the greatest psychohistorian in history. Seeing through his equations that the galaxy is about to fall into ruin, Seldon strives to create a "Foundation" which will preserve the wisdom of the old empire when the collapse comes. This Foundation will ensure that, instead of thousands of years of barbarism following the collapse, only 1,000 years will ensue. The Foundation begins harmlessly enough, as a scientific organization, designed to write the "Encyclopedia Galactica," a repository for all the galaxy's knowledge. However, as the Empire falls and the scientists of the Foundation are isolated by the barbarism on the galactic periphery (in a series of "Seldon Crises"), it becomes much more. That is the basic context of the first book in the series. Seldon also creates a "Second Foundation." The purpose of this organization, located at "Star's End," is to monitor the Seldon plan and make sure the First Foundation comes to no harm in its slow quest to restore the Empire. If some of this sounds vaguely like Star Wars, you wouldn't be far wrong. Much of that trilogy owes its existence to Asimov's work. The most blatant example is the planet Coruscant, which echoes Asimov's Trantor, the capital world of the Empire, which is an entire world-city. My favorite book in the Foundation series is Foundation and Empire, because they offer the most opportunity for action and challenge for the Foundation. As the series originally appeared as a series of short stories and novellas in Campbell's Astounding, the "novel" is really two stories. In the first story, the Foundation finds itself facing its first real threat--a strong Empire at the galactic core, with a strong general capable of defeating the Foundation. In the next contest, the Foundation comes up against a telepathic enemy known as "The Mule," who starts mucking about with the Foundation's path toward eventual Empire. The third book, Second Foundation, describes a search for the "Second Foundation." This search comes in earnest, after the setbacks the First Foundation faced in the second book. Asimov manages to end the stories well, and Asimov manages to keep the reader guessing. I really enjoyed the series when I read it in high school. The stories were great exercises in logic and managed to provide some sense of adventure. Looking back, I can see some "primitive" technological aspects of Asimov's "Future History," but that takes little away from the story. One innovation for this series was the invention of the pocket calculator (the stories appeared in the early '40s). Asimov took reluctant credit for the invention since, like Heinlein's water bed, he never thought of patenting it. This is actually an excellent, kid-friendly introduction to science fiction, as it presents a lot of mental puzzles and very little violence. Given the time it was written and Asimov's own literary tastes, it is rather free from violence, sex, or other "adult situations." There have been grander epics, but this is one of the first to appear in science fiction form. Read from the master, and learn.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, *epic* sci-fi that Lucas and chums are indebted to
Review: George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are famous for saying that the special effects in their movies are just to advance the action and it's the STORY that's the thing. Here's a writer who means it. Asimov's remarkable Foundation Trilogy is most remarkable in the way most of the drama happens "off-stage" so to speak. An empire falls, the Foundation expands, territories are conquered, dictators put to rest, all without anyone hardly firing a shot. Rather we get characters and situations that requiring thinking to get out of them. Yet this is no dry academic exercise in writing, but a page-turner all the way. The folks who write sci-fi today, especially in movies, could do well to take a look at how Asimov works his magic. Maybe we'd get more films of imagination and fewer that are all pyrotechnics. And maybe George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and others might someday produce something interesting again. The only reason for a rating lower than 10 is the fact that there is a curious emotional detatchment in the book. Some parts that should be highly emotional (Arkady's flight from the lord and lady) aren't. And we never get past many character's left brains to explore their right. But otherwise this book truly deserves the oft-abused word "classic." That is is out of print is simply unbelievable.
Rating:
Summary: INTERESTING READING MATERIAL
Review: I believe this is Asimov's best fiction. A story of the far future of our galaxy where a galactic empire is beginning to disintegrate. A man named Hari Seldon discovers the science of "psychohistory" (scientific 'prophecy' using mathematics and the law of large numbers as it relates to human behavior), and finds a way to minimize the decline. This plan requires the formation of a Foundation near the edge of the galaxy. The plot takes off from there. Once you start this work, you will have a hard time putting it down. I really believe George Lucas got some of his ideas for STAR WARS from this trilogy. --George Stancliffe
Rating:
Summary: INTERESTING READING MATERIAL
Review: I believe this is Asimov's best fiction. A story of the far future of our galaxy where a galactic empire is beginning to disintegrate. A man named Hari Seldon discovers the science of "psychohistory" (scientific 'prophecy' using mathematics and the law of large numbers as it relates to human behavior), and finds a way to minimize the decline. This plan requires the formation of a Foundation near the edge of the galaxy. The plot takes off from there. Once you start this work, you will have a hard time putting it down. I really believe George Lucas got some of his ideas for STAR WARS from this trilogy. --George Stancliffe
Rating:
Summary: Still holds up for all its flaws
Review: I first read this when I was about 13, and was very impressed--a galaxy-spanning Empire, thousands of years old? Space-ships that jump across the galaxy through hyperspace? Hand-held blasters as weapons? Hari Seldon, who could chart the future of the galaxy? Wow! It was good stuff. However, I when reread these novels many years later, flaws jumped out. Fatal flaws, actually. The first is that Seldon's "psychohistory" is utter nonsense. It is impossible, and always will be, to chart human behavior--especially the behavior of a quintillion or so people--through mathematical equations. The second is that Asimov is vague about the political and economic structure of the Empire. It appears to be aristocratic/feudal. That's really hard to believe, some 10,000 years in the future. Is it free-market? Is it totalitarian? And Asimov is rather vague about why it collapses...a dying of curiosity, a misallocation of resources...other things, none of them really specific, none of them really believable. Even when Asimov wrote these novels the evidence was overwhelming that what causes societies to collapse is the expansion of the State, i.e. of government. I guess he wasn't familiar with any of the many works on it. The history of the Roman Empire, upon which these novels are based, went from Republic to Empire to Dark Ages. But it collapsed because of the expansion of government and the resulting lack of freedom. Had Asimov written a more realistic trilogy, a Galactic Republic would have turned into a totalitarian Galactic Empire, then collapsed. In Europe's Dark Ages there were small groups of people (the Irish for one) who helped preserve knowledge (which actually, to a degree, is what happens with the Foundationa and the Second Foundation). But psychohistoric mathematical equations could play no part is charting the future history the the coming society. Asimov, to some degree, does stress the horrors of government expansion and the importance of freedom over false government "security." But it is so vague that I completely missed it as a teenager. And it is teenagers, generally speaking, who read science-fiction. Asimov could have done a better job, politically, historically, economically. But, even with all the flaws, it's still an absorbing read.
Rating:
Summary: The "War and Peace" of science fiction.
Review: I still remember being intimidated by this book when I was in grade school. You see, Asimov was what "smart people" read. I also remember the summer that I read the entire trilogy, it was the first time that I was completely immersed in a satisfying, intelligent, alternate reality.
Epic, is the only way to describe this opus. Starting in a Galactic Empire that is starting to slip into decline, then on to the monastic settlement of the Foundation and it's mission to preserve the best of the old civilization, then on to the recivilization of the ruins of the old Empire. If I recall correctly, it takes around 1000 years, but without the foundation it would have meant 10 times more chaos and darkness. It is the sense of mission and purpose that holds the whole thing together. And if you like mysteries and surprises, there is the matter of the Second Foundation....
Asimov wrote this when he was pretty young. He still had an unshakable faith that science could accomplish anything. Indeed, he saw a traditional clockwork universe that a sufficiently great mind, like Hari Seldon, could mathematically unlock. Later on in his writing Asimov matured- until he saw the galaxy itself as a living, evolving organism- a grand Gaia hypothesis.
One other thing, having grown up in New York, I think young Asimov saw himself as Hari Seldon in seeing a decadent and declining civilisation before anyone else. You know, he may just have been right....
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