Now that the Foundation show on AppleTV+ is finally on the horizon (sometime in September) I thought I should read the books again. It’s been around 30 years since I read them for the first time with it being probably my first SciFi book ever. After all this time I only remembered the name Hari Seldon and that the story was spanning a really long time-frame.
The story of the first book released in 1951 takes place at the end of the life-span of a galaxy-spanning empire. Hari Seldon is a mathematician that has worked out the demise of the empire and the future for at least the next millennium based on a science called “psychohistory”. Once confronted by the ruling class with Seldon’s findings they ban him and his followers to a planet at the outer rim of the galaxy where they can continue their work on saving humanity in an organization called “Foundation”… for the next generations.
What has fascinated 30 years ago and now is the time that Asimov manages to cover in less than 300 pages while still building a universe that feels alive. Sure, there are some aspects that are not “modern” anymore like the focus on atomic power and the use of paper everywhere but that doesn’t take anything away from the otherwise amazing story. Keep in mind, though, that this is just the first book of a series that became known as “The Foundation Trilogy”. So I still have two more books to read for the original story and then four more for the complete series.
OK, let’s be realistic: Two more books to go before I can watch the show 😅
Over the years I've written quite a few reviews 🙂 You can find them at /reviews/.
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