Foundation and Earth - Isaac Asimov

...never read any of the Foundation books then, given that I remember them being in there. Maybe something to do with the old-school cover art, which, quite frankly, bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to the content and makes it all look a bit... what's the word? Dull.

Recently, however, I took it upon myself to read the Foundation books and, more recently, I've finished Foundation and Earth, the fifth book in the series (in release ...
...four books leading up to Foundation and Earth without giving you something that'll take sixteen years to read!

The Foundation trilogy begins with the story of Hari Seldon, a man who develops the science of Psychohistory, which is a mathematical method of predicting the future based on the combined actions of very large groups of people. It's a statistical science that allows him to predict the previously unforeseen fall of the Galactic ... more

When I was a kid I always had a pile of my parents' books under the shelving in my room. Some of it wasn't exactly the sort of stuff you wanted to get caught reading as a kid – The Joy of Sex, anyone? - but there were some good things in there. For instance, I discovered Frank Herbert's epic Dune in that pile.

It surprises me a bit that I'd never read any of the Foundation books then, given that I remember them being in there. Maybe something to do with the old-school cover art, which, quite frankly, bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to the content and makes it all look a bit... what's the word? Dull.

Recently, however, I took it upon myself to read the Foundation books and, more recently, I've finished Foundation and Earth, the fifth book in the series (in release order, not chronological; there're a further two books that preclude the other five).

For those who've never come across any of these books before, I'll try to summarise the four books leading up to Foundation and Earth without giving you something that'll take sixteen years to read!

The Foundation trilogy begins with the story of Hari Seldon, a man who develops the science of Psychohistory, which is a mathematical method of predicting the future based on the combined actions of very large groups of people. It's a statistical science that allows him to predict the previously unforeseen fall of the Galactic Empire. He convinces the powers that be to allow him to set up two Foundations, at opposite ends of the galaxy, charged with the job of compiling an Encyclopedia Galactica – a vast store of the accumulated knowledge of humanity.

A number of major events, known as Seldon Events, take place during the next couple of hundred years and they in their own way lead to the expansion of the Foundation's territories into its neighbouring kingdoms. Then, along comes the Mule. Psychohistory is limited in that it is unable to predict the actions of individuals, so when a mutant comes along, with the power to control people's emotions, the Seldon Plan, as it is known, begins to fall apart.

These events broadly lead to the appearance of the Second Foundation. (Remember there were two set up originally? One of them goes unmentioned for quite some time.) The First Foundation are essentially there to hide the fact that the real future of the galaxy is actually the Second Foundation, a group who have developed the ability to control emotions. They were due to sit in the background until the right moment, but the appearance of the Mule means they must appear early to put things right.

The appearance of the Second Foundation puts the people of the First Foundation on edge, because they don't like the idea of being controlled, so they send out a search party to find them and put an end to all this. Foundation's Edge describes the events that lead up to a decision made by one man, Golan Trevize, which will lead directly to a future for the galaxy that's very different to anything yet conceived.

Very briefly put, that future involves the merging of all conscience and matter in the galaxy to form Galaxia. That may need some explanation: In Foundation's Edge, Trevize and his friend Janov Pelorat arrive on a world known as Gaia. Gaia is effectively a super-organism forming a collective conscience that is made up of everything on the planet, including the planet itself. Everything works in balance to maintain an existence that approximates perfect synergy. Trevize was held as the only person that could decide truly whether the galaxy should indeed enter another stage of Empire, or whether it should move in a new direction, one which involves the expansion of the principals of Gaia to encompass the entire Galaxy. He was chosen for his ability to always make the right choice based on incomplete data; a kind of unconscious prescience.

So, that's an incredibly short summary of the books that lead up to Foundation and Earth, but it should serve to give you an idea of where things started.

Asimov wrote the original Foundation trilogy in the late 40's, when science fiction was very much still in the stages of a mechanical future. Digital electronics hadn't really been properly conceived of, and the writing style of much science fiction, and very notably Asimov, was still rather quaint.

The two books that followed were written more than 30 years later, so the style of writing has moved on a bit and the ideas present are a little more advanced.

Foundation and Earth picks up exactly where Foundation's Edge finishes, with Trevize deliberating over whether he made the right choice as to the future of the galaxy, which was, as we know, Galaxia: the galactic collective conscience that encompasses all matter contained therein. To its credit, the beginning of the book doesn't expend too much time explaining what's happened before (unlike this review), despite the fact that in the foreword Asimov does state that the book should work perfectly well on its own, with no requirement for the reader to have read the previous books.

In his uncertainty, Trevize decides he must continue his search for the planet of origin; the search which led Pelorat and him to Gaia in the first place. He's certain that if he can find Earth, he will discover something that will either confirm or deny the validity of his decision. Trevize is a space veteran, and he has a gravitic ship: one that has engines that draw on the background gravity present within the galaxy (no inertia; much more accurate hyperspatial travel). Pelorat is a historian who has spent his life researching myths and legends concerning Earth.

They leave Gaia to begin their search, and because the future of the galaxy involves the expansion of the concept of Gaia, a part of Gaia must go with them. That part of Gaia comes in the form of Bliss: an attractive young lady who has become very fond of Pelorat in the short time they've known each other. Bliss is an individual, but as a part of Gaia she also shares her thoughts, feelings, and general conscience with the rest of Gaia. This makes Trevize uneasy and he's not shy of showing it.

The trio set off towards Comporellon, a planet from whence a man came who betrayed Trevize in one of the earlier stories. Trevize feels that he'll be able to find information there that will help point him in the correct direction for Earth.

On Comporellon our intrepid travellers are allowed to land following some slightly crafty conversation on Trevize's part with the space-station based equivalent of a border control officer. On landing, however, they're immediately taken to the offices of a government official who has been charged with confiscating their ship. It seems the Foundation want it back, despite them having given it to Trevize in the first place. There is a reason for this but it doesn't need explaining here (read the books!).

They're taken to the transport minister, a formidable lady who presents them with no illusions as to her absolute intention of taking the ship as she's been directed. Trevize, with his undeniable ability to labour a point until it goes in his favour, eventually manages to convince the minister to let them go. Largely by sleeping with her, but that's only part of it.

Our little group of (extra-)globe trotters sets off from Comporellon with a little extra knowledge concerning their intended destination, courtesy of a scholar they meet via the minister. On Comporellon it's considered bad luck to talk about Earth, or even mention the name, but due to the minister's developed sense of appreciation for Trevize, she points them in the direction of one who would know.

This next bit might seem a little tangential, so bear with me. The story goes that humans first set out from Earth in two waves. The first wave (Spacers, as they're known) settled on 50 worlds and went about effectively taking over the galaxy, but relations with the mother world turned bad. Eventually a second wave (Settlers, as they're known) left and settled other worlds. They were stronger, and eventually overcame the first wave. This is actually discussed in detail later in the book, but for the purposes of this review it makes more sense to talk about it now.

The merry band's next destination, then, is the first of the worlds they find at the coordinates given by the scholar they met on Comporellon. It should be noted that these worlds aren't in the galactic map held by their ship's computer, which is explained in much detail in the text. This world yields very little, except for confirmation that robots do indeed exist. (To explain that would take a long time. Needless to say, for those who don't know, Asimov wrote the book on robotics. Literally. And until this point in these books, the characters had never seen the reality behind what they thought must have been nothing more than myth or legend.) They also nearly get killed by dogs, but there's so little relevance or actual need for the dogs that they may as well be killer flowers for all the good it did.

They then head off to the second of the two worlds, where they find a planet inhabited by the hermaphroditic evolutionary next step. They kill one and inherit a young hermaphrodite as a fourth travelling companion. The point of this experience is that the team realise that life in complete isolation from other people is a terrible thing. Fallom, the young hermaphrodite, plays a fairly limited part in the book, aside from dubiously saving everyone's lives, but that could have been done by anyone. Fallom serves simply as another cause of irritation for Trevize, which is a very recurring theme.

The third of the hidden worlds is all but dead. They find information that leads them to the location of Alpha, So they move on.

Our team then end up on Alpha, which, probably unsurprisingly, is Alpha Centauri. Some things happen; they move on to Earth.

Now, there are a couple of reasons for my fairly nonchalant skipping to the end there. First and foremost, I don't want to tell you the whole story, because I think you should read it. The reason, however, that I think you should read it is nothing to do with thinking this book is good, because I don't. I really wish I did. The reason I think you should read this is because if you ever think of or are writing a book, this would serve as a stark reminder of the problems with publishers. They ask for things that, often, writers don't really want to do. The other reason is actually just the first reason again, but I think it's relevant to mention it twice because it is two reasons in reality.

I won't beat about the bush: I don't like this book. I think Mr. Asimov should have left the Foundation series alone here. I haven't read the prequels yet, and I don't doubt that they might be okay, but I view this book as a bit of a travesty. The dialogue is extended beyond reasonable limits and laboured to the extreme, and, given the foreword, in which old Isaac tells us that he was asked to write how ever many thousands of words, the only conclusion I can come to is that he didn't really know what to write, so he wrote filler. I read a brief article earlier in which his wife stated after his death that the reason he went onto prequels was because he didn't know where to go next, which only really supports my view there I think.

I really enjoyed the trilogy, which is in no small part down to the archaic science fiction writing style. It's not limited to that though. It's also because they were forerunners. They formed, very arguably, the first sci-fi saga novels, and I just don't think this was good enough to follow that.

I do feel this deserves a deeper explanation, so I'll give one. First of all, I think the story line was weak. When Asimov wrote the first books he was ahead of his time. The invention of a new style of writing sci-fi was enough to carry the first books in a time when it really was a fantastical idea, but by the time he wrote these follow-ups, he was up against a much more developed genre and really needed to come up with something special. An impressive legacy isn't enough to make an impressive sequel.

What's more, a very large majority of the book feels like filler. It's 510 pages in length and so much of that is taken up with Trevize explaining things to Pelorat. It's a fairly standard literary tool to use two characters with differing levels of understanding on given matters, allowing the author to have the more knowledgeable character explaining things to the less knowledgeable, but Trevize spends so much time explaining things it gets boring. Pelorat, who is supposed to be a charming, affable old chap, is condescended to on so many occasions that as a reader I found myself thinking he must just be stupid to need so many things explaining.

Which brings me to the way the characters come across. Trevize always was a bit arrogant, but in the earlier books it was amusing. In Foundation and Earth, however, it's annoying. He comes across as a truly arrogant, patronising and irritating individual. Pelorat, by turns, is annoying if for no other reason than that he seems to encourage that. His constant submission to Trevize's all but constant verbal battering of all the other characters is weak and upsetting. Bliss is a calming influence on the story and at times her apparent thought processes are quite amusing, but she's overpowered really by Trevize. Fallom doesn't really do much until the very end, when she's suddenly taken on board in an important but too late manner.

In summary, I'd recommend reading the book if you've read the rest of the series and want some more information, but I found it to be a bit of a let-down all said and done, and it has slightly tainted my view of the Foundation series as a whole. The moral of the story is that sometimes it is okay to quit while you're ahead.

Thanks for reading (assuming you didn't skip to the end!). 

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