Read this as a "buddy read" with Areg but I didn't enjoy it quite as much as he did. While I found the concept fascinating and was initially interested in the world building, I ultimately struggled to stick with the story because of:
>> lack of continuing characters
>> recurring character types that basically felt like the same character over and over
>> skepticism with the details of the overall concept.

In the far future, one unified intergalactic human Empire extends across basically all of known space. Hari Seldon, an expert in the fascinating and plausible but ultimately (in my opinion) implausibly minutely accurate field of psychohistory. In the grand scheme of things, he predicts that the Empire, whose innovation has stagnated, is about to fall, forget everything it knows about technology, and will be in chaos for the next ten thousand plus years; with a few nudges in the right direction and a team of encyclopedists on a remote outer planet to record extant human knowledge, he's confident he can get that down to just about a thousand years. In the small scheme of things, he can predict and manipulate the political machinations on the Empire's capital planet to kick off his long-term rescue mission.

So far, so good on the concept. I loved the world building in the first section, in which a statistician travels to the Empire's capital to join Seldon's team, takes a little time to explore the futuristic city-enveloped planet, and finds himself an unwitting pawn in Seldon's machinations. I didn't even mind that we quickly jump 50 years into the future to see how Seldon's planet of encyclopedists are getting along and to meet Salvor Hardin, who's going to bring practical local politics to the attention of the scholarly and impractical encyclopedists.

My interests started flagging, however, when details of life on Terminus are so scant. Foundation is a novel of ideas, and while those ideas are certainly fascinating, I wanted to know more about life on the edge of the galaxies. I also just never bought into the concept that the Empire could collapse, totally forget how to maintain its nuclear power facilities, and build replacement coal factories all in the space of 50 to 100 years...

...because Asimov's book is also one of scale, for all it is slim. After our establishing shots on the comparatively well-developed capital planet of the Empire, we jump ahead first 50, then 70 (80?), then about 100/150 (it's unspecified) years from that point. At 50 and 70 years we see Hardin dealing with a pair of "Seldon crises", specific moments in time that Seldon predicted down to the day when Terminus faces the possibility of complete annihilation or a single path of survival. Each time, a witty and canny man faces off against the enemy and outsmarts and outmaneuvers them. It's fun seeing this happen each time, but the men all seem nearly identical in personality, so it starts feeling old--even if it is kind of fun to have an optimistic scifi situation where our protagonists come out on top each time.

I do admire Asimov's economy in world building the four nearest planets to Terminus, which ultimately felt more established, culturally, than Terminus itself.

My biggest problem with Foundation was suspending disbelief enough to accept that planets in a nuclear-powered empire tens if not hundreds of millennia in the making, in the span of only 50 years forget how nuclear power works to the point that they accept the Foundation representatives who show up to reintroduce them to nuclear power as powerful priests. Yes, in 50 years science has become magic. Seldon established the Foundation to maintain the Empire's level of civilization and this is done not by maintaining knowledge, but by building an elaborate religion of gatekeeping that keeps the nearby planets in a state of dependent barbarism. ("Civilization" and "barbarism" are Asimov's word choices.) Ultimately, by the end of the book this religion falls in favor of free trade. Presumably the other books in the series will work their way through other methods by which the Foundation controls the dissemination of advanced knowledge beyond the four nearest planets. There's also a hint that there's a second Foundation on the other side of the universe, and they will at some point meet, compare notes, and probably clash.

Asimov has plenty to say about psychology, history, and politics that do feel very relevant today and, therefore, suggest that there might really be something to this idea of psychohistory. It's basically an elaborate theory, backed up by statistics (that Asimov wisely does not delve into), of the adage that history repeats itself. For the sake of the story, I'm willing to go along with the fantasy that Seldon is capable of using psychohistory to predict the future down to the day--though this is going to get more and more incredible as time goes on.

So, positives: interesting concept of psychohistory, efficient world building of some planets and cultures, optimistic good guys who don't die (a nice break from the bleak futures popular in newer books), witty and clever main characters, engaging conversations between characters.

Negatives: comparatively weak world building of our central encyclopedia-compiling Foundation's planet and culture, main characters who feel like one character repeated, and a frankly incredible idea that in 50 years science can be forgotten and become a religion. Oh, and there's not a single interesting woman in here, everyone reads as white with a presumably Euro/western culture, and our ideas of money and capitalism still stand. Apparently in hundreds of millennia we humans can advance technologically but not socially, culturally, or economically.

In conclusion, there is much that impressed me about Asimov’s Foundation: ideas, dialogue, efficiency. But I’m a person of character, a diversity of personalities, and sprawling, complex worldbuilding, and this book just didn’t deliver on those counts. Still, totally worth reading for the fascinating conversations I’ve had with my husband about the idea of psychohistory.

Quote Roundup

Most of these spoke to me of the present political moment. I’ve included spoiler tags on later quotes, but they really only give hints about the plot.

p. 36) "The fall of Empire, gentlemen...is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity..."

p. 40) "None of the quadrillions living now among all the stars in the Galaxy will be living a century from now. Why, then, should we concern ourselves with events of three centuries distance?"
"I shall not be alive half a decade hence," said Seldon," and yet it is of overpowering concern to me. Call it idealism. Call it an identification of myself with that mystical generalization to which we refer by the term, 'humanity.'"

p. 71) "I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing--I went into politics. It's practically the same thing."

p. 84) "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. But I certainly don't intend to lay down the welcome mat and brush off the best furniture for their use."

p. 87-88) Hardin rails against the idea of the encyclopedia, saying that the worship of classified knowledge is stagnating innovation. Much as I love classification for its usefulness, I do agree--and find the idea that a humans would stop exploring, questioning, and innovating a bit hard to believe. I think a certain level of curiosity is embedded in us--why else do so many children ask "why"? This curiosity gets stamped out of most of us, but the examples given in Foundation just don't seem credible to me.

p. 157-163) Our current clever guy at the Foundation claims that the commoners believe so strongly in the divine right of kingship that they will rebel if their king does something that seems to go against the divinity by which they rule--the divinity, in this case, being the Foundation, which owns nuclear science. Given how often in our own history--Kings John, Henry VIII, and beheaded King Charles come most quickly to mind--divine right has been subverted and life has gone on without any kind of peasant uprising, I find this hard to believe.

p. 184) Why one planet resists nuclear trade with the Foundation: "It's a form of ancestor worship. Their traditions tell of an evil past from which they were saved by the simple and virtuous heroes of the past generations. It amounts to a distortion of the anarchic period a century ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent government was set up. Advanced science and nuclear power in particular became identified with the old imperial regime they remember with horror."

p. 230) “My people will not take commerce which carries with it a compulsory religion. . . . So it has always been in effect. Surely you remember the case of Askone twenty years ago. First they were sold some of your goods and then your people asked for complete freedom of missionary effort in order that the goods might be run properly, that Temples of Health be set up. There was then the establishment of religious schools; autonomous rights for all officers of the religion and with what result? Askone is now an integral member of the Foundation’s system and the Grand Master cannot call his underwear his own.”
I love how the Foundation allows all of this to be optional. I guess it’s because they’re intellectuals without nuclear weapons, because I just remember all the times in our history when religion has been forced on decimated populations. And remember that in Asimov’s fictional case, this “religion” has been constructed to reintroduce technology while also holding it hostage, giving just enough information on how to use it that local populations can buy and become dependent on it without learning for themselves how to make or maintain this technology—which, again, to me, seems to entirely miss the Foundation’s supposed goal of keeping knowledge alive. But then there’s this response:
“I’m a Master Trader. Money is my religion.”
So I guess Asimov is arriving at something like our current world. Wonder if that’s how it seemed to him in 1951, because in comparison to these days, that’s kind of hilarious.

p. 268) “Now any dogma, primarily based on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.”
Asimov isn’t very subtle with his ideas. Not sure how much I mind, though, as he does seem to do a good job of sprinkling them naturally into conversations that don’t feel stilted. That’s a pretty impressive balancing act.

p. 293) “Arbitrary rulers throughout history have bartered their subjects’ welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and conquest. But it’s still the little things in life that count—and Asper Argo won’t stand up against the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years.”

I want to close with a comment on the length of this book, which I enjoyed: at about 300 pages, it was ideal for dipping my toes in without committing to a giant series. I admit, I’m hesitant with giant books and series these days—why commit to something so massive when there are so many books to read? And looking at books like Paolini’s To Sleep In a Sea of Stars and Stephenson’s Fall, I can’t help but wonder if, were this book published today, the entire series would be crammed into one massive volume. There isn’t much of an end—just the wrap-up to the latest Seldon Crisis, which at least doesn’t leave us on a cliffhanger (thank you!). I work in publishing, but I wish I knew more about the economics of one giant book vs. a more serialized work. The latter seems like a better idea to me, as it readers like myself might be more likely to give a shorter book a try, and then some of them would get hooked on the next few books in the series, and multiple smaller prices would ultimately add up to more than the cost of one giant book. In contrast, it seems like a doorstopper could put off potential readers and even be a form of gatekeeping, as some readers can’t afford to put down the higher cost for one big fat volume than they might for multiple slimmer volumes spread out over time. But what do I know? I’m in metadata/digital marketing, not finance. *shrugs* ( )

Premetto che non amo i prequel.
E i sequel.
Tutte le volte avverto un fastidioso cambio di marcia rispetto alla narrazione originale, una scrittura per così dire "annacquata", che si dilunga in descrizioni e ripetizioni inutili.
Detto questo, non ho resistito alla tentazione di avere tutto il ciclo della Fondazione in un unico libro, anche se purtroppo ho trovato diversi refusi e parti tradotte male (probabilmente il lavoro di correttore di bozze non esiste più).
Quindi 3 stelle a questa edizione e 4 stelle al ciclo della Fondazione, che per me rimarrà sempre quello composto dai racconti originali scritti da Asimov negli anni '50. ( )

Very Good series by Asimov.Must read for every Si-Fi fan.