If you’ve been tracking my long walk through Isaac Asimov‘s extended Foundation series, you know that I’ve no idea where things are headed—and I also haven’t been cheating by looking ahead. This book provided me no clues, and I found it eminently boring.

The Plot – Rough Overview

Set in A.D. 11129—the last novel before the beginning of the Galactic Era—this book follows Rik, an amnesiac on Florina who knows he’s got a warning to issue to the planet, but he can’t remember what it is. Florina is the only planet in the galaxy that that can produce kyrt, an insanely expensive fabric worn by only the wealthiest and whose trade is controlled by a neighboring planet called Sark. Ultimately, his warning is one of impending doom for the planet, and Rik, along with his peasant girlfriend Valona, needs to navigate those who want to help and those who want to exploit the disaster.

The Book’s Place in the Series

This is the 7th book in Asimov’s own list for the Foundation series (pasted at the end of this post), a list which he provided in the introduction to Prelude to Foundation and which made me stop reading and go back to the beginning, The Complete Robot. As such, The Currents of Space is backed by 6 books and followed by 8 more. The first 5 books were all about Robots, their progress and spread across the universe. The Stars Like Dust moved away from Robots, and I don’t know why. And once again, here we’re Robot-free.

As I’ve tried to guess the direction of Foundation as a series, I’ve most often assumed that Robots would eventually achieve full autonomy, consider themselves human, and fight back against the humans who disagree—essentially that all these books are setting the stage for a galactic Robot-Human war. Yet suddenly, Robots are obsolete, and I’m lost. I probably sound like an idiot at this point (“Just be patient, Moron…”), but I’m also just sharing what’s going through my head: Where have all the Robots gone!?

There was one line in the book that described the planet Trantor as “the only regrettable option for lasting galactic peace.” I assume this is important, since lasting galactic peace is clearly the goal of all humanity (and Robots too, one would hope).

Why I Found It So Boring

First off, I felt like the book contained too much thinly-veiled political commentary from the 1950s. This element is the same reason I’ve never gotten into Dune, that Frank Herbert styled his entire series off the contemporary politics and issues of his day. I’m too unaware of early ’60s politics even to notice perhaps, but the idea has always turned me off from even trying to read those fan-favorite books. I like a good yarn, I guess, way more than political commentary in my sci-fi novels. I’m surprised this is the first time it’s come up in my Asimov reviews!

Second, the story was a classic Asimov in that its pacing was incredibly slow. The plot was revealed way more through dialogue than though action, and if you the reader space out whilst reading, you’re liable to miss something about a distant planet or a character (all of whose names are super oddly spelled) that helps make the plot make sense in the end. I must have spaced out a lot in this one.

I need more action in my books—and Asimov is apparently not the go-to author for action!

Conclusion

I’m rating this book low, but that doesn’t mean I’m stopping the series. I look forward to seeing where it all leads, and to finally finding out why he started with 5 books about Robots! Next up: Pebbles in the Sky.

©2025 E.T.

Read More from Isaac Asimov:

• The Extended Foundation Series:
  1. The Complete Robot (1982) [A.D. 1995]
  2. The Caves of Steel (1954) [A.D. 3421]
  3. The Naked Sun (1957) [A.D. 3422]
  4. The Robots of Dawn (1983) [A.D. 3424]
  5. Robots and Empire (1985) [A.D. 3630]
  6. The Stars Like Dust (1951) [A.D. 4850]
  7. The Currents of Space (1952) [A.D. 11129]
  8. Pebble in the Sky (1955) [A.D. 12411 or 827 G.E.]
  9. Prelude to Foundation (1988) [12020 G.E.]
  10. Forward the Foundation (1993) [12038 G.E.]
  11. Foundation (1951) [12067 G.E.]
  12. Foundation and Empire (1952) [13800 G.E.]
  13. Second Foundation (1953) [13850 G.E.]
  14. Foundation’s Edge (1982) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
  15. Foundation and Earth (1986) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
• Short Story Collections:
  I, Robot (1950)
  Buy Jupiter (1975)
  Gold (1995)
  Eight Stories from the Rest of the Robots (1964)
• Other Novels:
  Fantastic Voyage (1966)