As I read through Isaac Asimov‘s extended Foundation series this year, I’m understanding it more, bit by bit. I’ve committed myself not to look ahead even to get an overview of what the series entails, and I’m glad I’ve take this tack.

Now that I’ve completed Forward the Foundation—Book #10 of 15, the second official prequel, and his only posthumous publication in the series—I’ve got a much better understanding of what to expect. These last 5 books may not involve a robot war; they may not include be a return to Earth; they may not be supported by psychohistory; they may not pursue strength in government through telekinesis; but then again, they may be a mixture of all these things and more! I’m excited to find out.

Brief Book Summary

Eight years have passed since Prelude to Foundation, and all the main characters have returned—though most don’t make it out of this book alive. Even Eto Demerzel (an important character in other books) makes a brief cameo.

From the outset, the characters find themselves dealing with political intrigue on Trantor and throughout the galaxy, as they continue to research and perfect psychohistory. Corruption exists, leaders fall, and through it all, Hari Seldon keeps preaching the predictive results of psychohistory: that the Empire is doomed to failure. Few believe him (despite the evidence), and some even hate him for it, but Seldon sticks to his guns and his principles, and thankfully has a tight-knit circles of family and friends who support him throughout.

The Book within the Series

In his introduction to this book, Asimov disclosed his desire to craft a novel that made Hari Seldon appear more human—not that he otherwise seemed too robotic, I assume, but that in later books he appears too legendary. This novel certainly gets the point across, that Hari was in fact a man who struggled—he struggled with detractors and attackers, loss and sorrow, old age and fear that his life had been wasted. Asimov reveals most of these sentiments through dialogue (as was his way) so this book is again somewhat low on action. Part 2 contains some active sequences, but otherwise, it’s very dialogue-heavy.

The biggest shockers that help move the series forward for me were Seldon’s discussions of what he calls “a second foundation.” Although at this point, we don’t even know what the first foundation actually is, Seldon reveals more to Yugo and us in Part 4:

We will have one Foundation that will consist largely of physical scientists, who will preserve the knowledge of humanity and serve as the nucleus for the Second Empire. And there will be a Second Foundation of psychohistorians only—mentalists, mind-touching psychohistorians—who will be able to work on psychohistory in a multi-minded way, advancing it far more quickly than individual thinkers ever could. They will serve as a group who will introduce fine adjustments as time goes on, you see. Ever in the background, watching. They will be the Empire’s guardians. (451)

What I gather is that psychohistory predicts the fall of the Empire as they now know it, and someone younger than Seldon will have to be there to help pick up the pieces. Folks like Seldon’s granddaughter Wanda (who happens to have a developing power of telekinesis not dissimilar to what the robot Giskard had in The Robots of Dawn) and her friends and perhaps even Demerzel will help guide the heroes from the background, and maybe they’ll do so from Earth.

Those at least are my new guesses, based on what I’ve gathered from this book. I’ll be interested to see how right or wrong I am!

Conclusion

Next up for me is (finally) the book that started it all, Foundation (1951). This is going to be old-school Asimov, so I won’t expect much action, but I will expect engaging storylines, and I look forward to getting even more of my questions answered while being entertained along the way.

©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)