A Little Patience Goes a Long Way
I open the review with this remark for two reasons. First, this is the first Foundation novel I ever picked up (sometime last year), yet I never read it. As I was about to begin but stopped reading once I came across a list that Asimov himself offered in his Author’s Note which extended the series much more broadly than was first accepted. Asimov writes in the “Author’s Note”:
When I wrote “Foundation,” which appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, I had no idea that I had begun a series of stories that would eventually grow into six volumes and a total of 650,000 words (so far). Nor did I have any idea that it would be unified with my series of short stories and novels involving robots and my novels involving the Galactic Empire for a grand total (so far) of fourteen volumes and a total of about 1,450,000 words.
The 14 titles he mentions here were only expanded by one more following his death in 1992 with Forward the Foundation (1993)—the 10th and next book in the series chronologically. It’s confusing, so I’ll post the full list at the end with both publication their dates and their dates within the story.
The second reason patience pays off is that this book, Prelude to Foundation, is the best book in the series thus far and thankfully so! Several of the preceding options were so boring I was moderately tempted to give up! Yet this story written later in Asimov’s career is filled with action, lively characters in new places, and most importantly answers!
A Quick Summary
A little more than 11,000 years after Pebble in the Sky, we’re introduced to Hari Seldon, a mathematician who’s just introduced a theory that could change the course of human history: psychohistory, which proposes that futures can be predicted and determined following mathematical equations. Once Emperor Cleon I shows interest, Seldon is cast into a world of political intrigue and must run throughout the galaxy in order both to further his research and to protect himself from those who want to kidnap him for his ideas.
He visits a number of interesting if not important locations like Trantor, the Mycogen Sector, the Dahl Sector, and the Wye Sector. Along the way, he’s also matched with long-term characters like Chetter Hummin and Dors on Trantor and Yugo Amaryl and Raych on Dahl. I’ve already begun Forward the Foundation, so I know that each of them plays an important role at least in what comes next
Some Favorite Elements
Asimov’s ability to describe settings must have improved over the years, because I now have vivid images of each of these planets fixed in my mind. I particularly liked the scene of Hari atop the domes of Trantor, lost amid the trees growing sporadically in the crevasses and “chased” by ship from above. Raych’s Billibotton neighborhood on the Dahl Sector is just as clear.
The action involved in scenes like these also set this book apart from the rest, which have depended far more on dialogue and intrigue than adventure. Dors shows off her skills with a knife and proves to be a strong protector for Hari.
I loved how disgusted the Mycogenians were are Hari’s “cephalic hair”—and it made me laugh, Asimov’s choice to name him “Hari.” I also loved this little exchange between with Dors when Hari asks:
“Earth? Is that what they call the supposed world of origin?”
“That’s a popular name for it, though there’s no way of telling what it was called, assuming there was one. And no one has any clue to what its location might be.”
“Earth!” said Seldon, curling his lips. “It sounds like a belch to me.” (Chapter 48)
I’m not entirely sure I gather what “the hands on the thigh story” means, other than social mores change depending on the circumstances. How this supposedly plays a big role in psychohistory and the future of the galaxy, I didn’t quite gather either. Nevertheless, this book moved the series forward far more than I’d anticipated. Huge questions were answered in the final pages, answers I honestly wasn’t expecting. I was pleasantly surprised.
Conclusion
This is the best book to date, and honestly, it would be a fine place for readers to start, if they don’t want to backtrack through eight other novels that sort of lay the groundwork for Foundation. Watching the rise of the robots ways back in 1996 with Susan Calvin (The Complete Robot) and meeting the characters that populated the galaxy over the next 23,000 years was certainly beneficial in helping me better understand the universe in which Foundation takes place, but I don’t think they were utterly necessary.
Next up: Forward the Foundation (1993). See you there!
©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)