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Fiction Review CriteriaV1
C1 PLOT
C2 SETTING
C3 PERSPECTIVE
C4 STYLE
C5 CHARACTERS
C6 THEME
C7 ORIGINALITY
C8 IMPRESSIONS
C9 IMMERSION
Full explanation of the Fiction Review CriteriaV1 can be found here.
Review Summary
Foundation was first published in 1951 and is the first book in a series of books following the humanity in a distant future, over the course of hundreds of years, as it grapples with conflict and uncertainty. Foundation begins at the end of a prosperous Galactic Empire which ruled supreme for thousands of years. The first book of the series focuses on the pioneer of a prescient field of psychohistory, Hari Seldon, and his efforts to establish societal enclaves with the sole purpose of preserving knowledge in order to save humanity.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Foundation plot is very interesting and dynamic — the first book covers the basics of psychohistory, ending of an empire, and the Foundation‘s three so-called Seldon crises, or major branching points in the Foundation‘s timeline marked by events essential to its survival. Asimov provides vivid descriptions of the planets and cities, such as ecumenopolis Trantor and desolate planets like Terminus. Predominantly driven by dialogues, Foundation covers the span of 150 years from the inception of the plan through psychohistory by Hari Seldon, through masterful foreign affairs by Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Foundation‘s progression tracks cultural shifts in its inhabitants from cataloguers of Encyclopedia Galactica to the nuclear engineering priests, and trading magicians, all while examining somewhat complex themes of politics, conflict, and drive for survival. I highly recommend this book to any fan of science fiction. While some of its aspects are clearly indicative of a time it was written in, i.e., pervasiveness of smoking among the characters, the underlying threads of social dynamics make this a timeless piece.
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
This international paperback edition by Harper Collins printed in 2016 features an illustration of a spacecraft in what appears to be a sling-shot acceleration around a star. This is an edition of the book I own and would recommend.
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
This media tie-in paperback edition by Del Rey printed in 2021 features a shot from the Apple TV original series Foundation, in which a person can be seen looking at the vault, presumably on Terminus.
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
This US paperback edition by Del Rey printed in 2008 features a geometric pattern dot/line art. Similar cover can be found on the mass-market paperback editions.
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
This is an unabridged audiobook on Audible.com (purchasable through Amazon.com) narrated by Scott Brick. The length of this audio is 8 hours and 37 minutes.
Detailed Review
C1 PLOT
There are several key plot points that take place in the first novel of the series. The two most important ones, and ones that thread through the entire series are the introduction of psychohistory and the establishment of the Foundation. Psychohistory is a precise and quantitative scientific field developed by Hari Seldon, a mathematician at Sterling University on the planet Trantor. It is an algorithmic science used to predict future events with relatively high confidence. It is exactly this concept of psychohistory that gives the Foundation a unique angle and captivates the audience. The establishment of the Foundation on the planet Terminus is essentially a compromise with the emperor, and its initial function is to aggregate and preserve knowledge, in order to shorten the coming dark age. The Foundations goes on to become a beacon of hope in the otherwise dreadful imperial decline.
Briefly, the Foundation is composed of five independently published short stories: The Psychohistorians, The Encyclopedists, The Mayors, The Traders, and The Merchant Princes. The Psychohistorians sets up the premise, introduces the concept of psychohistory, establishes the Foundation on Terminus, and provides a somewhat exposition-heavy, but necessary opening for the series. The Encyclopedists introduces one of the protagonists of the novel, Salvor Hardin, and his political acumen in convincing the three kingdoms to receive nuclear technology from Terminus, making Encyclopedists an indispensable asset for the kingdoms. The Mayors focuses on the kingdom of Anacreon launching a direct military assault against Terminus, but Salvor Hardin successfully leverages his wit and prowess to thwart the attack and establish dominance in Anacreon. The Traders shifts focus on Limmary Ponyets, who manages to take advantage of Pherl’s naivete and free Gorov from his untimely death on Askone. The Merchant Princes shifts the focus yet again on Hober Mallow, and his political ascent to the Mayor seat, as he deals with Korellian secret agents.
Strong points of the plot include political manipulation and games, grand historical progression, and exploration of power dynamics. The book showcases Asimov’s skill in depicting political maneuvering. For example, Salvor Hardin’s clever use of religion and trade to outwit the Four Kingdoms, pitting them against each other in order to prevent them from gaining tactical advantage and control over Terminus. Despite being a relatively short book, Asimov manages to develop a sense of grand historical progression – we see the Foundation evolve from a simple and vulnerable outpost to a regional power player.
Foundation is essentially a collection of previously published short stories, which contributes to its obvious, highly episodic structure. Each of the stories were published separately, with significant time jumps between them. This, in part, creates a somewhat fragmented and disjointed narrative, lacking an obvious plot line and central protagonist to follow throughout. I personally find this to be a positive aspect of the novel, as it sets it apart from similar science fiction works and also contributes to the world building. Or, I should say, timeline building? Due to this very nature, characters also appear and disappear abruptly, and a lot of them are somewhat unidimensional, but I will talk more about that in the section dedicated to characters.
Psychohistory, while and interesting concept, sometimes comes across as a sort of a plot crutch, representing a convenient way to explain events and predict outcomes, contributing to a feeling that protagonists’ successes are somewhat predetermined or not quite earned. I argue that it represents a literary device that, despite setting particular expectations, can actually mislead the reader intentionally and thus amplify the feeling of surprise and satisfaction with, what seems to be fairly common for Asimov, plot twists. However, the Foundation has been criticized for featuring abrupt resolutions.
C2 SETTING
The setting of Foundation is a vast galactic empire, a civilization stretching across many sectors of the galaxy and on a brink of collapse. The Galactic Empire encompasses millions of inhabited worlds and trillions of people, giving Asimove space to explore the grand themes, such as the establishment, development, and fall of societies and cultures. While not unique to Asimov, the idea of a single, galaxy-spanning empire is a compelling concept allowing interconnectedness and shared history across vast distances, essentially allowing conceptualization of galactic civilization as a scaled-up planetary civilization.
At the center of the novel are two planets: Trantor and Terminus. Trantor, a symbol of imperial power, is presented as an awe-inspiring planet, covered in metal, and housing a vast population of forty billion. It stands as a symbol of power and might of the Empire, and its potential for decadence and decay. Terminus, on the other hand, is a remote and barren planet on which Foundation is established. It represents hope for the future, a safe haven for knowledge, and the seed from which the humanity will rebuild itself.
Foundation is fairly focused on action and development, and it is generally a fairly short book, which means there is a limited opportunity for detailed world building. We get fairly little detail about worlds other than Trantor and Terminus, with most planets being mentioned in the passing and almost never considered in terms of culture, geography, and similar aspects. Cultures are also fairly homogenous and generally come in some variation of the central “Imperial” culture, despite some worlds being isolated by vast distances and for millennia.
The technology of the Galactic Empire, with some exceptions, seems to be fairly static, and there is no explicit explanation as to why that might be the case. The political structure, the autocratic empire, is also somewhat underdeveloped, leaving the reader wondering how such a simple, centralized governance has persisted for the millennia. The novel is also lacking any notable non-human intelligent life.
C3 PERSPECTIVE
When it comes to perspective in Foundation, Asimov maintains an objective and detached tone. The narrative adopts almost historical tone, which aligns well with the concept of psychohistory, which tends to deal with large-scale populations rather than individuals and their qualia. Additionally, Asimov maintains a focus on key figures by primarily following individuals playing significant roles in the unfolding crises predicted by Hari Seldon. This allows the readers to witness pivotal moments and decisions that shape the Foundation’s destiny, and we get to witness them through the eyes of those driving such moments and decisions. The episodic nature of the novel, through its jumps in time, provides a shifting perspective allowing the reader to see Foundation’s evolution across generations – sometimes contextualizing long-term consequences of earlier decisions. The novel is written in third person, but Asimov skillfully limits omniscience, allowing for a degree of readers’ engagement through subjective interpretations of events, motivations, and potential developments.
On the other hand, such objective narrative results in overall lack of intimacy and emotional depth – we rarely get an insight of characters’ affect or thoughts with respect to experiences, events, and relationships. This distance makes characters come across as flat or underdeveloped. The short form nature of the individual stories limits the scope and leaves reader wondering about motivations and perspectives of other, apparently less important, characters in the novel. The grandiosity, with respect to time, also results in the absence of a consistent protagonist which makes it harder to connect with characters on an emotional level, limiting the suspense-building. The perspective also generally appears to be Foundation-biased, lacking diverse viewpoints, and overall male-dominated. The majority of the point-of-view characters are male, which perhaps reflects gender biases of the time when Asimov penned the novels.
C4 STYLE
Asimov narration is very clear and easy to understand. Through his avoidance of complex sentence structure, purple prose, and complex jargon, Foundation is an accessible piece of literature to a wide audience. This directness and efficiency keep the story moving forward by reducing the amounts of lengthy descriptions and elaborate prose. Asimov tends to focus on ideas, his words are wielded to tackle issues of history, politics, and societies without drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. Foundation is an exemplar of logical and analytical tone in creative literature, with its style reading like a reasoned argument, presenting evidence and drawing conclusions in a clear and methodical manner. Asimov further uses dialogues to effectively convey information, explain complex ideas, and engage in debates and discussions threading key themes of the book in a dynamic and relatively natural way.
However, such preference for scientific story-telling leaves Asimov vulnerable to criticisms claiming his style lacks vivid imagery, sensory detail, emotional range, stylistic monotony, and passive narrative. Asimov’s apparent struggle with the use of evocative language makes this novel come across as limited in emotional range and as having somewhat stilted and unrealistic dialogues (some characters seem to give lectures, as opposed to engage in proper dialogue). Asimov’s scientific and technical writing thus comes across as repetitive and lacking in dynamism. Potentially a problem for general public, but, as a fellow scientist, I enjoy it.
C5 CHARACTERS
The worst mark for Foundation has to be its characters. Noticeably archetypal and flat, Asimov’s characters in Foundation represent specific roles and positions within the society rather than fully realized individuals. They come across as chess pieces being moved around a board to fulfill their specific duties, rather than believable human beings with specific characters and quirks. Such unidimensionality is also apparent in the general absence of internal conflicts among the characters. They tend to have narrow vision (and personality), driven by a single goal that looks like compulsion rather than interest. They come across as robotic, no pun intended. As previously mentioned, they could be described as having limited emotional range.
Such absence of diversity and affect makes characters come across as interchangeable. Swapping names of some mayors and traders would hardly impact the story. Character development is also lacking, partially due to episodic nature of the narrative and significant time jumps. A lot of them appear and disappear only for the snapshot of time in which a particular plot point develops, remaining static throughout their stories, as if being devices to advance the plot prior to simply vanishing. Characters also tend to excessively rely on dialogues to move the plot, as opposed to using actions, introspection, etc.
Characters are also excessively male, it made me wonder at times, if women even existed in this galaxy. Ironically, given the strictly utilitarian approach to character development, any single character could easily swap genders and thus significantly improve the quality of characters and interpersonal dynamics in the novel. Consequently, characters tend to come across as mouthpieces for Asimov’s ideas about history, politics, and society, rather than fully realized individuals. This, perhaps, is an intentional act by Asimov to hold a mirror to the chauvinistic society, or not.
Asimov’s two, somewhat, well-developed characters, Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow, are exemplars of cleverness and pragmatism (respectively) in Foundation universe. Hardin, the first mayor of Terminus, is characterized by his intelligence, political acumen, and skillfulness to achieve a particular goal through manipulation (drawing on people’s religious, political, and militaristic instincts), rather than violence. On the other hand, Mallow is pragmatic and ruthless, characterized by his ability and willingness to wield economic power and call bluffs to achieve a particular goal.
Ironically, Hari Seldon, the inventor of psychohistory, is seldom seen in this novel. He is revered as a sort of a messiah, and there is a cloud of mysticism surrounding his existence. Of course, considering this perspective, novel features some characters who, through their skepticism towards Seldon’s plan, help drive the story forward, such as Limmar Ponyets, Eskel Gorov, and Lewis Pirenne. These characters, much like others discussed above, are not compelling characters in the traditional sense, but they are effective devices in the grand scheme of the novel.
C6 THEMES
There are several key themes explored in this novel, which ultimately make Foundation a seminal work of science fiction. First and foremost, the cyclical nature of history is a central and powerful theme in the novel. Asimov presents a vision of history as a series of recurring patterns, empires rising and falling in somewhat regular and predictable cycles. This consideration of societal development and cycle is generalizable to the real world, inviting reflection of the reader on their own experiences. Along those lines, Asimov also weaves in the power of knowledge and reason. The Foundation’s core mission is to preserve the knowledge with the goal of shortening the dark age that will follow Empire’s fall. Asimov continuously highlights the importance of science, education, and rational thought in navigating societal challenges and crises.
With that in mind, Asimove masterfully explores the interplay of various forces – political, economic, religious, technological, and militaristic – in shaping the course of the civilizations’ development. Part of analysis, and later synthesis, of these latent forces is accomplished through psychohistory. While psychohistory in its essence represents a degree of determinism, Asimov cleverly plays with individual characters as potential points of inflection where entire psychohistory may collapse. Along those themes, Asimov also underlies the importance of adaptation and innovation, as well as the detrimental nature of imperialism and authoritarianism, in the society as mechanisms underlying society’s ability to persevere during periods of upheaval and instability.
Some themes warrant further discussion and expansion. For example, while the cyclical nature of the history is compelling, could accounting for the roles of chance, contingency, and the unpredictable nature of human behavior better get the message across and make for more interesting prose? Is Foundation excessively technologically deterministic and ethnocentric (Western-centric) in its view of history? Could plot advance without excessive overreliance on psychohistory? And, lastly, should Asimov have explored obvious ethical dilemmas and lack of diversity in the novel?
C7 ORIGINALITY
Asimov work was inspired, even by his own admission. Foundation, specifically the cyclical nature of history and the falls of empires, draws inspiration from Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on Foundation. The similarities between the Galactic Empire and Roman Empire are evident in the themes of imperial overreach, internal decay, and the rise of new powers on the periphery. While more sophisticated, Asimov’s Foundation and Galactic Empire is a concept somewhat explored in the EE “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. Coincidentally, Lensman series was beaten by the Foundation series for the 1966 Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.
The idea of predicting the future, a key element of psychohistory, is a recurring theme in literature, however Asimov’s scientific approach to prediction was fairly novel. Psychohistory, in fact, was a fairly unique concept. By mathematically studying the behavior of large populations, psychohistory offers insight into future events with substantial accuracy. The grandiosity of scale and scope of the vision, a plot encompassing vast areas of galaxies and millennia were unprecedented and highly original.
Asimov masterfully blends science fiction with social and political commentary, his focus on ideas over simple adventure provided a beath of fresh air in otherwise action-oriented literary works at the time. Asimov used the genre to explore complex ideas about history, power, and societal change. All of these factors have resulted in Foundation‘s profound influence on modern science fiction. The ideas surrounding galactic empires, psychohistory, and cyclical nature of history have been echoed and developed in numerous subsequent works, shaping the genre for decades to come.
C8 IMPRESSIONS
Overall, this is one of my favorite pieces of literary fiction. I have read it several times, and I will likely read it yet again. The novel is awe-inspiring, intriguing, and leaves me with a sense of anticipation (even though I know exactly what happens). Asimov successfully evokes considerations of determinism vs. free will and the questions pertaining to the nature of progress. The sheer scale of the universe can be slightly daunting at first, but Asimov was good at creating well-defined and self-contained small pieces of prose that make the scale easily digestible. The ending of the novel sets up the sequel, which left me excited to pick up the next book.
C9 IMMERSION
Immersion in the novel is somewhat hindered by Asimov’s literary style: lack of sensory detail and vivid imagery, flat and archetypal characters, dialogue-heavy narrative, detached and objective style, episodic structure, time jumps, disregards for the affect and atmosphere, and limited perspective. Despite such hinderances, the intriguing and original premise, the grand scope and scale of the work, and the engagement with complex themes made this read a fairly immersive experience for me, personally.
