Are you starting out with SciFi? Start here. Some people claim this book is "outdated" and "boring". But let's explore why it matters in 2020 and what are the deeper themes it touches...and why you should stop reading one of the many cookie-cutter novels done every year for Kindle.
Some of the Kindle reviews for Foundation are exceedingly harsh: "A collection of unrelated stories", "Nothing happening", and my favorite, "Your typical Young Adult SciFi". Of course, you'll find endless reviews full of praise for this book too.
Well. You see, Asimov was a very educated person; the man not only wrote science fiction, but plain science, and several history books too. So, in order to fully appreciate his thinking, you'll need to have at least some level of the same education yourself, otherwise, you'll either find the books thoroughly boring, or you'll find them entertaining... but you won't get to the core idea of the work.
Let's explore the main book concept: The Galactic Empire is dying, and a scientist, the main protagonist of the book, tries and establishes a colony on the outer edges of the galaxy to do some work that will reduce the time of the forthcoming age of chaos. And you know what? Told in that way, it does sound like the plot of your average SciFi series... with 2 caveats:
- Asimov wrote it first. So when he did it, it was fully original, and
- This seemingly banal plot, hides a much deeper and serious message.
Should I tell you what that message is? I don't know. I haven't decided yet. We'll see by the end of this post.
So Asimov wrote this book back in the 50's or 60's, and as you can imagine, the world has gone through quite a bit of change since then. In particular, we went thorough something called "The Sexual Revolution" (which brought you The Pill and Women's Liberation and Etc) that hadn't happened at the time this book was written. And the early 60's American fiction can easily reflect a world that for today's standards would feel like your grandpa is telling you a story from his youth.
But the first reason why this book matters, is because it's a history lesson disguised as a sci-fi novel.
The "Galactic Empire" is none other than the Roman Empire, and this book, indeed the whole Foundation story, is based off a very academic work called "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Now, I know that, because I'm a Science Fiction buff, and I know these things, but you go and investigate it on your own if you like. So, in Foundation, you'll be reading a fictionalized account of more or less how the decline of an over-reaching empire could potentially feel, but translated into a futuristic setting.
The best science fiction is speculative, but properly informed. And that's what this guy did with his writing. Personally, when I was in high school, and I would have to listen to the lectures on Rome, I couldn't really picture how the collapse went down. So there was an Emperor, and then two, and then some wars, and some Goths sacked Rome or something...but how was it really? Well, read Foundation to get a glimpse of that, including corrupt government officials, treacherous generals, ambitious nobles, and small time local warlords, nevertheless dangerous for the everyday guy.
Now, in the book, the scientist guy, called Hari Seldon, invents a new Math able to predict the movements of mass groups of people, far into the future, and with great precision, thus he is able to predict the "fall" of the Empire, and the subsequent Dark Ages that would follow. In real life, the fall of Rome was indeed followed by around 1,000 years of the Middle Ages, "dark" because there were very little advances in sciences done, and many of the social organization advances done before were reversed, till the Renaissance came up.
Also, in real life, there was indeed a scientist guy who invented a new Math capable of predicting a bunch of things. That guy was Isaac Newton, and he invented Calculus, which in particular can predict far into the future and with great precision the orbits of planets :)
Sadly, it does not predict the future (in the way you'd like).
From then on, the book follows the development of the colony created at the edge of the galaxy, the "Foundation" and it's subsequent adventures throughout three books. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the details, cause that would be a spoiler. Suffice to say, there are a lot of twists and turns on the development of the little foundation, and you might be pleaseantly surprised.
Now, of you wanna go and read average run of the mill novels about kids with superpowers or whatever, be my guest. But if you'd like to read something serious, deep, that will make you think about things, get this book. And do consider that just because we're in 2020 and we have satellites and iPhones, that doesn't mean that our whole world cannot collapse... as the world of our ancestors did... many times before us.
Just consider that, at the time of this writing, the whole world is in lockdown because of COVID... should I remind you that back in 1325 or so, a disease killed around 1/3 of the population of Europe?
But Asimov does give us hope in his book. And a way to survive the dark ages, should they come to pass.
Get the book on Amazon and don't forget to leave your comments below.
