Foundation: The greatest science fiction series of all time, now a major series from Apple TV+: Book 1 (The Foundation Trilogy)

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”Anyone who knows Science Fiction knows that Foundation is a seminal work, one of the great works, an era defining masterpiece of the genre. But what does that mean for the reader now? Does a book written in 1951 still stand up?Foundation is the story of the collapse of an intergalactic empire and the efforts of a scientific community to preserve and rebuild. It is exactly that ambitious in scope and in never flinches from that. It is creative, engaging, visionary, leaps smoothly from generation to generation and adventure to adventure in a fashion that would make a Marvel movie feel comfortable and is, above all, a bloody good read. It is also jammed packed with some of Asimov’s most quotable lines (the above about violence being my favourite).There are problems for a modern audience. The endless reference to “atomic” weapons feels quaint rather than threatening. The idea that you might mathematically model future social development based upon predicated behaviour of the masses provided there is no significant influence from individuals feels rather silly now, especially for those of us who have worked in the modelling of crowds: you kind of have to swallow the principles of “psychohistory” as psychobabble and roll with it. Finally, there aren’t any women to be seen. After all, why would women want to have anything to do with this nasty Science nonsense (cough, Bletchly park, cough.) Oh, wait, there’s a wife. She nags a lot.Still, it was 1951, and if you can look past the stuff that doesn’t make any sense any more this is still a brilliant book and a brilliant read. Most of all, if you want to indulge yourself in the old days when we used to think the smartest and the bravest would win out against the stupidest and most loud, this is a warm balm against the nasty burns you get from watching the news.I will add that I haven’t read any of the sequels, so there may be a feminist uprising in second foundation that includes a complete revision of psychohistory to embrace the modelling of chaos. But, to be honest, as long as it has more spaceships and smart people I’ll keep reading.

I read this as a thirteen year old, over forty years ago, remember being captivated by it and decided to re-read it.Oh dear, I guess some books don't age well and the eyes of adulthood see them very differently.It's a classic, but now seems quite dull and dated. The technology of the planets on the edge of the crumbling empire seems laughable. Does Asimov really expect us to believe atomic power is revered as a religion to planetary systems that no longer understand it? The prose is clunky and the politics rather contrived. The book is really quite dull; whatever did I see in it? My fault for revisiting what I recall as a childhood favourite.

Is there anything more distracting from the storyline of the book you're reading than typos and editorial errors every few pages? Amongst other mistakes, there was a name of one of the characters that kept alternating between two different spellings, and at one point even a big chunk of text that appeared to have been accidentally copy/pasted! Unfortunately this really spoiled my enjoyment of the book. The story itself was quite interesting - not amazing, but it kept me fairly interested to the end. Apparently this is the first in a series of books, but I'm not in a rush to buy any of the others.

Asimov's Foundation books are rightly so seen as masters of the art of science fiction. The concepts, the ideas and the execution of the books is near flawless and the basic ideas have spread through many other Asimov books.Anyone interested in these books would presumably already have some idea of the central idea of psychohistory being used to model future human events and society. It was a revolutionary concept back in the 1950's and even today outside of fiction and in the real world of mathematics and human studies is debated.There are some who debunk the idea that humans and society can be modelled effectively to understand future events but there is a large body of research that does indicate it's at least partially the case that we can understand future patterns based upon historical evidence. And the truth of that is of course the Coronavirus which has various governments basing their strategy upon the predicted actions of society based upon mathematical models using past information. It's not quite the same but there are certainly parallels that make reading Foundation such an interesting thing.Now, inevitably having been written in the 1950's the language and some of the social mores are a little quaint compared to modern society. Essentially Asimov reflected the times he lived in and no matter how far thinking - which sci-fi is by it's very nature - it can only be written on the basis of current understanding. I do note another reviewer who takes to task Asimov for not creating more female protagonists which, I find surprising given that in many of his books the stronger lead characters are often women.Writing style is of course engaging and easy to enjoy which, is something one would expect from a writer of such renown and popularity.Overall, a masterpiece and one that is still relevant today 60 years on.

The actual stories (all five) are great to read. The only downside was the very poor editing of the book, especially story five. Numerous errors (Sun regularly being written for Jordan Sutt) and word omissions. This is in the Harper Voyager edition.