And now, I end Sci-Fi Month… On June 8th. Maybe
saving a 300-page novel for last wasn’t a good idea. It’s especially a problem
when that novel isn’t one you can just breeze through. To the three (or four)
of y’all out there, I’m sorry. Things are fine. I just had other stuff getting
in the way and reading a novel got put on the backburner. Luckily, I’ve gotten
to the end and can finally talk about some Asimov. It was either this or A
Scanner Darkly and something tells me that Dick’s novel about drug use would
have been a bit depressing.
I don’t remember when I first heard about Isaac Asimov’s
Foundation series. It was probably when I read I, Robot. I know SFDebris has
talked about it as well, so it could have been there too. I’m not so sure. I do
know that it’s been one series that’s been on the backburner of novels I’ve
acquired over the years. I have a couple of other Foundation books at the
house. Now that I’ve read this, maybe I’ll finally get to those.
Foundation as a whole was released in 1951. Before that,
four of the five stories were released in Astounding Science Fiction throughout
the 1940’s. Asimov essentially wanted to do a story about a declining Galactic
Empire. It was supposed to mirror the fall of the Roman Empire. Each story
looks at events that occurred before and during the Empire’s fall. It centers
on the Foundation, a group led by Hari Seldon in order to preserve the best of
what the Empire was.
Foundation
Writer: Isaac Asimov
BRIEF BLURB: This chronicles the events of the Foundation, a
institute created to preserve the best of the galaxy as the Galactic Empire
falls.