Psychohistory and predetermination have become driving forces of the Sci-Fi genre Psychohistory itself has many real-life counterparts, I won´t even start counting. Just think of everything that gives one the possibility of predicting the future. Like statistics, AI, mathematics, that clash together with knowledge about all of the history of humankind and current data. It´s quite of a kind how the world is long-time managed today and Asimov saw it coming.A big data analyst, spin doctor, etc. is

Honestly, I don't get why this book/series is so popular. There are some interesting elements to it (for instance, the use of religion as a tool of mass control and the implicit resultant argument that religion is no more than a fraud, "the opiate of the people," after all), but the book gave me little to enjoy or dig into. The forces of the novel are broad, historical, dealing with masses of people; this means that there is little to no room for individual characters here and little to be done

Foundation. The name is apt. Isaac Asimov's sprawling scifi tale is the rock on which much of today's space opera is built. Truer scifi historians than me would cite the late 1920s and pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and E. E. "Doc" Smith as the DNA donors that spawned a thousand space operas. They would be right, but Asimov's fame towers above all others. His 1952 story of the decline and fall of the Galactic Empire is space opera's... foundation.Unfortunately, the analogy continues. Fou...

A great story, told in a terribly boring fashion. One-dimensional characters engaged in various trade negotiations, political upheavals and general planning. Dry beyond belief. The concepts are engaging—religion as a means of control, psychohistory—but the telling of the story leaves much to be desired. Some sections are much better than others, particularly 1 & 3. There is a great story between the lines here; one that I think would work much, much better as a television series.Don't even get m...

Foundation is one of these books most everyone pretends to have read; and perhaps that’s for a reason. This book was published during what is now called the “golden age” of pulp science fiction (the 1940s and 50s) when John W. Campbell ruled over the genre in the U.S. with his Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. Asimov, one of the contributors to this periodical, started telling stories about a declining Galactic Empire and a group of “psychohistorians” who, with the help of some sophisticated

Absolutely Loved it! Hail Asimov! He is brilliant! His writing is enchanting and filled with awe inspiring genius. Work of sheer Ingenuity! Height of Inventiveness!........................................................

I read this again after about a thirty year hiatus. I remember as a high schooler liking it, and I read and liked some of the sequels, but not entirely getting the full ideas presented. After some time to grow up and mature, I think I can appreciate Asimov's vision better than before. Maybe it was the lack of much action that hindered my enjoyment as a teenager, but as an adult I really liked the concepts approached and the ideas put forth. Great science fiction and very influential on the works...

“A fire-eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.”Second reading: I really like that Isaac Asimov's The Foundation holds up! I'd been looking forward to reading the first three books in the series in one go and I'm excited to continue. Isaac Asimov's Foundation is a good start to a great series! Really like the idea of Hari Seldon, the psychohistorian at the heart of the Foundation Series. Even though he largely disappears after the book's beginning, much of the subsequent action

Re-read 11/11/21:Comparing this to the prequels, indeed, any of the prequels, only makes THIS book shine like a diamond. In the last few days, I read the Prelude, Forward, and the Second Foundation trilogy to get my chronological read-through. I thought it might have been fun.But honestly? None of them hold up nearly as well as this. The economy of style, the broad sweep, the razor-sharp scope all builds a full universe with very few words -- simply outshining the rest.Props where props are due....

Robot/Empire/Foundation. Book #9: Chronologically the third book in the Foundation series, although this was the first Foundation novel published way back in 1953. Psycho-history has predicted the fall of a universe spanning Galactic Empire and led Hari Seldon into creating Foundation. The first Foundation, the one featured in this book, is a collective of scientists settled on a planet on the very outskirts of the dying Empire. Five interconnected stories map the progress of the planet and how

2.5* rounded up to 3 for the idea. I postponed writing the review as I was hoping that something would click in my head and I would realize just how magnificent this novel is. It did not happen, unfortunately. First of all, I was made to believe that this is a SF book. It isn’t. Not really. It is more of a socio-political one. It is not even a novel, but a set of stories who present a series of political, sociological, psychological and religious ideas all based on the famous Psychohistory conce...

Life in the Garden of LettersFoundation is a technological society which believes it can avoid its likely demise through the application of more technology. Even its ‘thought leaders’ believe their job is to preserve technological knowledge in anticipation of the impending dark ages. But everything they think they know about the past and their projected future and their role in both is false. The question they face is: can a new purpose into which they have been manipulated by their ancestors as...

(Book 527 from 1001 books) - Foundation (Foundation, #1), Isaac AsimovThe Foundation series is a science fiction book series written by Russian American author Isaac Asimov. For nearly thirty years, the series was a trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov began adding to the series in 1981, with two sequels: Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, and two prequels: Prelude to Foundation, Forward...

One of my very favorite old Golden Age SF novels. The old empire is dying, says one Hari Selden, a genius historian and statistician, even though hardly anyone believes him. Can he and his followers use their knowledge of history and human behavior to build a better galactic society when the current empire collapses? A quick and absorbing read that's great fun.I cut my science fiction-lovin' teeth on this trilogy. Asimov was brilliant.Read count: I dunno, 4 or 5 times?

I have a love/hate relationship with classic sci-fis.I tend to love the concepts but the writing is usually dry and the sexism/racism/homophobia tends to ruin it for me.While it wasn't the case with this one (no real female characters though), I struggled to be fully invested in the story. The scope of it makes it interesting but I'm unsure how I feel about it all after only reading book 1.Will continue in hopes it gets better but I'm not in a rush.

psychohistory - "that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli" - says that the patterns and cycles of human societies can be accurately predicted.Hari Seldon - that genius psychohistorian whose homely visage speaks to his followers hundreds of years after his death - says that the Empire must fall and that thousands of years of barbarism must follow.The Foundation - that secretive colony of scientists established by Seldon

This is the most ambitious thing I’ve ever read. The scope of this is just hugely imaginative. The idea is to create the new, and perfect, galactic empire. The old one is dying. But new empires don’t just pop up overnight; it takes years for the right circumstances to arise; it takes years for all the pieces to slot perfectly into place. The brightest mind of the age has used his incredibly farfetched, yet incredibly brilliant, psychohistory to predict the exact date the empire will fall. He has...

Re-read.I've been an Asimov-fangirl for a long time now. But it started with the robots, not with this series. Nevertheless, once I did read this one, I was quite smitten. And it wasn't any different now that I've re-read it due to the AppleTV+ adaptation.The difference, this time, is that I'm reading the full cycle. I even read the second trilogy that was penned by other authors. And boy, were those a let-down. However, even Asimov's prequels couldn't hold a candle to this one. The writing styl...

English (Foundation)/ Italiano«HARI SELDON... born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069»The life of the brilliant mathematician Hari Seldon, protagonist of the two prequels to Foundation series, draws to a close. However, thanks to "psychohistory", the complex discipline founded by himself to predict the behaviours of the masses over time, he timed it all perfectly. He leaves to future generations precise instructions in order to avoid several millennia of intergalactic barbaris...

I have read several Asimov titles over the years and while I have enjoyed some of them, his writing generally does not click for me. I am not sure what it is exactly because the subject matter is usually something that sounds interesting, but the way it is delivered I tend to zone out/start to lose interest. I feel kind of bad about this as he is a legend, but, it is what it is.Foundation is a very creative idea that started out with a few intertwined short stories and eventually expanded to sev...