Thursday, October 4, 2018

The Foundation Trilogy

I've heard such good things about Isaac Asimov that I had to try one of his books, or in this case three of them. THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY: Foundation; Foundation and Empire; Second Foundation is sci-fi fiction, which is not my usual category, but not totally unknown to me either, especially on the heels of the fantastic Ready Player One.

The Foundation books are full of plot twists and fun scenarios. The reader is put in the shoes of societal leaders who manage their way through crisis after crisis in trying to build an empire that will return civilization to the masses. The time scale the books cover is several hundred years, however. So just as you get to know and like a character, he's no longer young enough to still play a role.

Apparently, Asimov went on to write many more "Foundation" books, but I plan to stop here. I'm glad I read them, but I get the general idea and for whatever reason I'm no longer curious to read more. I do recommend them to anyone interested in the genre.

2 comments:

T. Burnstead said...

I think stopping there is a good choice. I read the entire series but I think I would hold a higher opinion of the series today if I had stopped. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the writing and the story. It's good to mix in some SciFi now and then!

Anonymous said...

My high school history teacher had us read The Foundation as part of World History. His point was that the means used in the book to manage/control the population-through a religion (medieval/"dark" ages), trade (modern era) were analogous to our own history. It's an interesting way to review the book and think about it.