Foundation

The book has an interesting premise - a scientist predicts the fall of the Galactic Empire, and the subsequent dark ages to come after. As time goes by it seems more and more evident that his predictions are coming true, however, he devised a plan to minimize the damage, and one key element of that was withholding the information from the following generations.

I have to say, most of the book is very exciting! As a reader, you get to meet intelligent characters and marvel at their brilliant use of logic and acute intuition to solve problems. Since the story progresses in time, you get to witness the sociopolitical evolution of the outskirts of the Galaxy. I would even say there's enough political intrigue to call it Game of Thrones in space (sans magic and gore)!

However, the beginning of part five does get a bit boring, and as it progresses, Asimov relies more on exposition to push the story forward. Nevertheless, it does pick up pace again.

There are some other things that I didn't like as much.

Psychohistory

Psychohistory - a mix of sociology, history and mathematics - is what Hari Seldon used to predict the fall of the Empire. Even though in general I do love this concept, it does, in times, stretch my suspense of disbelief. Don't get me wrong - it contributes to the majority of this book's excitement, but I guess my beef is with the extent individuals without the knowledge of phychohistory are able to make decisions that correlate with the psychohistoric predictions they barely know any details of. The characters seem to make ground-braking decisions, sometimes I would even call them gambles, which miraculously work out. Why? Because psychohistory, that's why.

Characters

It seems like the main theme in the book is how future-oriented intuitive intellectuals prove conservative people wrong, which I did enjoy for the most part, but it sadly produces a lot of self-indulgent egotism.

Another problematic area is the tremendous lack of female characters. Throughout the entire book there have been three women, only one of which had any significant role. Granted, she was portrayed as an intelligent and capable person, so I guess little, yet quality representation is better than a lot of bad representation. And I am also aware the book was written in the 50s, so I don't hold it against the author. It just felt very surreal to me. It's like that entire sector of the Galaxy is solely populated by men.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book a great deal and I can't wait to read the next one in the series!