Foundation

Foundation has a very unusual structure, broken into 3-5 parts that tell very similar stories. As such, the book lacks a strong ending, one that has been repeated 2-4 times before in the book.

This is a trilogy that does not have a real completion between books, so I can't really say too much about the book. It has been good so far.

One more trip outside my usual reading waters. Science fiction. Foundation makes me remember why I loved science fiction when I was in my late teens and early twenties. The whole world is tilted and new ways of thinking and doing things become possible. All our world leaders need to read science fiction, with its ominous ventures into possible futures.

Foundation is the story of a world set up solely as place to compile an enormous encyclopedia, an effort for the ages. But as the story moves forward rapidly in time, we readers come to see that the world has been set up for many other, secret purposes, purposes designed to save the thinking peoples from an eternity in a dark age.

The Foundation trilogy was conceived during the Second World War and published as a series of stories during the 1940s, though not published in book form until the early 1950s. It competes very well with other sf of the 1940s, but (strangely) some reviewers seem to expect it to compete with modern sf. Well, no, it's an antique in many ways. Some people like and appreciate vintage cars, but no-one expects them to perform like modern cars.I probably first read the trilogy as a teenager in the 1960s, and I've been rereading and enjoying it periodically since then. This first book in particular is very pleasant and familiar, introducing us to psychohistory and Seldon's Plan, and here everything goes according to Plan in a reassuring manner. The sequels deal with disruptions of the Plan.I think the scope and concept of the book remain good to this day, and it makes a good story, but of course the writing style, the characterization, and all the incidental details are dated.As was common in the old days, this is almost an all-male story. The female of the species doesn't exist until near the end, when it turns out that an unpleasant male character has an equally unpleasant wife (who speaks) and a docile female servant (who doesn't). Better female characters begin to appear in the second half of the next book in this series, [b:Foundation and Empire 13452750 Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2) Isaac Asimov https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329860528l/13452750.SY75.jpg 1703483].