Last night, I finished Isaac Asimov’s Prelude to Foundation, the first book (chronologically) in his acclaimed Foundation series. I have read the series a couple times now; the first time was probably almost ten years ago, and the second time was maybe five or six years ago. Over the last year, I’ve been making an effort to read books I haven’t read before, but I decided I wanted to go back and revisit one of my favorites and see how it held up against the newer stuff I’ve been consuming.

And honestly, I loved it as much as ever!

I just thoroughly enjoy the way Asimov writes. He manages to perfectly describe the scene in a way where I feel like I’m really there. It’s not so much detail as to get lost (like Tolkien), nor is it insufficient detail that you can’t picture what’s going on. It almost feels like a movie, in a sense. And I think he handles character development very well. Within the scope of his science-fiction world, the characters are very real; they’re relatable in all the right ways.

(Warning: some spoilers below!)

But honestly, the single most impressive thing to me about all the Foundation books is the sheer scope of everything. Asimov’s ability to pull together this great, epic story of a civilization twenty-thousand years in the future is really something else. I’ve read a lot of science fiction, but Asimov’s Galactic Empire absolutely exists in my mind. He’s so incredibly convincing. The way he casually mentions technologies once or twice that are seemingly likely potential developments is really amazing to me — this is what true “science-fiction” is!

Prelude to Foundation starts off by following young mathematician Hari Seldon just after he’s delivered a presentation about a paper he’s been working on to the Decennial Convention on the Imperial homework of Trantor. His paper was about a theory he devised which he named “psychohistory” — the idea that mathematics could potentially be used to predict broad societal movements and changes. He imagined it could be used to study the future.

Unfortunately for Hari, most of the people who took interest in his paper were not mathematicians; they did not understand that it was only a hypothetical “what if”. Hari is quickly pulled into a tale of political intrigue, where he finds himself being fought over by the Emperor, the Emperor’s main political opponent (the Mayor of Wye), and a mild-mannered journalist named Chetter Hummin. The former two believe that they can use Hari’s psychohistory to make unfounded predictions about their inevitable success, and so create a self-fulfilling prophecy. But Hummin seems to be an idealist who truly wants Hari to work out a real psychohistory — one which can be used to predict and, maybe, avert what he refers to as the decay of the Empire.

Of course, I’ve read the book before so none of this was new to me. But it’s still very interesting to me because I like thinking about where all of these characters will end up in a book or two. Unlike many series, Asimov’s Foundation novels together span many thousands of years. While Hari, the progenitor of the super-important psychohistory, is commonly mentioned throughout each of the books, he is only physically present in the first two (if I remember correctly). It’s incredible to read through the unfolding of such an epic story and really feel the effects of the passing of time.

My current plan is to read the next prequel book, Forward the Foundation, next. I don’t know if I will read the entire series straight through this time, but I do intend to read it all within the year. That said, I have many books on my short-list so we’ll see where I end up.

Overall, I absolutely love this book and all of Asimov’s writing that I’ve had the pleasure to read. Five stars!

★★★★★