Book Review - Foundation (Isaac Asimov)

Foundation is the first Asimov novel I've ever read, though it's not a novel as such, but more like a series of vignettes with a central theme tying them all together. It spans 155 years of history, chronicling the collapse of a future human empire and the fallout from it. Its characters are civilizations, not individuals. It has quite a large scope for a book less than 250 pages long.

The catalyst of this saga is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian (the best way to describe it is a cross between a sociologist and an oracle) who studies the sociological patterns of the Empire's history and predicts that the Galactic Empire – which his contemporaries say is indestructible – will crumble in about five hundred years. Seldon persuades the authorities to let him gather a team of experts on the planet Terminus on the fringes of the Empire. Officially, their task is to create an Encyclopedia for the Empire, but Seldon's real aim is to form a new society known as Foundation, which will fill the vaccuum left by the Empire, and build a better, stronger one in its place.

For a book so critical of organized religion, Foundation's portrayal of Seldon has clear religious parallels, in the way he lingers over the text long after his death. In life, Seldon resembles a prophet, predicting the end of civilization and meeting with distrust from the powers that be. After death, he's elevated almost to the point of godhood. Seldon lives on in the actions of his successors, who see their every move as part of his intricate plan.

This is a part of the book I found a little hard to swallow, and I imagine others would as well. The big question is of course: How the hell can Seldon predict what will happen centuries from now? He admits that he can't predict individual actions, but asserts that he can predict the actions of whole societies. How Seldon can be so sure of something that will happen centuries in the future is never explained, and of course it couldn't be: the premise is ridiculous. What the book demands of the reader is that they look beyond this absurdity and try and appreciate its broader themes.

As I said, the book isn't really about character. Although its protagonists include mathematicians, politicians and traders, I found it hard to tell them apart after a while. The main trait they all share is their cunning, as they outsmart their opponents for their own power. That's certainly a fascinating character trait, but it seems to be the only trait any of these characters have. There doesn't seem to be any real motivation to their actions other than the pursuit of power. After a while, it feels like a bunch of computers trying to beat each other at chess.

Another problem I noted with the book was the almost complete lack of female presence – the wife of a supporting character is the closest this book has to to a female character. This would be bad enough if in any book, but for something that's meant to be set millennia in the future it's downright odd. Have gender politics really regressed to this extent in Asimov's universe? Even for the fifties it feels odd for a book to not have one prominent female character – even if she's just the love interest.

The exposition is also very clunky in places, with people explaining things to each other that they should already know. What makes this even worse is that the book didn't need to resort to this, as it contains excerpts from the fictional Encyclopedia Galactica. These could have been used to fill the reader in on any relevant information, instead of hampering the prose with poor dialogue.

There is one moment that stands out, though, where a trader comes across an old man who's been left destitute by a brutal civil war. His entire family is either dead, missing or has defected. The old man spends his days placidly sitting out his isolation, not even caring of someone comes to kill him. It's a brief moment of poignancy which shows the human side of war. I only wish there were more moments like it.

Ultimately, I think the Encyclopedia shows where the book's real value lies. It charts an evolution instead of a story. Whether or not you like Foundation depends on what you're looking for in science fiction. It's well worth the read if you want some futuristic worldbuilding, or even if you're fascinated by history or politics. But it doesn't have much in the way of heart. I'll be sure to read the rest of the series, but I'm not in any mad rush to read the next installment.