Book Review - Foundation and Empire (Isaac Asimov)

Foundation and Empire continues the saga of Isaac Asimov's future universe. It opens 200 years after Hari Seldon's fateful prediction of the fall of the Empire. The Empire is still clinging on to power, but is being worried at the edges by an expanding and recalcitrant Foundation, now represented by a grouping of independent Trader States.

This sequel expands on the themes of its predecessor (individual agency vs historic determinism), but also challenges them and makes for a more unpredictable read. Throughout the text we see characters try to impose their individual will upon the universe around them, whether to bring the universe under their control, or else merely to survive.

In the first of two subplots, the ambitious General Bel Riose tries to do this by waging war on the Foundation and restoring glory to the old order. The trader Lathan Devers (captured by Riose) tries to do the same by expoiting the general's greed and hoping to turn him against the emperor. As has happened so many times before, Seldon's predictions come to pass as individual efforts prove fruitless against the march of history.

This subplot is only fifty pages long and feels a little awkward compared with the second, which is far deeper and takes the Foundation series in a fascinating new direction. The Riose plot feels more at home in the first book, but it's the “Mule” subplot where Foundation and Empire really shines. This plot jumps ahead another hundred years, where an unprecedented threat emerges, throwing Hari Seldon's meticulous predictions off course, and threatening all civilization in the Universe.

Here, Asimov subverts our expectations with the introduction of the Mule, a mysterious warlord who brings whole swathes of the galaxy under his control with almost supernatural ease. The Mule is a mutant, and therefore outside the rule of Seldon's psychohistoric model, meaning that for the first time the future of the two Foundations is under threat. Through the Mule, Asimov shows how a triumphalist individual can be just as frightening as a universe where individual will counts for little – as the Mule advances he deprives everyone in his path of their own liberty. He almost seems to distort the universe by bending everyone in it to suit his needs.

This new development also adds some tension to the saga. A series where every attempt to fight psychohistory fails would become stale very quickly. With the Mule subplot, Asimov challenges the rules he has spent so long constructing, and leaves the novel on a much more ambiguous note than its predecessor.

He also explores individualism through Bayta, the Foundation scholar who acts as our point of view for much of the story. She starts off as fairly passive – being recruited by her in-laws to join the resistance against an increasingly repressive Foundation government. For a while, Bayta doesn't seem to do much other than witness other characters (like Ebling Mis, the psychologist, or Captain Han Pritcher) make more of an impact on wider events.

Towards the end of the book however, as these characters are slowly worn down by the Mule's seemingly unstoppable advance, it's Bayta who takes decisive action. It's a triumphant counterpart to the Mule's rise to power, where Asimov shows individuality as a force for good as well as evil.

The book ends on a cliffhanger, as the Mule is not defeated but frustrated instead. But it still leaves a hopeful note of defiance behind. And given there are still two books left, there are bound to be plenty of twists to come.

Foundation was an interesting exploration of themes but with little heart, I felt. Foundation and Empire shows that both are possible at once. I can't wait to see what happens next!