Foundation (Foundation, #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Feb 23, 2014 Tani rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-author, scifi, 2014

Better than I was expecting, by a long-shot. I wasn't expecting it to be so episodic, but found that it actually works in this case. I liked the continuity of things, and how each crisis was different and yet the same, but each with a different solution. I definitely want to read some more Asimov now. Thinking I'll take a step back and read The Complete Robot. :) ...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Carl rated it it was amazing

Just reread this for the first time in maybe over a decade. Won't say it's perfect, but it's easy to see why it's such a classic.

Very positivist in it's conception of history/psychology (which tend to get conflated, with "psychology" standing in for "future history"), something I find both frustrating and endearing in a retro way-- not hard to believe it was published in '51 (and I believe originally came out in serial form earlier than that). I am told Asimov wrote this after reading "Decline Just reread this for the first time in maybe over a decade. Won't say it's perfect, but it's easy to see why it's such a classic.

Very positivist in it's conception of history/psychology (which tend to get conflated, with "psychology" standing in for "future history"), something I find both frustrating and endearing in a retro way-- not hard to believe it was published in '51 (and I believe originally came out in serial form earlier than that). I am told Asimov wrote this after reading "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", which I will have to read now, b/c I'm curious just what historiographical assumptions were behind that history. I think it is relatively well accepted now that "history" is narrative applied to events to render them meaningful and remember-able-- it is an attempt to understand, true, but very few would consider it a "science" (in the sense of psychohistory) or capable of prediction (as opposed to explanation-- which may seem like they are the same, but aren't). Asimov's "novum", however, consists of an appeal to "science" or "math", with the epistemological capitol of those fields transferred to "history" and "psychology" in a hazy, behind the curtain reification of "historical forces" into off-screen mathematical terms. I think a similar attempt to "scientize" things outside the bounds of the "natural sciences" can be seen in Hardin's use of "symbolic logic" (signed off on by a scientist, with the proper authority) to analyze the letters, treaties and conversations he'd been given. I don't know if this "symbolic logic" is supposed to be the same thing as what we call symbolic logic now (I believe this is first-order logic? I really know nothing about it, but ought to learn...), but the fact that they retreat to this, instead of just doing a close reading (which should give all the same information-- I assume using symbolic logic is just a variety of close reading, in this instance), is interesting-- in the story it is a way of getting the attention of the scientists by "speaking their language", but it also plays the game of Golden Age sci-fi in it's appeal to the ability of "Science" (whether math or otherwise) to reduce everything to such terms.

Other interesting things-- Nuclear power is the real "foundation" here-- it is almost like a magic or religious power in the way it is the key to every futuristic technology. Well, this is just what sci-fi was back then, but it's kinda funny. Reading this now almost makes this variety of sci-fi seems as magico-religious in nature as the "religion of science" which is set up in the book to subjugate the neighboring barbarians-- maybe we could say the book deconstructs itself in that way, or at the very least gives us an opportunity to read it against itself, or as a play on the adolescent positivism which was in full flower in the genre at the time. Though I think it always comes back to that sort of wishfulfillment, the genius nerds somehow succeeding over the big bruisers in the rest of the galaxy, and becoming bullies themselves (see Hardin and Mallow). Hm, and the continual triumph of the new over the old with each successive generation may be intended as a reference to the problem of stagnation (ala Decline of the Roman Empire), but it also opens itself to an Oedipal reading-- the "Fathers" are split into Good and Bad, as the founder of each new movement (Mayors, Spiritualists, Traders) gets to be a viewpoint character in his section, and well thought of, while those who refuse to change and cling to the old way of doing things (even if it's what Hardin originally did, etc...) are properly villainized and overthrown. And of course Seldon remains the daddy in the sky behind it all, unassailable. I feel like it's a Bloomian Anxiety of Influence in the political/economic world, where being true to the spirit of the patriarchal predecessor means misreading or apparently rebelling against the tried-and-true formulae attributed to that spiritual predecessor.

OK, enough notes for now, I've got work to do. Hoping to have my science fiction group read this. ...more

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May 08, 2011 Joey Manley rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

Sure, I loved LOTR and Star Wars and all that, but the sf/fantasy series that really floated my boat when I was a teenager was Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I re-read it not too long ago and enjoyed it all over again, despite its old-fashionedness. Here's an example: any character who smokes cigars is trustworthy. Any character who turns them down is not. Happens over and over again. I read that Asimov's magazine editor was an avid cigar smoker -- maybe that's why this is in there. Until ab ...more

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May 17, 2010 TRXTRMXTR rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I'm not sure if it's because I'm used to a certain type of storytelling that might be a more recent development in science fiction - but this book doesn't feel like a narrative. It's more like little scenes or vignettes from history with a cast of characters I don't really care much about after the first part of the story. It doesn't help that the only female in the entire book is an annoyingly evil one who is only pacified by manipulating her husband or silly jewelry trinkets. Yes, some women l ...more

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