Foundation

[gleek]

Originally Posted by Nilentropy

i tried for years to collect all of Asimov's "Future History" series:
I, Robot
Robot Visions
Robot Dreams
Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire
The Stars, Like Dust
The Currents of Space
Pebble in the Sky
Prelude to Foundation
Forward The Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth

well, i started off by reading the foundation series and then back-tracking to the robot series. i think that the foundation novels in and of themselves make a lot of sense until you get to foundation and earth, THEN if you're intriguied by the robots it will twist your arm into reading the robot novels going forward. of the empire novels, i really loved the currents of space. if you can pick it up, do!

i understand everyone else's comments about foundation being a bit tough due to it's originally being a set of short stories, but i have to say that it really IS some of the best scifi out there. asimov's writing style is succint and to-the-point and very seldom does he ramble on or go on tangents.

[Amber]

I can safely point to the Foundation series being the first full science fiction series that I ever read. That was at the tender age of 8- slightly before my Lord of the Rings obsession, and slightly after my Homer and Virgil craze.


It's a lovely set of books. Not a usual word to describe it, but it's true. Genuinely interesting, and intriguing to say the least...

[Glen C]

First let me say. I am a HUGE Asimov fan, however like many who have posted here - I simply couldn't get into the rythmn of this work. To be fair to the good Doctor, the majority of his work came out in the Golden Age, and really began to look flat once the New Wave Movement got under way.

I have not seen this mentioned yet. But the Foundation series was never written as complete novels...well the first three books anyway. Orginally they appeared in Astounding during the decades of the 40's as series connected novelettes.

It wasn't that unusual for short stories to stitched together into novels A E Van Vogt's destination Universe should really be The Best Of Vogt lol

Glen

[flash]

i have only just got into the foundation series and have jsut finshed reading the second one.... its brillant... was even thinking about it when having shower, or on way home or even as theory just what boss was trying to explain at work! of thats not what novels are about then whats the point?

[Glen C]

I find that so cool that after so much time, a book can reach out and touch someone Hope you enjoy the conclusion

[Isolde]

I loved the Foundation series so much I had stopped reading scifi afterwards. I figured scifi couldn't get any better than that. It didn't help that I had read Blue Adept by Piers Anthony next.

[Brys]

I've read the three main novels - Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, and I thought they were excellent, definitely at the top of science fiction. I enjoyed them a lot because of how he used the template of the declining Roman Empire as a basis for science fiction (yes, I really like something that I didn't know existed until recently - historical SF).

It wasn't perfect, as the pacing was uneven and it felt like lots of short stories put together (moreso of Foundation than the latter two books), but it was still very intriguing. I didn't have any problem with the writing style - Asimov used a decent range of vocabulary and description, but it wasn't pretentious or over-descriptive, but neither was it sparse either, and it worked just right, except that sometimes his pacing wasn't perfect.

[GOLLUM]

So Brys are you saying that the Foundation Series is one of the best Sci Fi series other than arguably Dune you've read??

I read very little of Sci Fi and wouldn't mind knowing your opinion of the best say 3 Sci Fi novels/series you've read as we seem to have similar likes in the fantasy field.

I'll go check the Sci Fi recommendation thread too...

EDIT You mention Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card. Heard of it never read it and Dune and Book Of The New Sun already read and enjoyed.

[Brys]

Top 3 science-fiction series:
1) Ilium - Dan Simmons
2) Foundation - Isaac Asimov
3) Takeshi Kovacs series (Altered Carbon, Market Forces etc) - Richard Morgan

I would have put Dune at number 2 otherwise, just above Foundation, but you say you've read that. That's a pretty diverse selection of science fiction there. Ilium is probably less "hard" science fiction than Foundation, because of it's use of the Iliad as a focus point for the novel, but it also has a nice post-apocalyptic bit on earth as well - almost dystopian and prophetic. I'd say though that Foundation is very enjoyable, and one of the best science fiction series there is. It's less focused on plots and characters than most series, mainly focused on atmosphere and worldbuidling (well, SF equivalent, whatever that's called) - but in that respect, quite a bit like Erikson - it's definitely got a more realistic and complex universe developed than Dune IMO - and it's very influential. It's a good starting point in science fiction (which I'm using it as). The main problem I had was that I was using my Dad's old books that were only about 200 pages each, but had very small print.

[star.torturer]

read foundation last night and thouroul enjoyed it. going to buy the others now and read them in quick sucsession

[j. d. worthington]

Gollum: didn't know you'd been curious about Ike's Foundation books. While they have their flaws (he was a very young writer when he began the series), I'd have to rate the Foundation novels, especially, oddly, the earlier ones, as among the best sf to come out of the Golden Age; and frankly, for all my love of and support for the New Wave and after, I think the Golden Age has received some seriously unmerited slighting. There were some stupendous talents working in that period, and it's hard to top writers like Kornbluth, Kuttner & Moore, Fred Brown, Leiber, Hal Clement, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (especially A Canticle for Leibowitz), Lester del Rey, Heinlein (at his best, and some of his writing during the '40s is very, very good), Bradbury, Matheson (more late 40's and on, but still Golden Age), Clarke, "William Tenn", "Cordwainer Smith", Ted Sturgeon.... Anyone who sneers at what came out of that period is simply unable to look beyond contemporary prejudices, much as the eighteenth-century rationalists were unable to see any merit in much older writing dealing with fantastic subjects, or the seventeenth century was unable to see any merit in Shakespeare, or the Romantics were able to see any merit in Johnson and Gibbon, or the Modernists were able to see anything worth saving from the Victorians. Bull! No period with minds like these is devoid of material worthy to stand with the best of any other -- the idioms change, but quality is quality, whatever era it's from.

So, yes, I'd highly recommend the Foundation series -- at least the original trilogy; I've some reservations about the later books (though I enjoyed them). And as for character -- what about Magnifico? I think he sticks in the mind long years after one has read the books.....

[steve12553]

J.D, I have to agree about respect for the golden age. If you consider the world they lived in and the things they imagined, their writing was wonderful. Obviously modern technology changes the perspective of the modern writer. It has to. But series' like Foundation created universes with all their technology and politics without knowing even what the later half of the Twentieth Century would bring.

[BTL]

I read the Foundation series (1st 3 books) as a teenager. My recollection is that when I read them I thought that they were among the best science fiction books ever written. Reread them a few months ago, 25 years later. 25 years later they seem pretty bad, and I wouldn't recommend them. There are worse books out there, but I recommend reading other Asimov works ahead of Foundation. Recently read a group of three Asimov books combined in one volume called Triangle. All three written in the early 1950s. They held up pretty well, much better than Foundation, although of course a little dated. I also recently reread a collection of Asimov's short stories. Many of these are still very enjoyable. Asimov is a better short story writer than novelist, IMO.

[Connavar]

I have read Foundation,Foundation and Empire,Second Foundation,Foundation and Earth.

I am in the middle of reading Foundation's Edge.

I think the first three books are the best sci fi series i have read. I loved the characters,the dying empire, the Mule,the hole pyschohistory thing.

I think Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth is not as good cause of the hole Gaia thing. I think he lost a little focus there on what made the first three books amazing.

I havent read these two Prelude to Foundation,Forward The Foundation cause i am reading the series in the order the came out.

[Fried Egg]

Err...no you're not. Looks like you read "Foundation & Earth" before "Foundation's Edge", which is the wrong way around. No wonder you're not enjoying those books as much!

I actually loved those two books just as much as the original series but they are different. I wouldn't say he lost focus, more like shifted it in a different direction.

Actually, you might want to read (if you haven't already) the Elijah Baley novels ("Caves of Steel", "Naked Sun", "Robots of Dawn" & "Robots & Empire") too because they kind of tie in with the foundation series (although they are set before the establishment of the galactic empires).

There are also three other novels which are set during the galactic empire's heyday ("Pebbles in the sky", "The stars, like dust" & "The Currents of Space") and are each stand alone novels.