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Asimov's Foundation

Old_Dr_Skull said:
I've read and enjoyed the entire set of Foundation books several times over the years. But, as much as enjpy the books, I must admit that I really dislike the central conceit of the series: that "if we eggheads can just get the math right, we can tell everyone how to live properly."
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I totally agree so far. The idea so far seems to be "If we railroad civilisation, we can 'predict' what they will do and therefore anticipate cause and effect." Railroading is bad in RPGs, and even worse for a pangalactic civilisation!

I've been taking notes as I work through Foundation (I'm up to about p. 150 or so), and it's mostly a parade of proper nouns and a few tech-y bits of info, but there is no sense of real humans behind the names -- just brash schemers, devious public servants, gullible 'ecclesiastics', arrogant nobility. Is this universe human-only? It just seems improbable that all there would be in the galaxy is Man. From the story so far it kinda looks that way. :(
 
ShapeShifter said:
I totally agree so far. The idea so far seems to be "If we railroad civilisation, we can 'predict' what they will do and therefore anticipate cause and effect." Railroading is bad in RPGs, and even worse for a pangalactic civilisation!
Click to expand...

So you're saying that Seldon's Plan, while well intentioned (reducing the duration of a Galactic dark age) was still an attempt to control the subjects of an Empire? Intriguing. ;-)

Is this universe human-only? It just seems improbable that all there would be in the galaxy is Man. From the story so far it kinda looks that way. :(
Click to expand...

Asimov rather famously related the rationale for this. Publisher Joe Campbell required that humans always be shown as superior to aliens. Asimov thought this was silly, and simply left aliens out.

One of the non-Asimov Foundation books - Foundation's Triumph, by David Brin - provides an explanation for this building on Blind Alley, an obscure short story by Asimov. And that's understating it - Triumph is a tour de force of rationalizing all of the unbelievable aspects of Asimov's future history. Brin is brilliant at it, not just taking on easily noted tropes like "humans only" but pointing out many more gaping holes, and coming up with ways to explain them that give the characters involved much needed depth. (The other two "Killer B's" Foundation books are decent reads but don't advance the meta-plot of the series in the same way as Asimov's later entries (Prelude and Forward) or Brin's Triumph).

FWIW, my preferred reading order would vaguely match the published order:

Foundation (Foundation era)
Foundation and Empire (Foundation era)
Second Foundation (Foundation era)
The Stars, Like Dust (Galactic Empire era)
Currents of Space (Galactic Empire era)
Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire era)
Blind Alley (Galactic Empire era, short story)
I, Robot (near future short stories, with bridging narrative)
The Caves of Steel (Robot/Spacer era)
The Naked Sun (Robot/Spacer era)
Mirror Image (Robot/Spacer era, short story)
The Robots of Dawn (Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation's Edge (Foundation era)
Robots and Empire (Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation and Earth (Foundation era)
Foundation's Friends (various authors, short story collection)
Prelude to Foundation (Foundation era)
Forward the Foundation (Foundation era)
Foundation and Chaos (Gregory Benford, Foundation era)
Foundation's Fear (Greg Bear, Foundation era)
Caliban (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Inferno (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Utopia (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Mirage (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Chimera (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Aurora (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation's Triumph (David Brin, Foundation era), also Denouement

A purely chronological reading won't give you the meta-plot that emerges through the series. A relatively spoiler-free timeline is at: http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/insane_list.html - note the huge number of Robot short stories; while these are all fun, the selection present in I, Robot with the bridging narrative is sufficient. Also note that most of these works were never intended to be part of a single cohesive future history, so you can't read them too closely and expect continuity.
 
ShapeShifter said:
I totally agree so far. The idea so far seems to be "If we railroad civilisation, we can 'predict' what they will do and therefore anticipate cause and effect." Railroading is bad in RPGs, and even worse for a pangalactic civilisation!

I've been taking notes as I work through Foundation (I'm up to about p. 150 or so), and it's mostly a parade of proper nouns and a few tech-y bits of info, but there is no sense of real humans behind the names -- just brash schemers, devious public servants, gullible 'ecclesiastics', arrogant nobility. Is this universe human-only? It just seems improbable that all there would be in the galaxy is Man. From the story so far it kinda looks that way. :(
Click to expand...

It is that way. Asimov's Foundation universe is a universe entirely of humans - with no robots. The later additions to the Foundation trilogy-cum-septology try to explain this somewhat. Asimov was trying to write broadly about a social structure's evolution over centuries. The result was something akin to a U.S. history tale trying to cover the entire 20th century period - brief glimpses of specific individuals at specific events over the course of an examination of broad social trends. In the course of that, he eliminated a lot of details that might have distracted from the story - which is rather like telling a U.S. 20th-century history tale without mentioning Native Americans.

Rancke2 said:
Is that a Sherlock Holmes or a Professor Challenger story?
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He refers to Clarke, not Conan Doyle
 
Carlobrand said:
It is that way. Asimov's Foundation universe is a universe entirely of humans - with no robots. The later additions to the Foundation trilogy-cum-septology try to explain this somewhat.

...
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Are you sure about that ;)

You have read all the foundation and other books by him?

Dave Chase
 
DaveChase said:
Are you sure about that ;)

You have read all the foundation and other books by him?

Dave Chase
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm sure. The Foundation trilogy is, as I recall, robot-free. The later additions re-introduced the robots of previous Asimov writings - and aliens, I think, but I've only read a couple of the later stuff, didn't enjoy them as much - and sought to bridge the gap between the two sets of writings. I understand the basic thrust was they were there all along, manipulating in the background.

I took them about the same way I took Clarke's sequels to 2001 - interesting, but it drained something from the original work somehow. I greatly enjoyed, independently, the worlds of Susan Calvin, Lije Baley and Hari Seldon. Having them bridged by ...
Spoiler:

an R. Olivaw-becum-master-manipulator-extraordinaire

... to me felt like a rather strained effort to make a buck by giving the fans what they wanted - more Foundation and a retroactively consistent "Asimov universe".
 
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Carlobrand said:
Yes, I'm sure. The Foundation trilogy is, as I recall, robot-free. The later additions re-introduced the robots of previous Asimov writings - and aliens, I think, but I've only read a couple of the later stuff, didn't enjoy them as much - and sought to bridge the gap between the two sets of writings. I understand the basic thrust was they were there all along, manipulating in the background.

...
Click to expand...


Ah, my error, I didn't gather you were only referring to the first 3 books in the series.

Dave Chase
 
Hi

Back about 1980 or so, my friends lent me a copy of the Foundation Trilogy as the felt it gave a good overview of what the thought the Traveller universe was like. I started reading the 1st book and enjoyed it, but when one of the story arcs that I had been reading ended and the story picked up again severl decades or so later, I kind of had trouble getting into this newer part of the story, so I set it aside for awhile.

Eventually though I did get back to it and ended up enjoying all three books.

I think a big deal for me was that in those 1st three books the author really kind of mostly only gave enough detail about the characters and settings, etc so that you could visualize most of the stuff the way you wanted, which really appealed to me. For me alot of reading involves visualizing the characters and stuff in my mind, which really helps me connect with the story and keep characters stright, etc.

Later in life I read some of the authors other stuff, and for the most part enjoyed his earlier stuff, but found that I wasn;t as crazy about his later stuff.

I don't know if it was because he seemed to be trying to connect alot of stuff together, or if it was becuase he seemed to add more and more detail and description that (to me) kind of made it harder to read and visualize.

One instance in particular I seem to recall involved an encounter with some young thugs, who the author goes on to describe as wearing pink knee britches and a wide brimmed hat with a bow, or something like that, which he describes as beng the style of the times. To me that bit of extra color really didn't add much anything for me, but instead made it harder for me to visualize the scene and/or take it seriously.

Additionally, some of the dialog and mannerisms of his characters, especially in later works seemed really odd to me, and awkward.

So, I guess I might be in the minority here, but I kind of really liked Mr. Asimov's earlier stuff and was kind of indifferent to his later stuff.

Pat
 
inexorabletash said:
So you're saying that Seldon's Plan, while well intentioned (reducing the duration of a Galactic dark age) was still an attempt to control the subjects of an Empire? Intriguing. ;-)



Asimov rather famously related the rationale for this. Publisher Joe Campbell required that humans always be shown as superior to aliens. Asimov thought this was silly, and simply left aliens out.

One of the non-Asimov Foundation books - Foundation's Triumph, by David Brin - provides an explanation for this building on Blind Alley, an obscure short story by Asimov. And that's understating it - Triumph is a tour de force of rationalizing all of the unbelievable aspects of Asimov's future history. Brin is brilliant at it, not just taking on easily noted tropes like "humans only" but pointing out many more gaping holes, and coming up with ways to explain them that give the characters involved much needed depth. (The other two "Killer B's" Foundation books are decent reads but don't advance the meta-plot of the series in the same way as Asimov's later entries (Prelude and Forward) or Brin's Triumph).

FWIW, my preferred reading order would vaguely match the published order:

Foundation (Foundation era)
Foundation and Empire (Foundation era)
Second Foundation (Foundation era)
The Stars, Like Dust (Galactic Empire era)
Currents of Space (Galactic Empire era)
Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire era)
Blind Alley (Galactic Empire era, short story)
I, Robot (near future short stories, with bridging narrative)
The Caves of Steel (Robot/Spacer era)
The Naked Sun (Robot/Spacer era)
Mirror Image (Robot/Spacer era, short story)
The Robots of Dawn (Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation's Edge (Foundation era)
Robots and Empire (Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation and Earth (Foundation era)
Foundation's Friends (various authors, short story collection)
Prelude to Foundation (Foundation era)
Forward the Foundation (Foundation era)
Foundation and Chaos (Gregory Benford, Foundation era)
Foundation's Fear (Greg Bear, Foundation era)
Caliban (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Inferno (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Utopia (Roger MacBride Allen, Robot/Spacer era)
Mirage (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Chimera (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Aurora (Mark W. Tiedemann, Robot/Spacer era)
Foundation's Triumph (David Brin, Foundation era), also Denouement

A purely chronological reading won't give you the meta-plot that emerges through the series. A relatively spoiler-free timeline is at: http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/insane_list.html - note the huge number of Robot short stories; while these are all fun, the selection present in I, Robot with the bridging narrative is sufficient. Also note that most of these works were never intended to be part of a single cohesive future history, so you can't read them too closely and expect continuity.
Click to expand...

Of course, before all this lot you should read The End of Eternity if you're a real completist.
 
PFVA63 said:
...
One instance in particular I seem to recall involved an encounter with some young thugs, who the author goes on to describe as wearing pink knee britches and a wide brimmed hat with a bow, or something like that, which he describes as beng the style of the times. To me that bit of extra color really didn't add much anything for me, but instead made it harder for me to visualize the scene and/or take it seriously.

Additionally, some of the dialog and mannerisms of his characters, especially in later works seemed really odd to me, and awkward.

So, I guess I might be in the minority here, but I kind of really liked Mr. Asimov's earlier stuff and was kind of indifferent to his later stuff.

Pat
Click to expand...
Ha - its been years (decades?) since I read the Foundation series, but that part stuck out for me too.

I also liked his earlier stuff for just the reasons you are pointing out - part of his style was writing vague, sweeping fiction, leaving the details to the reader's imagination. This really makes for better continuity for individual readers. For me, the same holds true of the original CT 'OTU' setting from the core books.
 
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