Just Finished (re)Reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov (FP: 1951) [189pp] 

The Empire was falling, and no one could stop it. Not even the great Hari Seldon despite the fact that he was the one, much to the annoyance of the Imperial court, who had predicted it in the first place. But the mathematics was sound. The Empire WOULD fall and soon, despite its apparent strength. Seldon also predicted that the resultant chaos of the dark times would last tens of millennia before another, stronger Empire would rise from the ashes. But he had a plan, guided by his knowledge of PsychoHistory and his groundbreaking mathematical studies understood by so few. The Plan revolved around the creation of the Foundation – an organisation dedicated to the preservation of knowledge and technology that would become the seed from which the next Empire would grow and grow MUCH sooner than without it. However, there was a catch. No one on the new Foundations home world of Terminus could have any knowledge of PsychoHistory or the maths behind it. At certain crisis points they would be presented with a hard choice. Choose correctly and the path of the Foundation would be assured until the next crisis, choose badly and the Foundation itself might fall, just as the Empire had. Beyond Terminus, as the Empire starts to slowly unravel, forces eager to take the Foundation into their own political orbit are gathering. The first Seldon Crisis is coming... 

I first read this about 45 years ago so, after such a break, I couldn’t remember much about the story except for a rough outline. I’ve been prompted to re-read it because of the new Apple+ series from late last year. Despite being written around 70 years ago I thought this had stood the test of time surprisingly well. There are a few hints of its age from the odd mention of technology that would’ve been common in the 50’s plus a decided focus on atomic energy but much of the narrative is practically timeless. Largely this is a SF political novel dealing with the exercise of power – in this case over a galactic Empire – and how it can both fail and survive against the odds. Interestingly, no doubt against the general flow of the Space Opera genre, there are no great space battles here. The Foundation is meant to win any conflict by NOT fighting and does so by using the intelligence and wiliness of the members of the Foundation council with a bit of help (and the odd helpful nudge) from the holographic ‘ghost’ of Hari Seldon himself. I did enjoy this revisit very much indeed and I’m looking forward to re-reading the next three books in the series before finishing it off with the final three that I somehow missed reading the first-time round. A true SF Classic and one that all SF fans should read. Without the Foundation series much of what we know and love about Science Fiction – in both book and movie form – would simply not exist without it.