For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun--or fight them and be destroyed.
1 out of 1 found this helpful:
not worth a read
omar(san francisco)
i wrote about this series on my blog a year back, and needed to spread my dislike.. there is so much better science fiction around:
i hated the first trilogy in this series, which is all i read. the writing seemed so trite. but maybe it wasn't about the writing, but the idea. anyway i thought the idea was stupid too. here's my admittedly biased take on the idea: in the future, there's a society with some sort of scientist/mathematician who has worked out how to predict the happenings of the universe, far in advance of them happening. i forget the name of this group, but it's a stupid name. they move away from their home world to some other planet and establish a civilization. the books are about different generations of these people, and in each book a character goes to this high-tech oracle, created by the original scientist/mathematician, and this oracle tells them everything that happened before, and gives them a hint of what's going to happen next.
in my mind this is stupid. are people comforted by this idea that the universe might be understandable enough that it can be predicted ahead of time? i personally find this very depressing. in that scenario, i'm just a cog in a wheel acting out some scenario which might be important, but must go in such-and-such way because the future, predicted, is predicated on the outcome being such-and-such.
not to mention that the characters are boring, the writing is simple, and the dialog is sooo stilted.
http://orcaomar.blogspot.com/2005/08/foundation-series.html2006-09-13 21:08 | comment
Write a review