Book Review: Foundation and Empire

The Foundation, through trade, continues to expand its influence.

The Empire, even though it loses many of its sectors, continues to disbelieve its downfall.  This is a very common thought in any civilization in decline.

Now the Empire takes notice of the Foundation, and turns its attention to it.  The Galactic Empire wants the Foundation destroyed, and assigns its best general, Bel Riose, to do it.  The General makes his plans, and takes control of Foundation’s worlds, loosely connected by trade, one by one.  The Foundation takes notice, and defends itself with the smaller fighting ships, and it appears its losing, until the very end.  

Have a strong general and a strong ruler, the Foundation sees its threat, but pits them against each other. 

What was said loudly by an unnamed person in a bar, “you watch ol’ Foundation.  They wait for the last minute then— pow!”  This has been the strategy of the Foundation in both Foundation and the first half of Foundation and Empire.  The step back, examine the opponent, watch their behaviors and weaknesses, then go in for the kill.

Until the advent of the Mule!  The Mule has a power to mold’s men’s emotions and shape their minds.  His worst enemies become his most loyal allies, and nobody would fight him, so he conquers the outer edges of the galaxy, and even destroys Trantor, the capital planet.  

Foundation itself, the planet Terminus, is conquered by the Mule, and Seldon’s plans are seemingly laid waste.

This was one event Hari Seldon did not foresee, and it severely alters his plans for the new empire.  The Mule plans to completely take over the galaxy.

Two characters, Bayta Darell and her husband Toran, with a psychologist Ebling Mis, pick up and befriend a clown who was a fool of the Mule himself, and was running away from him.  They flee across the galaxy to Trantor, with the Mule and his conquests following.  The clown is to be watched here because there is a surprise in store involving him.

They try to find the Second Foundation to overpower the Mule, but it remains hidden, and is said to also possess mental powers like that of the Mule.  The Mule himself wants to find it, and destroy it.

It is here you begin to see that the second proposed empire may not be physically governed like that of the first, or any other government in history.  The Second Foundation seems to have something kept secret, so as the public could not even guess at its plans, so they keep their location, and its existence under wraps.

No matter how well one plans a strategy, some unknown factor will always intervene.  How it is to be handled will be answered in the third book, Second Foundation.