Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Book Review: Prelude to Foundation

After 35 years of the original “Foundation Trilogy” and a few years after the two sequels, we go back to the origin, meeting Hari Seldon as a young man as he presents his thesis of psychohistory, and “predicting” the future.  Note the quotes.  He doesn’t exactly predicts, but sees the future based on present circumstances, based on mathematics and history.  Here, he is not quite so confidant in his new theory or thesis, not so sure if it will work, he is not yet aware of the downfall of the galactic empire, and that’s how the situation is as he arrives to Trantor, from his home world of Helicon, to meet with the emperor of the galaxy, Cleon I.
You will note the differences from the original trilogy, written in the early 1950s, to this book, released in 1988.  In the trilogy, Trantor is just one big city covering the entire surface of the planet.  In this new book, Prelude to Foundation I’ve noticed that Trantor is covered with glass domes on different sections of the planet, and Seldon ventures on top on one of them.  You would never imagine this in the original trilogy.  There are open oceans, originally though to be completely covered with all the water in pipes.
Also, new characters and friends of Seldon are introduced:  Dors Venibili, the historian Seldon needs for his discipine; and a very tough woman, Raych, a little street wise urchin in one of the sectors (Dahl, a very hot section of Trantor, with the heat used for an energy source), and we meet Yugo Amaryl for the first time, a mathematician later to be of great value to Seldon.  At the end of the book, we meet one more character by surprise, someone familiar is Asimov’s other books.
Other than this, we see how Hari Seldon journeys from being very unconfident of himself and his works and gaining the knowledge he needs to pursue his discipline, the hard way.
As Seldon presents his theory to Cleon I, the emperor wants to use Seldon to make predictions to keep him and his family on the throne indefinitely.  Seldon tells the truth, but not what Cleon wants to hear, so Cleon and his aide Eto Demerzel (note the name, it become vital in the story) dismisses Seldon from his palace.  Seldon runs into Chetter Hummin, and leads him on a flight across the planet, to different sectors and cultures, some having strange customs.  
He is also warned by Hummin that the empire is dying, the main theme of the book.  The question is how and when.  As Seldon travels across Trantor to see these cultures and their people, he slowly learns how they, and all 25 million planets, are connected, and examines their attitudes and the infrastructure of these places, and the planet as well.  Many of these are parallel to what the United States is experiencing today.  Asimov states that this series is based on the fall of the Roman Empire, not the U.S.
There is plenty of action in Prelude.  One cause is that other than Cleon, one mayor of a sector wants Seldon to use psychohistory for her own benefit.  That is, having Seldon tell both her and Cleon what they want to hear, which is one of the main plots of the story.
At the end, you will see how this all comes together, leading the way to the original trilogy, but rounded out with Seldon having an (adopted) family and how it was decided to have two Foundations rather than one.  Other novels outside of the trilogy are also referred to, such as “The Robots of Dawn.”

After Prelude, Asimov continues the story, published after his death, in “Forward the Foundation.”

Book Review: Forward the Foundation

This is Isaac Asimov’s last science fiction novel, completed, and released one year after his death in 1992.  It is the final volume of the Foundation Series.  Chronologically, it’s really the second book in the series, if you count “Prelude to Foundation” as the first, and “The Foundation Trilogy” as the third, fourth and fifth books.  You will not be disappointed.  The questions of how the two foundations were formed, especially that of the Second Foundation, are answered.
The story opens 12 years after “Prelude,” and Professor Seldon is settled at Streeling University, on Trantor.  He has not perfected Psychohistory, and he is trying to perfect the Prime Radiant, the complex mathematical formula that can predict how humanity, throughout the entire galaxy, will react in certain crisis as the Galactic Empire falls and a long period of interstellar barbarism takes place.
This book is divided into four sections, four separate stories that are connected, one happening right after another as Seldon, and his family, lives at Streeling.  Each section revolves around a certain character, and at the end of each, reveals their fate.   Does Venabili is now Seldon’s wife.  Their adopted son Raych is now in his twenties, and Eto Demerol, a.k.a. R. Daneel Olivaw is now first minister, and friends with Seldon.  The Emperor Cleon I also develops a kinship with Seldon.  
Seldon, however, is not without his enemies, and that’s the plot of the book.  His Psychohistory has become well known, and many people think that is not only predicts the future, but the use of it by the right would place control of the future into their hands, so they go after Seldon for the “secret,” never realizing that there is none.   They never know until it’s too late for them.  
Laskin Joranum is the first villain, a cult like figure with his followers who think that by getting control of Psychohistory, they could rule the galaxy.  Even after his downfall, his followers do not give up on his plan.  The military thinks the same thing, and later, thugs are sent after Seldon, with the law supposedly on their side.
Seldon, meanwhile, tries to get help with his complex equations, and discovers the key to the Second Foundation (Terminus is already assigned to the First Foundation, supposedly to write the Encyclopedia Galactica, composing of all human knowledge.  What’s wrong with the library at Streeling University, I might ask?!  That question is answered in “Foundation.”).  
His own granddaughter accidentally finds out the answer to the Prime Radiant and discovers that she has a gift of controlling minds in making certain decisions, and Seldon capitalizes on this.  She soon discovers other people with the same abilities, and that is the birth of the Second Foundation.
There is action in this book, although they don’t travel around Trantor like in the first, but I think that’s the idea.  The adventures are over, and now it is time to get down to work, but other people, greedy for power through Seldon’s psychohistory still have to be dealt with and stopped, and many pay the ultimate price.  
The book ends, where “Foundation,” the first book of the trilogy, begins, except for the Epilogue.  

This is the link between “Prelude to Foundation” and “Foundation,” and should be included in reading the series.