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.