Science Fiction - "The Foundation Trilogy"
At my science fiction book discussion group I was accused of not being a real SF fan, because I never read Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy". So I spent few weeks and read "Foundation", "Foundation and Empire" and "Second Foundation".When the book starts the Great Galactic Empire is in decline. A psycho-mathematician, Harry Seldon, develops a theory that predicts 30,000 years of chaos after the Empire's fall. However, he realized that if knowledge can be passed from the current civilization to the future one the years of chaos can be reduced to about 1000.
He then proceeds to establish a society on a planet on the fringe of the galaxy to preserve the scientific knowledge - the society established there is referred to as "The Foundation".
The three books cover several hundred years of time and show how the Foundation manages to control the disintegrating empire form completely falling apart. First is uses scientific knowledge as sort a religion, then through political influence of traders.
Of the three books I think I liked the middle one best. There a character name Mule appears, who has a gift of being able to control other people's emotions so that they are happy to do his bidding.
I probably would have enjoyed this book more when I was 15, but still it was fun to read.
posted by richieb @ 6:19 AM
1 comments
