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Feb 15, 2010

Ken-ichi rated it:

An amusing read, but I think I still prefer Brin and Simmons when it comes to epic space opera. Probably the most interesting thing about this book (and, I assume, the rest of the series) is the millennia-spanning time scale of its narrative, which Asimov handles by establishing Hari Seldon's statistical prophesy, and then dropping in at critical junctures to investigate how individuals contrive to fulfill that prophecy. It's kind of a fun model, always knowing the general direction of the plo More...

6 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2008

Tom rated it:

I highly recommend Foundation to anyone who professes to have a grain of interest in Sci-Fi. The political intrigue, religious undertones, innovative sci-fi thoeories, world building, and epic scope make Foundation one of the most worthy reads of speculative fiction.

The premise is that the genius, Harry Seldon, has created and perfected a new science, phychohistory, a form of advanced statistics, to the degree that he can mathematically predict and guide the future of extremely larg More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2008

Christy rated it:

Honestly, I don't get why this book/series is so popular. There are some interesting elements to it (for instance, the use of religion as a tool of mass control and the implicit resultant argument that religion is no more than a fraud, "the opiate of the people," after all), but the book gave me little to enjoy or dig into. The forces of the novel are broad, historical, dealing with masses of people; this means that there is little to no room for individual characters here and little More...

19 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2011

Bird Brian rated it:

Cast:

The Rt Hon. Jim Hacker, Lord Hacker of Islington KG PC BSc
(Minister, Ministry for Administrative Affairs)

Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon)
(Permanent Secretary to the Minister, Ministry of Administrative Affairs)

Sir Arnold Robinson GCMG
(Cabinet Secretary, retired)

THIS NIGHT'S EPISODE: "The Fall of the Galactic Empire"

SCENE I.
Setting: Minister Jim Hacker's office More...

16 comments like (26 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2008

Thomas rated it:

The Foundation trilogy (three first books) and the Foundation series (all seven) are often regarded as the greatest set of Science Fiction literature ever produced. The Foundation series won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Isaac Asimov was among the world's best authors, an accomplished scientist, and he was also a genius with an IQ above 170, and it shows in the intelligently concocted but complex plots and narrative. There are already 331 reviews for this More...

8 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Rick rated it:

I first read this when I was 16, and it changed my life, giving me a whole new take on history and psychology and even math. I even tried a year as a psych major in college to see if the statistical approach was really the answer. Forty years later, I read it again, just to see what effect it would have. What I noticed was that the plot was carefully staged and not "fair" (in that the writer often kept some secret informaiton up his sleeve that the reader didn't know, but still it w More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2009

Jesse rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2011

Jihad rated it:

I have been waiting to read Foundation for a long time. Before it I've only read a number of short stories by Asimov.

I'd say I'm fairly new to scifi. I've been reading it for only about 3 years, and I'm still catching up with the classics. What gripped me the most so far are large stories with massive universes (a la Dune and Hyperion). I wasn't lucky to find much of those recently, so boy did I start reading Foundation in the right time.

It's a lot shorter than I thought More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 08, 2010

Michael rated it:

It really is high time I review this sucker, even though I'm not sure how I'm going to do it. Even Hari Seldon doesn't know how I'm going to do it, but that's because individuals are hard to predict. He could tell you fer sure what's going to happen in 2012, though: whether or not we can expect Xenu's return, whether or not the Tea Party is going to win and realize they don't have a bloody clue how to lower taxes, whether or not the final battle between vampires and werewolves will happe More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Moira rated it:

Jediným důvodem, proč Nadaci nedám všech pět hvězdiček, je ten, že jsem měla starší vydání, kde je moře překlepů a kde často chybí úvozovky. Kazilo mi to plynulost i přehlednost čtení a celkově je něco takového v dnešní době monstrózním faux pas.

Pokaždé, když čtu něco ze sci-fi písečku si říkám, proč vlastně čtu knihy. Proč jsou psána pokračování. Proč se autor nespokojí s jedním rozuzlením děje, ale stále pokračuje dále a dále.
A odpověď je jednoduchá: Píše pro své čtenáře. Sc More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

Foundation. The name is apt.

Isaac Asimov's sprawling scifi tale is the rock on which much of today's space opera is built. Truer scifi historians than me would cite the late 1920s and pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and E. E. "Doc" Smith as the DNA donors that spawned a thousand space operas. They would be right, but Asimov's fame towers above all others. His 1952 story of the decline and fall of the Galactic Empire is space opera's... foundation.

Unfort More...

8 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2008

Alison rated it:

I enjoy reading science fiction, and even seek it out when I'm ready for a break from well-written books in which nothing really happens. As with all sci-fi, there were some great ideas in this book, psychohistory chief among them. Much like psychology predicts behavior, psychohistory predicts large, sweeping patterns through time. The book then explores influence, power, and control within the frame of psychohistory. Some interesting questions and themes come along - does the individual ma More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 20, 2008

Jamie rated it:

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is often cited amongst the nerdegalian as the best sci-fi series evar. It's set, as you may guess, far into the future where a man discovers that Rome ...uh, I mean The Galactic Empire is fated to collapse and bring about 30,000 years of barbarism unless certain actions are taken to start a long chain of events, the first of which is to create a kind of galactic Wikipedia. I'm not normally a fan of hard science fiction, and reading this trilogy kind of reminds me More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2008

Inder rated it:

This novel takes place in the far distant future, when humans have settled the whole galaxy. The origins of humanity, on the legendary "Earth," have been all but forgotten. The Galactic Empire is dying, and a small colony of scientists (the "Foundation") are struggling to survive the subsequent dark ages.

First, the bad news: The book is, in some respects, very dated. In this distant future, women all but do not exist. Asimov could imagine a radically changed socie More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2007

Donovan rated it:

I enjoyed the first book because its theories were new and intriguing. The second book just waded about, repeating itself, with a mutant variable thrown in. I liked the third book because it felt like something actually happened. It’s as if the first book is the word problem, the second book is the solving of it, and the third is the answer. I wonder if he intended this to be a trilogy when he started or the long series that it became. Asimov didn’t ever really write a novel with any of it. It’s More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2007

Doc Opp rated it:

One of the great books of science fiction. Brilliant plot, great characters, and one of the most memorable quotes of all sci-fi: "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". The first section reads slowly, but its worth sticking with it because the book as a whole is spectacular.

SPOILER ALERT - THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE STORY, BUT CONTAINS ELEMENTS OF THE BOOKS THAT YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE ENTIRE SERIES (AND ARE PLANNING TO) STOP R More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Bill rated it:

I downloaded the original Foundation trilogy nearly 30 (!) years after reading them the first time -- and (probably because I was in 7th grade at the time) not really "getting" them. I was certain my intervening maturity would reveal a more nuanced and, frankly epic read than the one I remembered from childhood.

Sadly, the first one's still a bit boring, taking place mostly as a series of deep, philosophical conversations between characters with odd names and impeccably desc More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Gary rated it:

Couldn't believe all that smoking in the future.

Totally inconsequential but this book and the previous one that I read, The Driver's Seat, both make mention in their opening pages of unstainable fabrics.

In Driver's Seat it gives us the first sign that Lise is a bit odd. In Foundation of course it's just part of the future.

A man in glaring blue-and-yellow uniform, shining and new in unstainable plasto-textile, reached for his two bags.

Part of the fu More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2010

The W rated it:

W Rating: B-

Foundation is an old school style book with five or so episodic looks at the future of this millennium of barbarism that is to follow the eventual collapse of the empire. (That's a sentence!)While the book is brief and quick to the point and essentially short stories squeezed together, they flow well and the characters have merit.

I think that I have read too much history and cultural/societal development books to have this be a very novel idea. It was good, an More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2011

Chinook rated it:

I really, really liked it. I don't know why that surprised me so much, but I did. I am now disappointed that there aren't any used copies of the rest of the series around, so I'm going to be forced to buy them new. I'm glad that Tim started me in the direction of the classic sci-fi, because it's been the perfect escapism lately.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2008

Scurra rated it:

The original Foundation trilogy or, rather, sequence, since it's actually a set of short stories/novellas rather than actual books, is frequently cited in lists of "great SF".
It fully deserves its place. Although none of the stories in themselves are out-and-out classics, the cumulative effect is utterly amazing, recounting an almost-plausible massive future history all hung on the genius concept of "psychohistory", which is used as the theoretical filter through which More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2009

Kevin rated it:

For those wanting to start science fiction, or hoping to learn what it's about: Foundation. The start of Asimov's epic series and so far the best science fiction series I've read. It gets overhyped by many readers, it's not Lord of the Rings epic but I've yet to find something in Science Fiction that is. Asimov admitted that it's his own science fiction retelling of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon it suffers most from Asimov's hyper technicality though the ov More...

0 comments like

Mar 16, 2009

Dom rated it:

Constitué de dialogues ayant trait à la stratégie pour la plupart, ce livre relate l'histoire de la Fondation, de sa création par Hari Seldon à l'ère des Princes Marchands, près d'un siècle plus tard. Le concept-clé de ce roman est celui de psychohistoire, science permettant, via des calculs de probabilités, de prédire le cours de l'histoire. Le contexte historique est houleux : l'Empire Galactique est sur le point de tomber. La psychohistoire prédit une période de barbarie d'une durée de 30.000 More...

0 comments like

Mar 04, 2009

Mike rated it:

I have always been a fan of science fiction, especially so called "hard" science fiction (stories based around the "big idea," or cutting edge science and astronomy, or speculation about future events; rather than just fantasy writing which happens to involve space ships and blaster rifles), but I have never been a huge fan of Isaac Asimov (sacrilege, I know) and I have never read his seminal work the Foundation Trilogy. However there is a time for everything, and the time fo More...

0 comments like

Aug 22, 2007

Todd rated it:

I tried to like Asimov and his robots. Really, I did. My friend, who is usually spot-on with his recommendations, would rave and rave about Asimov, this series included. But these stories are so focused on plot, plot, plot, with no effort left over for milieu, character development, or anything else, that I quickly tired of his stories. Each scene plays out more like a math problem than an actual chapter of a story. It's a shame that Asimov is the so-called "grand master" of scien More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Teddy rated it:

I can't help but be disappointed with what I've read of the Foundation trilogy. Lauded far and wide as an amazing work of Science Fiction, it falls short, for me, as literature. I would call it a very interesting concept and intriguing story, in-artfully written. The central characters all seem to follow the same arc; they progress from a phase in which they strongly suspect a Sheldon Crisis is incoming, despite the doubts of their intellectual inferiors, to one of nearly smug superiority- safe More...

0 comments like

Jan 12, 2012

Joanne rated it:

It's not that there aren't some interesting ideas here, it's that they're all presented from the perspective of a bunch of 1940s, cigar-smoking, good 'ol boys (on spaceships). The dialogue is right off a WWII air craft carrier and entirely androcentric. Not to go all feminist on it, but there are a total of 5 mentions of women in the entire book and none of those are positive. It seems less than prescient that however many 10s of thousands of years into the future we're talking about (the boo More...

0 comments like

Dec 11, 2011

Gian Piero rated it:

I've been meaning to read this cornerstone of science fiction for quite some time. It was a different read from what I expected, to be sure. The best thing about the series is undoubtedly its brilliant premise: a visionary mathematical modes has established that the Galactic Empire is a dead state walking, and genius Hari Seldon, responsible for the discovery manipulates events so as to create an entity, a Foundation, that will restore order to the galaxy in a thousand years as opposed to thirty More...

3 comments like

Nov 13, 2011

Terry rated it:

The Foundation series is considered one of the two best series done by Aasimov along with the Robot series, having read neither, I have no idea what this meant but a man with Aasimov's mutton chops has to know what he's doing.

The nut of Foundation is two fold: That in aggregate, people's behavior en masse can be modeled like particles of gas in a mass action principle and that smart people can do smart things. The first is the sci fi premise while the second is the plot premise.

More...

0 comments like

Oct 30, 2011

Pockets rated it:

I've been reading sci-fi for a long time now. Almost since I started reading in fact. As one who is very intimately familiar with the genre you would think I would have read more Asimov novels. When you speak with someone about sci-fi there are always a few certain names that come up and Isaac Asimov is one of them.

Unfortunately I just cannot seem to really like his books. I just don't think that they really live up to all of the hype that the sci-fi community creates about him. T More...

0 comments like