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Prelude to Foundation (Foundation, #6)

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by Isaac Asimov

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which book should I start with? The prequels or the FOUNDATION original volume?
Jim Davis I was just thinking about this when the Sci Fi Aficionados club picked this as one of the books for a group read in November. I have read all the Foun…moreI was just thinking about this when the Sci Fi Aficionados club picked this as one of the books for a group read in November. I have read all the Foundation books in the order they were published and that is my personal preference. I never saw a problem with reading them this way and there is no specific reason for reading then in timeline order. The original trilogy was written in the early 50's and then there was a gap until the early 80's. Fortunately Asimov's writing style and lack of reference to specific technology doesn't make the first trilogy seem dated. But if you prefer your stories to be chronological instead of "flashing" back then you may want to read them in the order of the storyline which would be:

Prelude to Foundation (1988)
Prelude to Foundation (1993)
Foundation (1951)
Foundation and Empire (1952)
Second Foundation (1953)
Foundation's Edge (1982)
Foundation and Earth (1986)

This is from a word document I have that is suppose to be Asimov's suggested order. It's out on the web somewhere but I don't remember where. He also recommends reading the Robot stories and novels first and then the Galactic Empire novels because there are some tie-ins, especially with the Robot novels near the end of the foundation series.
Here is the list with the other two series included:

The Complete Robot (1982) Collection of 31 Short Stories about robots.
The Caves of Steel (1954) His first Robot novel.
The Naked Sun (1957) The second Robot novel.
The Robots of Dawn (1983) The third Robot novel.**
Robots and Empire (1985) The fourth (final) Robot novel.**
The Currents of Space (1952) The first Empire novel.
The Stars, Like Dust-- (1951) The second Empire novel.
Pebble in the Sky (1950) The third and final Empire novel.
Prelude to Foundation (1988) The first Foundation novel.
Forward the Foundation (1992) The second Foundation novel.
Foundation (1951) The third Foundation novel, comprised of 5 stories originally published between 1942-1949.
Foundation and Empire (1952) The fourth Foundation novel, comprised of 2 stories originally published in 1945.
Second Foundation (1953) The fifth Foundation novel, comprised of 2 stories originally published in 1948 and 1949.
Foundation's Edge (1982) The sixth Foundation novel.
**there would be no problem if you wanted to move the last two Robot novels here.
Foundation and Earth (1986) The seventh Foundation novel.

As I said my personal preference is to read them in the order they were published and I included those dates if you want to do it that way(less)
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