Foundation

So, having just finished Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov for my bookgroup, I thought I would revisit the Foundation books that I read probably 40 years ago. I would say I was not as taken with it as I remember being when I was a young adult, but this book was certainly interesting enough to keep me engaged. In Foundation, which was originally the first of the series, Hari Seldon has caused unrest in the Empire with his predictions of imperial decline and is brought to trial and exiled to the planet Terminus, at the far end of the universe. He is allowed to take his group of experts, who are also working on psychohistory, with him and they become The Foundation, whose ostensible goal is to record all the known history of the Empire. We jump a few decades ahead and Seldon is now dead, and The Empire has indeed fallen. The universe has devolved into smaller fiefdoms that are ruled by military might. Technology has disappeared from most of the planets of the former Empire  but has been maintained on Terminus (notably atomic power), which has largely remained unaccosted due to its technological superiority. Seldon is set to reappear holographically 50 years after his death and his predictions about the future are anxiously anticipated. What everyone learns is that The Foundation's purpose is a sham but a necessary one in order to move the universe forward through chaotic times as expeditiously as possible. We are introduced to a series of storylines and characters who have been trained by or have enough knowledge of the Foundation to recognize the pivotal crises in Seldon's predictions and keep everything on track, notably Salvor Hardin, a mayor on Terminus, and Hober Mallow, a cunning trader. The ending makes it clear that it is not an ending at all, but just a pause in the progression of Seldon's predictions.