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Foundation, a review

January 15, 2025

Foundation is a big book with some big ideas that unfortunately feels a little dusty in the year 2025. It's structure is fun to follow, and the galactic scale of the plot does leave a lasting impression. Split into 4 parts, the book chronicles the fall of a galactic empire, and its subsequent centuries length rebuild. You meet Hari Seldon who's figured out a new type of science that lets him predict the future, he predicts the fall of galaxy, millennia of darkness, bad stuff. His solution is to send lots of smart people in the far corner of the galaxy to work on compiling all of the knowledge available so that it is not lost once the bottom falls out of the empire. And then cut- the next chapter is years after this event, with a whole new list of characters and crises to deal with. This type of soft reset time skip happens four times, and kudos to Asimov for landing these huge jumps and maintaining readability. Kinda crazy that we jump four times and there are I think two women referenced total and one of them has actual lines. These two women are also “evil”, tempted by shiny fashion gadgets and power. Think it would’ve been better if it was only men throughout the novel and discussion of exclusion of women, instead of this throwaway reference to another sex.