Foundation (Foundation #1)

Foundation is split into five interlinked parts with smaller chapters, each taking place in future eras and with new characters.

Similar to A Canticle for Leibowitz but not as fervently religious, while more political, better organized, and homogeneous by the end.

> The Foundation is established

> Its sees off potential threats

> Becomes a religious superpower

> Further expands and creates trade routes

> Averts the final crisis and gives a satisfying conclusion.

It's also worth doing a bit of background study to enhance your understanding before taking on this profound read.

Planet Earth (equivalent) is essentially doomed. All technology, information and culture will be lost forever if an escape route isn't found - religion, education, philosophy - vulnerable to out of control events - global nuclear war, melting icecaps, disease, or perhaps even alien invasion. That's why a backup is needed, an escape clause, a way off.

Mankind's long-term survival and all the knowledge and data that's been accumulated is the essence of this book.

It has a curious quality of being old-fashioned and forward thinking at the same time, with regular jarring mentions of cigars and snuff, sideburns and bushy whiskers, the upper class old-boy chatter, and people still paying for things with coins, while taking manually driven taxis in the absence of automated GPS.

But Foundation is resplendent with deeply philosophical viewpoints: if all you do is read and study and accept the opinions of others, you'll not have the same insight as physically obtaining experience by going places and seeing for yourself.

It makes space exploration a living reality on the outer periphery of the universe.

Sure, it's easy and smug to spot what Isaac Asimov didn't envisage in the 1940s and 1950s, such as nuclear power becoming the most important form of future energy, while forgetting about solar, wind and hydro - the importance of green powers - and eliminating the need for coal, oil, and metals.

But the actual type of energy isn't technically important, but rather who controls and develops it.

The philosophy in this book is often amazing: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", and one of the reasons Asimov remains a respected and complex yet benign and gentle literary power. You feel comfortable in his hands.

Foundation is political, and with that comes diplomatic negotiations and sometimes financial, religious or moral bribery, but never direct threat or violence, which is the tactic of rivals.

It's a book that sometimes poses oddly arbitrary questions such as will future armed interstellar forces be known as the air force or the navy? I'm still working that one out.

Part 3, The Mayors, is the closest Foundation ever gets to a thriller, while the rest is hard work and needs investment to appreciate and enjoy, but the author's brilliance and ability to plan and think forward are incredible.

And the penny finally drops! Without solid foundations we have nothing over the long term, even planet Earth isn't a solid base, dinosaurs have come and gone, and so will the human race - if you give an untrained person technology, or an uneducated person resources, they'll use them up and be unable to reproduce or replace them - as with the human race and what we've got right now, always growth and expansion and profits, and probable doom!

It's one of those books that gains an extra gazillion stars by reading the last section of the last chapter when it light-bulb-moment comes together and explains why the Foundation, why Terminus, and why nuclear technology are so important.

Next in the series is Foundation and Empire and I'm having a little break first before tackling that!