Foundation, Notes on the book series

Last Updated: 2026, May 30th

Foundation and the Individual

A few years ago I went through Project Gutenburg and read dozens and dozens of classic sci-fi short stories and novellas. I was surprised, on re-reading Foundation, how like it was to these. I remembered it as a more modern novel - more convoluted. The thoughts and motives of the main characters more complicated. More full of suspense and questions. But the four stories in the first book are each dominated by a single, confident, and invariably correct protagonist. I couldn’t help being reminded of Murray Leinster and H. Beam Piper, especially the latter. The idea that the best and only way to rule was is tyranny, where the tyrant has the long-term good of the people at heart, seems to have been a common assumption in the 40s and 50s. The happy belief that men like this not only should arise, but could and would, is sprinkled all over. In this current world of openly inconsistent leaders, of movers and shakers with palpably short-term plans, such a belief is as comforting as it is naively frustrating. It also makes me think of Terry Pratchett’s infallible tyrant, Patrician Vetinari. And of course, to a lessor degree, of Captain Kirk and his spiritual successors. What do we encourage when we portray people as theoretically capable of leading well through domination? What do we encourage (or discourage) when we don’t?

What Makes a Memory?

I realized, during the first story in Foundation, that I didn’t remember many details at all about the individual plots. Nothing was a shock, it all felt familiar, and the basics of the series’ premises is a well known as the plot of A New Hope, but I didn’t remember any specific details. Any tech. Any characters. Except two: a strange looking man called The Mule and a little girl. I had the vague idea that he cared about the girl but she was a bit afraid of him. And that the Foundation was in trouble and the story ended with them in a spaceship alone together. Or maybe they took the spaceship and started a new foundation with it? It was fascinating, starting the second story in Foundation and Empire and seeing how much of my memory was true and how much was false. Bay is young, but she’s hardly “a little girl,” and she’s never alone with the Mule: there are two other men traveling with them – one or them her husband!

Could there be another girl in later books I’m half remembering? Why, out of everything in this series, was this story the one thing my brain bothered to retain? It’s definitely the most dramatic story so far, and the most relational. My childhood self seems to have had no problem ignoring tech and politics when they were unintelligible to me, rightly concluding they were unimportant, but perhaps confusing relational dynamics couldn’t be so easily dismissed. Perhaps I treasured them in my heart precisely so I could one day understand them. What do most people remember from the books they read as children?

The parts you didn’t understand?
The things that scared you?
The things that brought you joy?

The Changing of An Author’s Voice

I’ve finally started one of the Foundation books written in the 80s, Prelude to the Foundation, and honestly it’s pretty boring. Partially I suppose because it’s a prelude, so we already know what’s going to happen. But mostly because of how it’s written. There is a huge style change between this book and Foundation and Empire, as I suppose one ought to expect after a twenty year gap. Too, some of the things that happen in this book are simply unbelievable. Not that the earlier books were paragons of hard sci-fi, or accurate human behavior, but the way they were written and the way the characters behaved agreed with each other. This book is written in a more serious tone, but I can’t take it seriously. Trantor has always been ridiculous, but its ridiculousness was charming when the author himself seemed to know it. Now that we’re being told left and right how amazing it is, and how people actually live in it, it’s pretty hard not to see how completely impossible it is as a concept. A world completely wrapped in “steel”? Dependent on other planets for food?

Ah. I have read this book before. And I really didn’t like it – Asimov’s treatment of the Amish people (sorry, the Mycogenians) was a bit disturbing to me. And even with my low, low standards for female character’s in sci-fi stories, Dors irked me to the point of personal insult. Once I remembered all this I skipped to the last chapter and called it done.

I’m trying to figure out why this novel is so unsatisfying. It’s not like there weren’t problems with the other books in the series too

. It feels contrived, yes. But I think the main issue is that Hari Seldon makes for a painfully boring hero. It's hard to believe that Hummin

and Dors would put themselves to so much trouble for such an unexceptional man. Asimov's other heroes may have been unlikely, even over the top, but they were competent and charismatic enough that their victories seemed plausible. But here, I can't help wonder: why doesn't Hummin just develop the science himself? He has to be ten times as fitted for the job as Seldon, and it would be no problem for him, with his large network of leaders and thinkers, to pass the idea off as someone else's. I think revealing that the Seldon's plan *was actually developed by a robot*, would have made for a much more interesting novel.

Nuclear Power

I read a blog post a few days ago about D.r Manhattan and how he was a direct response to the scientists who were hyping up nuclear power. And this made me realize that nuclear power is All. Over. the first two books of the foundation, but is not given much page space at all in the Prelude. In fact, Hari Seldon asks, “Doesn’t Trantor get its energy from solar power stations in orbit?” And is told that, yes, some comes from the sun, " some from nuclear fusion stations . . . some from microfusion motors and some from wind stations . . . . but half . . . comes from the heatsinks." (which . . . I suppose means geothermal power?). The technology is so complicated that even now the exact methods have been forgotten and are carried out by tradition and not by understanding. So there’s another thing to look out for when returning to a series after twenty decades: make your tech consistent, even if there have been changes in the real world.

Of course, it also is a good reminder for me about not being so judgey. I tend to ignore books whose main conceit is some extrapolation of the most recent technological innovation, but a lot of the books I enjoyed reading as a child are exactly that. I need to be less snobbish.

Female Characters

I didn’t think much about female characters when I was growing up, except that they were often pretty bad and I wished authors would just leave them out if they couldn’t write them well. It’s only been in adulthood that I’ve really noticed-noticed them. In this series, there really aren’t any worth mentioning until Bay, who is amazing. In the background of her story is the fact that women are respected as (non-ruling) peers in the Foundation, but outside of it not so much. Fast forward two generations to her granddaughter though and we find fathers are still trying to motivate their female children with the the potential approval, or disapproval, of future boys. Yet even though the culture doesn’t seem to expect much from young Arkady, Asimov has gone out of his way to show women are important to history. Not just through his precocious protagonist, but through the two female adults in the story are quite knowledgeable decision makers. They might not be mayor of the planet, but they are valued agents in a large and complicated plan. It’s a marked difference from the stories published only 4 years prior. Extremely quick for change.

So what happened between the 40s and the 80s for Asimov to regress to Dors? She’s extremely capable and competent, yes, but only so that she can be helpful to Seldon. She has no desires or purposes of her own. Even without the revel at the end of the book she feels unnatural.