August 2, 2022
Isaac Asimov’s reputation as one of the greatest authors of science fiction in history seems to be well-deserved. Foundation’s story is presented through a series of larger-than-life men, each one able to confidently chart the correct course forward through history, despite the narrow and stubborn ideas swirling about them. Asimov builds us a sprawling, oversized civilization and fills it with predictable, small men and their small ideas. He presents a cynical impression of the nature of humans, stated very obviously through the pseudo-science of psychohistory. He then explores the nature of an individual’s ability to break out of the trends of the masses, and affect the shape of the world, not always for the better. Told in this series of vignettes stretching across nearly 100 years of the fall of civilization, this narrative is digestible, darkly funny, and deeply thought-provoking. It clearly functions as part of a larger series of stories exploring the downfall of an empire, but could easily be consumed on its own as a window into the ways our own history might not look so very different from our future.
8/10
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