Psychohistory

I really like that word. It's also a travesty that this blog has been posting so long with nothing about Isaac Asimov, the Grandmaster of Science Fiction.
There are two criteria for a work to be science fiction: one is that it has to have some science fact to it, that it uses or changes somehow to make the story, and it also should have some kind of social commentary. Why do I bring this up? Because the science fact in the Foundation is Math. Yes, you read that right, Math.
To be more precise, it's actually statistics, (which is a subset of math anyway). The main character, Dr. Hari Seldon has discovered a way to use probability to guess the most likely future for the galactic empire. What he found is that the galaxy will most likely have a 20,000 year dark age between the collapse of the first empire and the beginning of the second empire. To ensure the Dark Age only lasts 1000 years, he creates what is called the "Seldon Plan" for the galaxy. Nobody knows what it is, except for the people of the Second Foundation.
The First Foundation (or just the Foundation) is a group of scientists charged by Hari Seldon to write an encyclopedia galactica, or a book of all the knowledge in the galaxy.
I know this series sounds really boring, but I promise that it is not. The Galactic Empire in the Foundation novels has often been cited as the inspiration for the Galactic Empire in Star Wars. They are very similar: Trantor is the capital planet of the Foundation empire, it is a world covered in one big city, and it is as close to the center of the galaxy as an inhabitable planet can be. Coruscant, the capital planet of the Star Wars galaxy, shares all of those characteristics.
The first book, Foundation is actually four short stories that Asimov wrote in college. They describe the origins of the Foundation, and its rise to power in its corner of the galaxy.
The second book, Foundation and Empire, is a story about a man named simply “The Mule” who has the power to alter people’s emotions. Seldon’s plan could not randomly predict someone with that power. Even though the Foundation doesn’t know Seldon’s plan, they know that they must remain control what they already had (they cannot cede any territory, lest the whole plan possibly being thrown off).
The third book, Second Foundation, is two stories: the first is the Mule’s search for the Second Foundation, and the second story is Arkady’s search for the Second Foundation. Arkady is the daughter of a prominent First Foundationer.
All three books have plenty of action, and have interesting conclusions full of neat twists. They are less thought provoking than a Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K. Dick book, but that’s fine because sometimes, we just need a fun adventure to be immersed in (Asimov probably needed an escape from all the studying he did while majoring in biochemistry).
What I like about Asimov’s stories is that he comes up with some kind of concept, like Psychohistory or the three laws of robotics, and then tries to find exceptions or flaws in them. This is especially prevalent in Foundation and Empire when the Mule is taking over the galaxy. Seldon could not have predicted that, so now the whole plan is skewed. It’s an interesting conflict: you have a madman trying to conquer the galaxy, but the deeper implication is that the Dark Age may last longer, or the future may not be as predictable as we hope it is.
This trilogy is a subset of Asimov’s much larger “future history of the Milky Way galaxy series,” which spans seventeen (yes, seventeen) books, starting with I, Robot. I have read nine of the books, in no particular order, and they are all enjoyable on their own. If you know the premise behind psychohistory, then it doesn’t matter if you read book one, then two, then negative 2 (being the first prequel book), then four (being the first sequel book) etc.
I’ll write more about the sequel and prequel books later, because the original Foundation book is really the best place to start. Prelude to Foundation is a good book for fans of the series, but it would not really be a good place to start it. Overall, I highly recommend this series to anyone who even remotely enjoys science fiction, since the story is really good, and they are pretty easy to read, too.

Foundation
ISBN# 0553382578
Foundation on Amazon.com

Foundation and Empire
ISBN# 0553293370
Foundation and Empire on amazon.com

Second Foundation
ISBN# 0553293362
Second Foundation on amazon.com