Words&Dirt

Few figures in the history of science fiction command more gravitas than Isaac Asimov. For years, I’ve heard the Foundation Series discussed with reverence, and always intended to read at least the first novel at some point. Now that I’ve done so, the only conclusion I can honestly come to is that Foundation is a conceptual relic with nothing to offer modern scifi readers; I found it utterly lacking in all the qualities I look for in a good book.

Foundation gets off to a promising, if preposterous, start. In some very distant future, a Galactic Empire that has ruled for thousands of years is on the brink of collapse, and psychohistorian Hari Seldon has used the “science of psychology” to predict the grim future ahead. This idea is hopelessly silly from a contemporary perspective, and it’s hard to imagine many people could have taken it seriously back in 1951 or the decades that followed. But it’s a fun idea.

Seldon conceives of the Foundation as a way of preserving human knowledge and shortening the length of time that civilization will be lost as the Empire unravels. Thirty thousand years of chaos and ignorance can be reduced to a single millennium of disorder, Seldon claims. Okay, great. Who wouldn’t want to use knowledge to soften the blow, right? But this is not Seldon’s main goal, we discover.

So what’s Seldon’s grand plan for the Foundation? The preservation and expansion of knowledge for its own sake? The amelioration of human suffering and promotion of creativity and art? The discovery of new forms of government less reliant on military power, economic domination, and political bureaucracy? Nope. None of these is on the list. Seldon wants a Second Galactic Empire!

Forget about the failures of the original Empire, and forget about questioning the validity of imperial paradigms. We’ll just plant the Foundation on the Galactic Periphery where it will be the only extant purveyor of advanced technology, then use our competitive advantage to manipulate, bribe, and conquer less fortunate planets. Sure, we’ll do this by giving them cool gadgets and promoting mutually-beneficial trade to prevent armed conflict, but only when that serves the Foundation’s interests. When our trading “partners” don’t do what we want, we’ll pull the plug on their energy infrastructure until they learn to behave. And we’ll also dress up our science as a religion so the peons we train to use our technologies won’t understand them properly, thereby securing our monopoly on power. But don’t fret! This is all for the greater good! These poor, uncivilized people are too uneducated and blindly ambitious to be trusted with the truth about their tools––not like us enlightened guardians of the Foundation!

After having similar complaints about Frank Herbert’s Dune, I’ve realized something about myself as a reader: I cannot abide empire-based works of science fiction. Empires are tedious, idiotic, archaic institutions that bring out the worst in human thinking and behavior. They have no place in the world of intelligent science fiction, and should remain where they belong: in history and fantasy books. Perhaps it is not fair to hold a nearly 70-year-old novel to modern standards, but aren’t “great” books supposed to stand the test of time? People rave about Foundation as if no one could understand the essence of science fiction without having read it. Absolute nonsense.

This book has plenty of other flaws. Women hardly seem to exist in Asimov’s cosmic vision, and when they do show up, it’s either to play dress-up or to nag their husbands. And the men that dominate the story are unforgivably stilted and interchangeable. Not even a single one succeeded in charming, entertaining, or otherwise ingratiating himself to me. They are all either doddering old professors too steeped in theory to have any personal appeal, or power-hungry, scheming dullards with merit badges in self-justification and preening. If these peacocks were in line to run the next Galactic Empire in my neighborhood, I’d be on the first transport to Andromeda. Watching the stars streak by for 2.5 million light years would be much more thrilling than listening to these nincompoops bloviate about trade disputes and political squabbles.

To wrap up, I found this to be a decidedly antiquated text. Asimov’s ideas about the predictive powers of science are overblown, and his attitudes about society and governance are regressive. This story purports to take place in the future, but derives its substance solely from humanity’s disreputable past. I can’t speak for the rest of the series, but as a standalone novel, Foundation is a resounding failure of storytelling in every regard.

Rating: 1/10