Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov
1982
Oh, the Foundation series rears its head again. This one is the fourth book, set about five hundred years into the Foundation era. It was written about 30 years after the original trilogy was published. Asimov himself admitted to writing this book for two reasons: pressure from the fans, and the obsecene amount of money paid to him by the publishers. Apparently, they drove a dump truck full of money up to his front door, or maybe gave him the world’s biggest oversized novelty cheque. Anyways, due to the timeframe and the Scrooge McDuckiness of the whole thing, I was a little wary.
You know when things are going so well that you start thinking that something sinister must be going on that you simply can’t see? That’s the premise of this edition of the Foundation series. Foundation’s Edge continues the epic tale of political inter-planetary intrigue laid out in Foundation, Foundation And Empire and Second Foundation. We saw the Second Foundation “taken down” in the last book, but it turns out they’re not really gone. Things are going swimmingly for both Foundations, following the Seldon Plan so closely that it starts making people in both foundations start to scratch their heads. Officials on both sides send out people to spy on the other, trying to find out what’s really going on. Things come to a head at the planet Gaia, where a big showdown takes place, and everything comes together nicely. What side wins? You’ll have to read the book to find out!
I enjoyed this book. Overall, the book made a lot of sense and the story flowed nicely. There weren’t any huge gaps in logic, and overall I enjoyed the characterizations. Asimov tried to tie any book that took place on Earth or Trantor somehow into the universe of the Foundation, which actually really bothered me. Some of them made sense, but others were only very vaguely tied in and were completely ancillary to the story line. I’m looking forward to Foundation and Earth, which is the next book. Alan’s been reading the books after me and he’s enjoying them as well.
