Welcome to this special third edition of Dust Jacket. During our #0 edition podcast, the Nerd Culture Podcast crew reviewed the first three novels in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Lauded as one of the greatest sci-fi series ever written, Foundation has the unique honour of being the series awarded the Best Series of All Time by the Hugo Awards, beating out such luminaries as Lord of the Rings and the Lensmen saga.
Here’s a summary of just some of what the NCP crew had to say. For the full review, check out our #0 edition podcast at iTunes.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Set more than 13,000 years in the future, humanity has built a vast galactic Empire. So great is this Empire that Earth has been all-but forgotten. Unfortunately, the Empire is on the verge of collapse due to internal decadence, strife and complacency.
Only one man has the foresight to see the inevitability of this collapse: mathematics professor Hari Seldon. Seldon has developed a complex system known as psychohistory, which mathematically predicts the behaviour of large populations over vast periods of time. Using this system, he predicts both the Empire’s collapse and the 30,000 years of barbarism that will follow. But with the proper preparation and planning, he calculates this period could be reduced to a mere 1,000 years.
On a planet on the far edge of the galaxy, he establishes the Foundation, ostensibly as an organisation dedicated to preserving the knowledge of humanity in a vast galactic encyclopaedia. His real intent in establishing this group, however, is to set in motion the Seldon Plan, which will see the Foundation world emerge as the centre of a new, more benevolent Second Empire in 1,000 years time.
Placed on trail and exiled from the Empire for his beliefs, He records a series of messages highlighting key moments in these thousand years, key challenges humanity will have to face if his plan is to succeed.
As his predictions come true, we see the Seldon Plan in action over several hundred years. As the Empire collapses, smaller kingdoms are formed. Later still, The Foundation becomes the pre-eminent power in the galaxy due to its knowledge of atomic power. Asimov guides us through the emergence of the merchant barons, threats from within and without, and the mystery of the Second Foundation, established by Seldon independent of the first.
