The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth.
The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept of mathematical sociology (analogous to mathematical physics). Using the laws of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy, which has a population of quadrillions of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems). The larger the number, the more predictable is the future.
Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. Seldon's psychohistory also foresees an alternative where the intermittent period will only last one thousand years. To ensure his vision of a second great Empire comes to fruition, Seldon creates two Foundations—small, secluded havens of all human knowledge—at "opposite ends of the galaxy".
The focus of the series is on the First Foundation and its attempts to overcome various obstacles during the formation and installation of the Second Empire, all the while being silently guided by the unknown specifics of The Seldon Plan.
The series is best known for the Foundation Trilogy, which comprises the books Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. While the term "Foundation Series" can be used specifically for the seven Foundation books, it can also be used more generally to include the Robot Series and Empire Series, which are set in the same fictional universe, but in earlier time periods. If all works are included, in total, there are fifteen novels and dozens of short stories written by Asimov, and six novels written by other authors after his death, expanding the time spanned in the original trilogy (roughly 550 years) by more than twenty thousand years. The series is highly acclaimed, winning the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966.[1]
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Foundation was originally a series of eight short stories published in Astounding Magazine between May 1942 and January 1950. According to Asimov, the premise was based on ideas set forth in Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and was invented spontaneously on his way to meet with editor John W. Campbell, with whom he developed the concept.[2]
The first four stories were collected, along with a new story taking place before the others, in a single volume published by Gnome Press in 1951 as Foundation. The remainder of the stories were published in pairs by Gnome as Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953), resulting in the "Foundation Trilogy", as the series was known for decades.[3]
In 1981, after the series had long been considered one of the most important works of modern science fiction,[1] Asimov was persuaded by his publishers to write a fourth book, which became Foundation's Edge (1982).[4]
Four years later, Asimov followed up with yet another sequel, Foundation and Earth (1986), which was followed by the prequels Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993). During the lapse between writing the sequels and prequels, Asimov had tied in his Foundation series with his various other series, creating a single unified universe.
Prelude to Foundation opens on the planet Trantor, the empire's capital planet, the day after Hari Seldon has given a speech at a conference. Several parties become aware of the contents of his speech—that using mathematical formulas, it may be possible to predict the future course of human history. Seldon is hounded by the Emperor and various employed thugs (working surreptitiously) and is forced into exile. Over the course of the book, Seldon and Dors Venabili, a female companion, are taken from location to location by an aide, Chetter Hummin, who introduces them to various walks of life in his attempts to keep Seldon hidden from the Emperor.
Throughout their adventures all over Trantor, Seldon continuously denies that psychohistory is a realistic science and that, even if it were feasible, it may take several decades even to develop. Hummin, however, is convinced that Seldon knows something and, as a result, continuously presses him to work out a starting point to develop psychohistory.
Eventually, after much traveling and introductions to various, diverse cultures on Trantor, Seldon realizes that using the entire known Galaxy as a starting point is too overwhelming to try to accomplish and decides to use Trantor as a model to work out the science, with a goal of using the applied knowledge on the rest of the galaxy.
Eight years after the events of Prelude, Seldon has worked out the science of psychohistory and has applied it on a galactic scale. His notability and fame increase and is eventually promoted to First Minister to the Emperor. As the book progresses, Seldon loses those closest to him, including his wife, Dors Venabili, as his own health deteriorates into old age. Having worked his entire adult life to understand psychohistory, Seldon instructs his granddaughter, Wanda, to set up the Second Foundation.
Called forth to stand trial on Trantor for allegations of treason (for foreshadowing the decline of the Galactic Empire), Seldon explains that his science of Psychohistory foresees many alternatives, all of which result in the Galactic Empire eventually falling. If humanity follows its current path, the Empire will fall and thirty thousand years of turmoil will overcome humanity before a second Empire arises. However, an alternative path allows for the intervening years to be only one thousand, if Seldon is allowed to collect the most intelligent minds and create a compendium of all human knowledge, entitled Encyclopedia Galactica. The board is still wary, but allows Seldon to assemble whomever he needs, provided he and the "Encyclopedists" be exiled to a remote planet, Terminus. Seldon agrees to set up his own collection of Encyclopedists, and also secretly implements a contingency plan—a second Foundation—at the "opposite end" of the galaxy.
Once on Terminus, the inhabitants find themselves at a loss. With four powerful planets surrounding their own, the Encyclopedists have no defenses but their own intelligence. The Mayor of Terminus City, Salvor Hardin, proposes to play the planets off against each other. His plan is a success, the Foundation remains untouched and he is promoted to Mayor of Terminus. Meanwhile, the minds of the Foundation continue to develop newer and greater technologies which are smaller and more powerful than the Empire's equivalents. Using its scientific advantage, Terminus develops trade routes with nearby planets, eventually taking them over when its technology becomes a much-needed commodity. The interplanetary traders effectively become the new diplomats to other planets. One such trader, Hober Mallow, becomes powerful enough to challenge and win the seat of Mayor and by cutting off supplies to a nearby region, also succeeds in adding more planets to the Foundation's reach.
The current Emperor of the Galaxy perceives the Foundation as a growing threat and orders an attack on it, utilising the Empire's still mighty fleet of war vessels. However, the degeneration of the Empire and the scientific advancements of the Foundation are not in sync and as a result, the Foundation's smaller fleet is mightier. Coupled with political back-and-forths within the Empire, the Foundation emerges as the victor and the Empire itself is defeated.
Meanwhile an unknown outsider known as The Mule has begun taking over planets belonging to the Foundation at a rapid pace. It becomes known that the Mule is, in fact, a mutant who retains the ability to psychically alter the emotions of people. Using this power to great advantage, the Mule conquers planets simply by visiting them in force, with his own army, instilling the inhabitants with great fear, then again with great loyalty to himself. When the Foundation comes to realize that The Mule was not foreseen in Seldon's plan, and there is no predicted way of defeating him, Toran and Bayta Darell, accompanied by Ebling Mis—the galaxy's current greatest psychologist—and a street clown named Magnifico (whom they agree to protect, as his life is under threat from the Mule himself) set out to find the Second Foundation, hoping they bring an end to the Mule's reign.
Eventually, working in the still functional Great Library of Trantor, Mis comes to learn of the Second Foundation's whereabouts. However, having worked out that the Mule is also attempting to find the secret of the Second Foundation, Bayta Darell kills Mis before he can reveal where the Second Foundation is. Bayta explains that she regrets her actions, but the secret had to be kept from the Mule at all costs. Magnifico reveals that Bayta's suspicions are correct and that he is the Mule and has been laboring to find the Second Foundation and conquer it along with the original Foundation. He leaves Trantor to rule over his conquered planets while continuing his own search.
As the Mule comes closer to finding it, the mysterious Second Foundation comes briefly out of hiding in order to face the threat directly. It is revealed to be a collection of the most intelligent humans in the galaxy. While the first Foundation has developed the physical sciences, the Second Foundation has been developing the mental sciences. Using the might of its strongest minds, the Second Foundation ultimately wears down the Mule. His destructive attitude is adjusted to a benevolent one. He returns to rule over his kingdom peacefully for the rest of his life, without any further thought of conquering the Second Foundation.
The First Foundation, learning of the implications of the Second, who will be the true inheritor of Seldon's promised future Empire, greatly resents it - and seeks to find and destroy it, believing it can manage without it. After many attempts to unravel the only clue Seldon had given as to the Second Foundation's whereabouts ("at the other end of the Galaxy"), the Foundation is led to believe that the Second Foundation is located on Terminus. By developing a technology which causes great pain to telepaths, the Foundation uncover a group of 50 such, and destroys them, believing that it has thereby won. However, the Second Foundation has planned for this eventuality, and has sent 50 of its members to their deaths as martyrs in order to regain its anonymity.
Believing that the Second Foundation still exists (despite the common belief that it has been extinguished), Golan Trevize is sent by the current Mayor of the Foundation, Harla Branno, to uncover the group while accompanied by a scholar named Janov Pelorat. After sharing a few conversations with each other, Trevize comes to believe that the Second Foundation lies on a planet in which Pelorat is an expert—the mythical planet of Earth. No such planet exists in any database, yet several myths and legends all reference it, and it is Trevize's idea that the planet is deliberately being kept hidden.
Meanwhile, Stor Gendibal, a prominent member of the Second Foundation, discovers a simple local—who lives on the same planet as the Second Foundation—has had a minor alteration made to her mind. This alteration is far more delicate than anything the Second Foundation can do and, as a result, he determines that a greater force of Mentalics is operating in the Galaxy—a force as powerful as the Mule himself. Having shown interest in Trevize earlier (as he is an individual who has spoken out against the Second Foundation frequently), Gendibal endeavors to follow Trevize, reasoning that he should be able to find out who has altered the mind of the native.
Using the few scraps of reliable information within the various myths, Trevize and Pelorat discover a planet called Gaia, which is inhabited solely by Mentalics, to such an extent that every organism and inanimate object on the planet shares a common mind. Having followed Trevize by their own means, Branno and Gendibal both reach Gaia at the same time. Meanwhile, Trevize is made to decide between three alternatives for the future of the human race: the First Foundation's mastery of the physical world and its traditional political organization (i.e., empire), the Second Foundation's mentalics (and probable rule by mind control), or Gaia's absorption of the entire Galaxy into one shared, harmonious intellect.
After Trevize makes his decision, the intellect of Gaia adjusts Branno's mind so that she believes she has become victorious and conquered the planet (but that she will also continue to leave it alone) and Gendibal is sent back to the Second Foundation under the impression that the Second Foundation is victorious and should continue as normal. Trevize remains uncertain as to why he has chosen Gaia as the correct outcome for the future.
Still uncertain about his decision, Trevize continues on with the search for Earth along with Pelorat and a local of Gaia, advanced in Mentalics, known as Blissenobiarella (usually referred to simply as Bliss). Eventually Trevize finds three sets of co-ordinates which are very old. Adjusting them for time, he realises that his ship's computer does not list any planet in the vicinity of the co-ordinates. When he physically visits each location, he discovers an uncharted planet: Aurora, Melpomenia, and finally Solaria. After searching each, none have given him the answers he seeks.
The first two planets are long deserted, but Solaria contains a small population which is extremely advanced in the field of Mentalics. When their lives are threatened, Bliss uses her abilities (and the shared intellect of Gaia) to destroy the inhabitant who is about to kill them. Discovering that this leaves behind a small child who will be put to death if left alone, Bliss makes the decision to keep the child as they quickly escape the planet.
Eventually Trevize discovers Earth, but it, again, contains no satisfactory answers for him. However, it dawns on Trevize that the answer may not be on Earth, but on Earth's satellite—the Moon. Upon approaching the planet, they are drawn closer and then to inside the Moon's core where they meet a robot by the name of R. Daneel Olivaw. Olivaw explains that he is at the end of his run-time and that, despite replacement parts and more advanced brains (which contain 20,000 years of memories), he is going to die shortly. He explains that no robotic brain can be developed to replace his current one and that to continue assisting with the benefit of humanity—which may come under attack by beings from beyond our Galaxy—he must meld his mind with an organic intellect. Once again, Trevize is put in the position of deciding if having Olivaw meld with the child's superior intellect would be in the best interests of the galaxy. The decision is left ambiguous (though likely a 'Yes') as it is also implied that the melding of the minds may be to the child's benefit and that she may have sinister intentions about it.
The early stories were inspired by Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The plot of the series focuses on the growth and reach of the Foundation, against a backdrop of the "decline and fall of the Galactic Empire".
The focus of the books is the trends through which a civilization might progress, specifically seeking to analyze their progress, using history as a precedent. Although many science fiction novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four or Fahrenheit 451 do this, their focus is upon how current trends in society might come to fruition, and act as a moral allegory on the modern world. The Foundation series, on the other hand, looks at the trends in a wider scope, dealing with societal evolution and adaptation rather than the human and cultural qualities at one point in time.
Furthermore, the concept of psychohistory, which gives the events in the story a sense of rational fatalism, leaves little room for moralization. Hari Seldon himself hopes that his Plan will "reduce 30,000 years of Dark Ages and barbarism to a single millennium," a goal of exceptional moral gravity. Yet events within it are often treated as inevitable and necessary, rather than deviations from the greater good. For example, the Foundation slides gradually into oligarchy and dictatorship prior to the appearance of the galactic conqueror, known as the Mule, who was able to succeed through the random chance of an empathic/telepathic mutation. But, for the most part, the book treats the purpose of Seldon's plan as unquestionable, and that slide as being necessary in it, rather than mulling over whether the slide is, on the whole, positive or negative.
The books also wrestle with the idea of individualism. Hari Seldon's plan is often treated as an inevitable mechanism of society, a vast mindless mob mentality of quadrillions of humans across the galaxy. Many in the series struggle against it, only to fail. However, the plan itself is reliant upon the cunning of individuals such as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow to make wise decisions that capitalize on the trends. The Mule, a single individual with remarkable mental powers, topples the Foundation and nearly destroys the Seldon plan with his special, unforeseen abilities. To repair the damage the Mule inflicts, the Second Foundation deploys a plan which turns upon individual reactions. Psychohistory is based on group trends and cannot predict with sufficient accuracy the effects of extraordinary, unforeseeable individuals; and, as originally presented, the Second Foundation's purpose was to counter this flaw. Later novels would, however, identify the Plan's uncertainties that remained at Seldon's death as the primary reason for the existence of the Second Foundation, which (unlike the First) had retained the capacity to research and further develop psychohistory.
Asimov unsuccessfully tried to end the series with Second Foundation. However, because of the predicted thousand years until the rise of the next Empire (of which only a few hundred had elapsed), the series lacked a sense of closure. For decades, fans pressured him to write a sequel.
In 1982, Asimov gave in after a thirty-year hiatus, and wrote what was at the time a fourth volume: Foundation's Edge. This was followed shortly thereafter by Foundation and Earth. The story of this volume (which takes place some 500 years after Seldon) ties up all the loose ends, but opens a brand new line of thought in the last dozen pages. According to his widow Janet Asimov (in her biography of Isaac, It's Been a Good Life), he had no idea how to continue after Foundation and Earth, so he started writing the prequels.
The series is set in the same universe as Asimov's first published novel, Pebble in the Sky, although Foundation takes place approximately ten thousand years later. Pebble in the Sky became the basis for the Empire Series. Then, at some unknown date (prior to writing Foundation's Edge) Asimov decided to merge the Foundation/Empire series with his Robot series. Thus, all three series are set in the same universe, giving them a combined length of 15 novels, and a total of about 1,500,000 words. The merge also created a time-span of the series of approximately 20,000 years.
Early on during Asimov's original world-building of the Foundation universe, he established within the first published stories a chronology placing the tales approximately 50,000 years into the future from the time they were written (circa 1940). This precept was maintained in the pages of his later novel Pebble in the Sky, wherein Imperial archaeologist Bel Arvardan refers to ancient human strata discovered in the Sirius sector dating back "some 50,000 years". However, when Asimov decided decades later to retroactively integrate the universe of his Foundation and Galactic Empire novels with that of his Robot stories, a number of changes and minor discrepancies surfaced—the character R. Daneel Olivaw was established as having existed for some 20,000 years, with the original Robot novels featuring the character occurring not more than a couple of millennia after the early-21st Century Susan Calvin short stories. Also, in Foundation's Edge, mankind was referred to as having possessed interstellar space travel for only 22,000 years, a far cry from the fifty millennia of earlier works.
In the spring of 1955, Asimov published an early timeline in the pages of Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine based upon his thought processes concerning the Foundation universe's history at that point in his life, which vastly differs from its modern-era counterpart. Many included stories would later be either jettisoned from the later chronology or temporally relocated by the author. Also, the aforementioned lengthier scope of time was changed. For example, in the original 1950s timeline, humanity does not discover the hyperspatial drive until approximately the year AD 5000, whereas in the reincorporated Robot universe chronology, the first interstellar jump occurs in AD 2029, during the events of I, Robot.[5]
Below is a summarized timeline for events detailed in the series. All dates are quoted in Galactic Era (GE) and Foundation Era (FE) which starts in 12,068 GE.
| Date | Event | |
|---|---|---|
| GE | FE | |
| 11,988 | -78 | Hari Seldon and Cleon I are born on Helicon and Trantor, respectively. |
| 12,010 | -56 | Cleon I is crowned Emperor after the death of his father, Stanel VI. |
| 12,020 | -46 | Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor to deliver his paper outlining his theory of psychohistory, a method of predicting the future along mass social change in humanity. (Events of Prelude to Foundation) |
| 12,028 | -38 | (Events of "Eto Demerzel" in Forward the Foundation) |
| 12,038 | -28 | Death of Emperor Cleon I. (Events of "Cleon I" in Forward the Foundation) |
| 12,048 | -18 | Dors Venabili dies. (Events of "Dors Venabili" in Forward the Foundation) |
| 12,058 | -8 | (Events of "Wanda Seldon" in Forward the Foundation) |
| 12,067 | -1 | Hari Seldon goes on trial by the Commission of Public Safety and the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation is exiled/established on Terminus. (Events of "The Psychohistorians" in Foundation) |
| 12,069 | 1 | Hari Seldon dies. (This date is explicitly mentioned in "The Psychohistorians" in Foundation) |
| 12,116 | 50 | (Events of "The Encyclopedists" in Foundation) |
| 12,146 | 80 | (Events of "The Mayors" in Foundation) |
| 12,146-221 | 80-155 | (Events of "The Traders" in Foundation) |
| 12,221-61 | 155-195 | (Events of "The Merchant Princes" in Foundation) |
| ~12,261 | ~195 | General Bel Riose embarks on his quest to claim the Foundation in the name of the Empire and the Emperor, Cleon II. (Events of "The General" in Foundation and Empire) |
| 12,376 | 310 | (Events of "The Mule" in Foundation and Empire) |
| ~12,381 | ~315 | (Events of "Search by the Mule" in Second Foundation) |
| ~12,386 | ~320 | Death of the Mule. |
| 12,428 | 362 | Arkady Darell is born. |
| 12,442-3 | 376-377 | (Events of "Search by the Foundation" in Second Foundation) |
| 12,443 | 377 | Battle of Quoriston between Lord Stettin and the Foundation. |
| 12,564 | 498 | Golan Trevize chooses the Gaia overmind and Galaxia in preference to a Second Empire founded militarily by the First Foundation or ruled psychologically by the Second Foundation. (Events of Foundation's Edge) |
| 12,565 | 499 | Golan Trevize searches for Earth with the hopes that his finding will validate his choosing of Galaxia. (Events of Foundation and Earth) |
| 13,086 | 1020 | 116th Edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica published. |
Asimov's novels covered only 500 of the expected 1,000 years it would take for the Foundation to become a galactic empire. The Foundation universe was once again revisited in 1989's Foundation's Friends, a collection of short stories written by many prominent science fiction authors of that time. Orson Scott Card's "The Originist" clarifies the founding of the Second Foundation shortly after Seldon's death; Harry Turtledove's "Trantor Falls" tells of the efforts by the Second Foundation to survive during the sacking of Trantor, the imperial capital and Second Foundation's home; and George Zebrowski's "Foundation's Conscience" is about the efforts of a historian to document Seldon's work following the rise of the Second Galactic Empire.
Also, shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels, known as the Caliban Trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen, set between Robots and Empire and the Empire Series. The Caliban Trilogy describes the terraforming of the Spacer world Inferno, a planet where an ecological crisis forces the Spacers to abandon many long-cherished parts of their culture. Allen's novels echo the uncertainties that Asimov's later books express about the Three Laws of Robotics, and in particular the way that a thoroughly roboticized culture can degrade human initiative.
After Asimov's death and at the request of Janet Asimov and the Asimov estate's representative, Ralph Vicinanza approached Gregory Benford, and asked him to write another Foundation story. He eventually agreed, and with Vicinanza and after speaking "to several authors about [the] project", formed a plan for a trilogy with "two hard SF writers broadly influenced by Asimov and of unchallenged technical ability: Greg Bear and David Brin."[6] Foundation's Fear takes place chronologically between part one and part two of Asimov's second prequel novel, Forward the Foundation; Foundation and Chaos is set at the same time as the first chapter of Foundation, filling in background; Foundation's Triumph covers ground following the recording of the holographic messages to the Foundation, and ties together a number of loose ends. These three books are now known collectively as the Second Foundation Trilogy.
In an epilogue to Foundation's Triumph, Brin noted that he could imagine himself or a different author to write a sequel to Foundation's Triumph, feeling that Hari Seldon's story was not yet necessarily finished. He later published a possible start of such a book on his website.[7]
Most recently, the Asimov Estate authorized publication of another trilogy of robot mysteries by Mark W. Tiedemann. These novels, which take place several years before Asimov's Robots and Empire, are Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001), and Aurora (2002). These were followed by yet another robot mystery, Alexander C. Irvine's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), set five years after the Tiedemann trilogy.
There are novels by various authors (Asimov's Robot City series, Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series, and Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series) loosely connected to the Robot Series, but they contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered part of the Foundation Series.
In Learned Optimism,[8] psychologist Martin Seligman identifies the Foundation series as one of the most important influences in his professional life, because of the possibility of predictive sociology based on psychological principles. He also lays claim to the first successful prediction of a major historical (sociological) event, in the 1988 US elections, and he specifically attributes this to a psychological principle.[9]
Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, credits the Foundation series with turning his mind to economics, as the closest existing science to psychohistory.[10][11]
In 1965, the Foundation Trilogy beat several other science fiction and fantasy series (including The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien) to receive a special Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series." It is still the only series so honored. Asimov himself wrote that he assumed the one-time award had been created to honor The Lord of the Rings, and he was amazed when his work won.
Science fiction parodies, such as Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero, often display clear Foundation influences. For instance, "The Guide" of the former is spoof of the Encyclopedia Galactica, and the series actually mentions the encyclopedia by name, remarking that it is rather "dry," and consequently sells fewer copies than the guide; the latter also features the ultra-urbanized Imperial planet Helior, often parodying the logistics such a planet-city would require, but that Asimov's novel downplays when describing Trantor.
In 1995, Donald Kingsbury wrote "Historical Crisis", which he later expanded into a novel, Psychohistorical Crisis. It takes place about 2,000 years after Foundation, after the founding of the Second Galactic Empire. It is set in the same fictional universe as the Foundation series, in considerable detail, but with virtually all Foundation-specific names either changed (e.g., Kalgan becomes Lakgan), or avoided (Psychohistory is created by an unnamed, but often-referenced Founder). The novel explores the ideas of Psychohistory in a number of new directions, inspired by more recent developments in mathematics and computer science, as well as by new ideas in science fiction itself.
The oboe-like holophonor in Matt Groening's animated television series Futurama is based directly upon the "Visi-Sonor" which Magnifico plays in Foundation and Empire. [12] The "Visi-Sonor" is also mirrored in an episode of Special Unit 2, where a child's television character plays an instrument that induces mind control over children.
During the 2006–2007 Marvel Comics Civil War crossover storyline, in Fantastic Four #542 Mister Fantastic revealed his own attempt to develop psychohistory, saying he was inspired after reading the Foundation series.
An eight-part radio adaptation of the original trilogy, with sound design by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1973—one of the first BBC radio drama serials to be made in stereo. A BBC 7 rerun commenced in July 2003.
Adapted by Patrick Tull (episodes 1 to 4) and Mike Stott (episodes 5 to 8), the dramatisation was directed by David Cain and starred William Eedle as Hari Seldon, with Geoffrey Beevers as Gaal Dornick, Lee Montague as Salvor Hardin, Julian Glover as Hober Mallow, Dinsdale Landen as Bel Riose, Maurice Denham as Ebling Mis and Prunella Scales as Lady Callia.
By 1998, New Line Cinema had spent $1.5 million developing a film version of the Foundation Trilogy. The failure to develop a new franchise was partly a reason the studio signed on to produce The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.[13]
On July 29, 2008, it was reported that former New Line Cinema co-founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne have been signed on to produce an adaptation of the trilogy by their company Unique Pictures for Warner Brothers. This follows a period of time where the project had been under development at 20th Century Fox.[14]
However, Columbia Pictures (Sony) successfully bid for the screen rights on January 15, 2009, and then contracted Roland Emmerich for direction. Emmerich and Michael Wimer were named as producers.[15] There was no development of the film during 2009–2010.
The Author's Note of Prelude to Foundation contains Asimov's suggested reading order for his science fiction books:[16]
An expanded and corrected strictly chronological reading order for the books is listed below.
| C | Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | I, Robot | Robot short stories. First collection, which were all included in The Complete Robot, though it also contains a binding text, no longer in The Complete Robot. | |
| 1964 | The Rest of the Robots | Robot short stories. First collection, which were all included in The Complete Robot. | |
| 1 | 1982 | The Complete Robot | Collection of thirty-one robot short stories written between 1939 and 1977. |
| 1986 | Robot Dreams | Robot short stories. Anthologized in a book with the same title. | |
| 1990 | Robot Visions | Robot short stories. Anthologized in a book with the same title. | |
| 1992 | The Positronic Man | Robot novel based on Asimov's short story The Bicentennial Man, co-written by Robert Silverberg | |
| 2 | 1954 | The Caves of Steel | This is the first of the robot novels. |
| 3 | 1957 | The Naked Sun | The second robot novel. |
| 4 | 1983 | The Robots of Dawn | The third robot novel. Hugo Award nominee, 1984[17] Locus Award nominee, 1984[17] |
| 2000 | Mirage | Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
| 2001 | Chimera | Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
| 2002 | Aurora | Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
| 2005 | Have Robot, Will Travel | Robot Mystery series by Alexander C. Irvine. | |
| 5 | 1985 | Robots and Empire | The fourth robot novel. Locus Award nominee, 1986[18] |
| 1993 | Isaac Asimov's Caliban | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
| 1994 | Isaac Asimov's Inferno | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
| 1996 | Isaac Asimov's Utopia | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
| 6 | 1951 | The Stars, Like Dust | This is the first of the Empire novels. |
| 7 | 1952 | The Currents of Space | The second Empire novel. |
| 8 | 1950 | Pebble in the Sky | The third Empire novel; however, it was Asimov's first full novel to be published. |
| 9 | 1988 | Prelude to Foundation | This is the first Foundation novel. Locus Award nominee, 1989[19] |
| 1997 | Foundation's Fear | Second Foundation trilogy by Gregory Benford. | |
| 10[note 1] | 1993 | Forward the Foundation | The second Foundation novel (although it was the last written by Asimov himself). |
| 1998 | Foundation and Chaos | Second Foundation trilogy by Greg Bear. | |
| 1999 | Foundation's Triumph | Second Foundation trilogy by David Brin. | |
| 11 | 1951 | Foundation | The third Foundation novel. Actually, it is a collection of four stories, originally published between 1942 and 1944, plus an introductory section written for the book in 1949. Published, slightly abridged, as part of an Ace Double paperback, D-110, with the title "The 1000-Year Plan", in 1955. |
| 12 | 1952 | Foundation and Empire | The fourth Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1945. Published with the title 'The Man Who Upset the Universe' as a 35c Ace paperback, D-125, in about 1952. |
| 13 | 1953 | Second Foundation | The fifth Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1948 and 1949. |
| 14 | 1982 | Foundation's Edge | The sixth Foundation novel. Nebula Award nominee, 1982;[20] Hugo Award winner, 1983;[21] Locus Award winner, 1983[21] |
| 15 | 1986 | Foundation and Earth | The seventh Foundation novel. Locus Award nominee, 1987[22] |
Another alternative is to read the books in their original order of publication, since reading the Foundation prequels prior to reading the Foundation Trilogy fundamentally alters the original narrative structure of the trilogy by spoiling what were originally presented as plot surprises. Asimov noted that there is room for a book between Robots and Empire (5) and The Stars Like Dust (6), and that he could follow Foundation and Earth (15) with additional volumes.
While not mentioned in the above list, some consider the books The End of Eternity (1955) and Nemesis (1989) part of the series.
The End of Eternity is vaguely referenced in Foundation's Edge, where a character mentions the Eternals, whose "task it was to choose a reality that would be most suitable to Humanity". (The End of Eternity also refers to a "Galactic Empire" within its story.) In Forward the Foundation, Hari Seldon refers to a twenty-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis," a reference to Nemesis. In Nemesis, the main colony is one of the Fifty Settlements, a collection of orbital colonies that form a state. It is possible that the Fifty Settlements were the basis for the fifty Spacer worlds in the Robot stories. The implication at the end of Nemesis that the inhabitants of the off-Earth colonies are splitting off from Earthbound humans could also be connected to a similar implication about the Spacers in Mark W. Tiedemann's Robot books.
On the other hand, these references might be just jokes by Asimov, and the stories mentioned could be just those really written by himself (as seen in The Robots of Dawn where Fastolfe makes a reference to Asimov's Liar!). Furthermore, Asimov himself did not mention The End of Eternity in the series listing from Prelude to Foundation. As for Nemesis, it was written after Prelude to Foundation, but in the author's note Asimov explicitly states that the book is not part of the Foundation series, but that some day he might tie it to the others.
Nemesis also touches on a pair of short stories published in Asimov's collection, Gold, dealing with the Fifty Settlements.
| Foundation Universe | ||
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| Preceded by Empire series |
Foundation series 1951–1993 |
Succeeded by End |
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