Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

I first read this probably about ten years ago (and I confess, I didn't get a chance to read it for November, so I'm working from memory of the last time I read through it), and that was my first introduction to the writings of Asimov. In my opinion, the Foundation Trilogy is about his best work, although many of his short stories and the robot series are quite good as well. I have not read nearly all his novels, though, so I can't give a comprehensive defense of that opinion!

Asimov was a great scientist and a staunch humanist, which shows up more in some of his writings than others. Foundation is an easy book to read because it has the scientific know-how in the background, but it doesn't necessarily sound as if it were written by a scientist - I was surprised at how witty and clever Asimov's writing was. The universe in Foundation isn't very religious, but at least Asimov doesn't overtly mock religion as he does in some of his writing. His attitude toward the sacred reminds me a bit of Mark Twain's, actually, in his humourous, cynical, somewhat irreverent references to Providence and the like.

The story doesn't really read like science fiction, aside from the fact that it happens in a galaxy in outer space, uses space travel, and contains all sorts of futuristic gadgets. Asimov really was the precursor to modern science fiction, and like many founders of a genre, touched off a long line of cheap spin-offs. I don't particularly care for science fiction as a genre, so I was able to enjoy the book as the good story it was.

The plot is fascinating and involved. I love the idea of psycho-numerics, the theory of predicting events through known crowd patterns. I love how each new step in the saga reveals a different piece of information about what Seldon's Plan really was about. A plot that unravels slowly enough to be surprising and yet not grow tedious in the telling is a very delicate thing to manage. The characters are funny and interesting, by degrees; some of them are a bit cardboard-ish but the dialogue is witty enough to keep things going.

Foundation is a great read, but the whole Foundation Trilogy really should be read at once to get the full impact of the story. There's so much more to the galaxy and so many more loose ends to wrap up.