azazel

I just read the book. It was on a recommended reading list a friend gave. I couldnt put it down 'til I finished it. The book is too short though. A second foundation is mentioned, but they never show up. Also, the timeline is supposed to be a thousand years, yet the book only talks about the first century and a half. Are there sequels? And are they worth looking for? (In my country these thing are hard to find, especially if you're not willing to save up for a month to order it online or abroad.)

Godot

There's about 5-6 books in the series. I've only made it to the third one since I could never find the fourth in print anywhere.
Asimov just kicks ass.

Wounded King

The books are-

Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth

There is also a couple of prequels called 'Prelude to Foundation' and 'Forward the Foundation'.

A trio of other Sci-fi writers have written a second 'Foundation Trilogy'.

As you read the later books you may realise that you also need to read a lot of other Asimov to get the full story, especially the R. Daneel Olivaw series of Robot books beginning with 'The Caves of Steel'.

vixstile

I read the first Foundations book, but never made the effort to read any of the others. I didn't think it was bad exactly, but I just couldn't really get into it.

Valentine Pontifex

The original Foundation series is basically a collection of related stories. You have read the first book. The second is book is Foundation and Empire which is made up a novella "The General" and a novel "The Mule" which is a high point of the series. The third book is Second Foundation is made up of two stories as well. The first is "The Search by the Mule" and the second is "The Search by the Foundation." That one ends some four hundred years into the thousand years. The stories in these books were written for Astounding Science Fiction in the 1940s and collected in book form in the early 1950s. Basically Asimov got tired of the series and stopped writing them less then half way into the timeline. He was convinced to write one more story: the first story in Foundation as the series originally started with the Salvor Hardin story "The Encyclopedists."

Fast forward the the 1980s. The Foundation series had become extremely popular. It had never been a best seller but had steadily sold for many years. Asimov was not sure he could write any more on the Foundation and resisted returning to it. Of course the publisher started offering him big bucks to do so. He eventually accepted but almost returned the advance until he read some article reviewing the series that inspired him. He wrote a novel Foundation's Edge which was a sequel and became an instant bestseller. It was followed by Foundation and Earth. Then he made a prequel to the original trilogy called Prelude to Foundation which was followed by Forward the Foundation. The new novels made a connections to Asimov's Robot series. However they are also fairly contradictory to the original trilogy in a number of points. I would read the original trilogy first to avoid being spoiled by the later novels.

Personally I prefer the original trilogy. The relationship Asimov had with Astounding's editor John W. Campbell generated a lot of good ideas.

Silent Dave

I really need to finish reading the Foundation books someday . . . then maybe I can decide whether Asimov was a genius or merely pretentious.


Dave

RED DAVE

Prententious with regard to character: his robots are more alive than his people. He was all right on description. The main intellectual impetus for the series comes from Spengler's Decline of the West.

Democracy rarely plays are role in Asimov's work (or that of most sci-fi writers, for that matter.

RED DAVE

Animesh

I remember a while ago, seeing a little commentary from David Brin, where he was complaining that a lot of sci-fi/fantasy seemed obsessed with nobilities and feudalistic settings. They rarely seem to involve democracies.

This made his contribution to the Foundation novels (Foundation's Triumph) very interesting to me: he struck me as someone that was not thrilled with some of the ideas Asimov had put forth in his novels (the Second Foundation, Galaxia, etc.).

Wounded King

What could be more democratic than a Hive Mind?