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For the first half of the book Prelude to Foundation moves at a leisurely pace and, like Asimov’s other 80s novels features lengthy stretches of dialogue. The substance of the conversations is generally interesting enough not to grind the narrative to a halt, but the original trilogy is much more tightly written. On the other hand, in the 80s Asimov was more interested in developing characters. These characters are not particularly deep or subtly nuanced but they are quite likable and accomplish more than just driving the plot forward. Asimov was not great prose stylist but there is plenty of charm in his narrative, he seems to be having fun writing the book, gleefully including terrible puns, mischievous bits of dialogue and pulling the rug from under the reader’s feet. of universities, faith, governments, and poverty fueled by discrimination and racism. That´s so sharp, in society's face, and ingenious that it raises Lem far above Clarke and Heinlein (facepalming fueled by external shame), making him seem like a kind of easygoing Lem without the depressing and far over the top and hyper complicated mega philosophy. What if robots get there first? One point raised by Dors is the implications of reducing human behavior to mathematical laws. “How horrible," said Dors. “You are picturing human beings as simple mechanical devices. Press this button and you will get that twitch.” Seldon's attempt to bring quadrillions of people under computational control puts Dors ill at ease despite the benevolent impulse behind it. But should this give us pause as well? After all, whether we will be able to model our actions to this extent is irrelevant, because our future AI companions most certainly will. This article, Prelude to Foundation, contains spoilers. Be forewarned, plot and/or ending details follow. Seldon wants no part in this scheme, and for good reason: he now knows how to make psychohistory practical. Through his diverse cultural experiences in each of the sectors spread across Trantor, he realizes Trantor itself will serve as the perfect model for developing his inchoate science, which can then be generalized to the rest of the twenty-five million worlds populating the Galaxy. At least, that's the idea. But if Rashelle's coup comes to fruition, the Galaxy would be plunged into anarchy, menaced by a neverending series of territorial disputes and sanguinary transfers of power. If Seldon is to mature his science and stave off the destruction to come, the Empire must remain at peace.
Before Hari Seldon became the fearsome apostle of doom, and the legendary founder of psychohistory, he was an idealistic 30-year-old with an interesting scientific theory. He only meant to start a hypothetical discussion among fellow mathematicians, but ended up seriously pondering its practical applicability. I have to admit, however, that the book is not a work of art. The prose is quite simplistic and it is full of dialog. OMG,too much dialog. The last book I read with so much dialog was the Cosmetic of the Enemy by Amelie Nothomb 10 years ago but there the subject was an interview and the dialog was brilliant. In the Prelude to Foundation the dialog is quite mundane and not very intelligent which is should have been taking in consideration that the main characters are two university professors, one of who will develop one of the most important scientific concepts in the intergalactic world which will save the Empire from destruction (or so I heard) This is the first of two books chronicling the life of Hari Seldon, the mathematician who invented psychohistory and tried to save humanity from the Dark (Ages). Raindrop Forty-three and Raindrop Forty-five are two Sisters who help Seldon and Venabili with various aspects of life in Mycogen. They are also agents reporting to Sunmaster Fourteen. Rashelle attempts to launch her coup, but Eto Demerzel skillfully subverts Wye's troops and puts a stopper to the rebellion before it can happen. When he arrives to Wye, Seldon finds out that "Hummin" is actually Demerzel.
A fun, intelligent and rousing adventure tale. I really enjoyed learning about how Hari came to his final conclusions and also enjoyed him finding out the different mysteries that pop up. Was it as good as the original series? No. But it is still excellent. For most of the series, psychohistory's founder, Hari Seldon, is this enigmatic figure spoken of only in cryptic, quasi-spiritual terms, rather like a demigod. Little is known about the man other than that he was a mathematical genius whose equations helped shepherd humanity through a series of increasingly existential crises. In Prelude Seldon's saintly aura is stripped away as we are introduced to the young, martial arts-trained professor laboring to turn his coveted psychohistory into a practical, applied science. Brought up in Brooklyn, and educated in its public schools, he eventually found his way to Columbia University and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a series of degrees in chemistry, up to and including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed the academic ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself Professor of Biochemistry. What I have done is to prove that it is possible to choose starting conditions from which historical forecasting does not descend into chaotic conditions, but can become predictable within limits. However, what those starting conditions might be I do not know, nor am I sure that those conditions can be found by any one person—or by any number of people—in a finite length of time..”
Hari Seldon is the genius mathematicians who developed psychohistory which he uses to guide the destiny of the entire human race scattered across the galaxy. In the original trilogy Seldon is a very wise old man, here for the first time we meet the legendary man in his thirties. He has just conceived of psychohistory as a mathematical concept but has no idea how to make it practical. At the beginning of Prelude to Foundation he is presenting his paper on psychohistory at a convention of mathematicians held in Trantor, the capital of the Galactic Empire. The sensational idea of - theoretically - being able to predict history using mathematics brings him to the attention of Cleon I, the Galactic Emperor and his formidable henchman Eto Demerzel. After summoning Seldon to quiz him about the practicality of psychohistory the Emperor lets him go but keeps him under surveillance in case he manages to make something useful out of his theory. Soon after his interview with Cleon, he meets a reporter called Chetter Hummin who convinces him to go on the run as the Emperor are about to pursue him and use him for political gains once he has time to consider the potential of Seldon’s theory. Seldon goes to Streeling University for sanctuary where he meets Dors Venabili who understand the importance of Seldon’s work and decide to protect him from his pursuers. When they do come calling Seldon and Dors go on the run, with the advice of Hummin they seek sanctuary in various administrative sectors* of Trantor. Each sector they stay in has very distinctive, peculiar culture and social mores. The authorities eventually catches up with him with surprising result. What's more, the places they visit fail to inspire and feel thrown in merely to bridge Asimov's various fictional projects. A lot of space in this book is tied up in external references to the Robot and Empire series—in asides that aren't particularly purposeful in and of themselves. The robot subplot on Mycogen and the preoccupation with the Aurora-Earth connection, for example, make for interesting sync points with the Asimov corpus, but don't do much heavy lifting in progressing the central plot of Prelude. Asimov notes in the introduction that unification was not what he had in mind when these stories were conceived, and devoted greater effort to the task later in his career. It certainly shows, but surely it's not worth the confusion readers unfamiliar with his other stories are sure to experience.
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Oh well, I enjoyed myself and I loved that the story filled in gaps in both the Foundation series and the Robot novels. Worth a read, it will make you smile.
Having lived the last 20,000 years, Demerzel sees the approaching collapse of the Empire as inevitable and psychohistory as the mechanism by which to minimize the fallout. Thus, in accordance with the Zeroth Law—"A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"—he intervenes just enough to nudge events in Seldon's favor. Raych is a kid from Billibotton who helps Seldon and Venabili find their way around in exchange for rewards. Hummin manages to convince Seldon to make Psychohistory a practical science, because this could allow the Empire to make its fall as smooth as possible, but also warns him of the danger that would ensue from the science falling in the wrong hands. When Seldon asks where he can hide, Hummin replies that Trantor is his best bet, because, ironically, Trantor's planetary sectors have greater protection from the Emperor than other planets.Asimov was a master at the big idea. He was an artist who painted stories on a ginormous canvas, depicting mega events and larger than life characters. The mind-bogglingly large, galaxy spanning empire he created for the Foundation series was the prototype for all of the vast galactic civilizations that came after. I knew Daneel still had to "be alive" and the name of the first minister along with the character of Demoiselle from the AppleTV+ show kinda gave it away, but theorizing and then actually getting the payoff are two very different things.
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