Foundation Trilogy Review No Spoilers

Foundation Trilogy Review No Spoilers

#Foundation #Asimov #booktube

This is a no spoiler review on the Foundation Trilogy by the father of science fiction Isaac Asimov. The Foundation Trilogy has inspired some of the grandest works in all of fiction, such as Star Wars, Dune, and many many more. I hope you enjoy my review of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

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[thefantasynuttwork]

Have you read the Foundation? Do you think you could survive a Seldon Crisis!?

[peterc.michalos]

I am 71 now and read all of Asimov’s Foundation and I Robot books (and learned of their eventual connection) decades ago. I am so happy to see young people discovering this great body of sci-fi work.

[victordegrande]

This trilogy won a special Hugo award for the best all-time science fiction series. My only complaint about it was that it didn't tell the rest of the story. It seemed that many other Asimov fans felt the same, and his publisher prevailed on him (by offering lots of money) to write a sequel, some thirty years later. So I hurried to my local Barnes % Noble bookstore (there was no Amazon, or even the internet back then) grabbed a copy of Foundation's Edge, and got in line to check out. Then I turned to my right and noticed a display of AUTOGRAPHED copies of Foundation's Edge! So I got one of those instead, and I could not wait to get home and start reading it.

[ShipwreckedLibrary]

I've always been slightly intimidated by this series, because of it being such older SciFi, but hearing you say it feels a lot more modern then you expect is nice. Also you're right, that B&N edition is so gorgeous. Such a fantastic review tho, Jimmy!!

[hasongraham]

You mention 1951 often but more impressively only psychohistorians was written in 1951. The other four chapters were published between 1942 and 1944. Foundation and Empire was originally published in 1945. Second Foundaton was originally published between 1948 and 1950. Wild to think the first chapter of the trilogy was the last written. Thanks for making this video.

[rddhima]

This trilogy casts a long shadow. One of my biggest gripes with sci fi novels is how dry they tend to be, so it was nice hearing you say it’s actually quite fresh. I’m definitely willing to give the first book a shot at 250 pages.

[mrwizardalien]

I just finished these along with some other Asimov books this month! So interesting as someone who hadn't read much classic scifi

[susantownsend]

I grew up on the sci-fi mags of the 1950s and 60s so I jumped to Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, the Big Three of Golden Age sci-fi. I have always loved the entire Foundation series and the robot books. Brilliant writer. Most of the sci-fi today is influenced by the Big Three or by writers who were influenced by them.

And now I’ll go download the audiobooks so I can “read” them again.

[vilstef]

The stories making up most of the original trilogy were published between 1942 and 1950 in Astounding Science Fiction. See the Wikipedia article on the Foundation Series for more details.

[christopherstephenjenksbsg]

Excellent review! I started reading Asimov in the 1960s, and I've loved his books ever since. Just a note that explains the short-story feel of the first book and the first segment of the second: Except for the first chapter of "Foundation", all of these were separate short stories published in sci-fi magazines in the 40s. He pulled them together to form "Foundation", and added the first chapter to establish the context. Also, the prequel and sequel novels, which he published later, are excellent. He also connects the Robot and Empire novels to the Foundation trilogy, so they all take place in the same "universe" over a 20, 000 year span.

[FallenAdam]

Bumping it up my TBR after this.
The way you describe the structure of it, reminds me of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which if you haven't read, I can't recommend highly enough. The Wachowski siblings made a movie adaptation of it some years back, but it really doesn't do it justice. The movie is constructed more like a mosaic, while the book is like a Russian matruyshka doll. There's seven stories, iirc, and each one is in a different literary genre and in a different time. Ranging the diary of an explorer on the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century, to a scifi some 200-400 years in the future. And they're all interconnected, and they really feel like you're opening a matruyshka doll, taking one out, taking a good hard look at it. But, before you finish, you open it up and start examining the next one, until you have them all in front of you, side by side. Then you start putting them back together, until you've examined every minute detail in each doll, and they're all in one again.

[DailyProg]

This review was awesome. I am going through the first book and I loved getting your opinion on this expansive work

[RockmanR]

I’ve found this review very helpful. Detailed enough without spoilers. Thanks Jimmy!

[hussey]

I'm sold, Thanks Jimmy, ordering the trilogy right away

[DuckRon]

Apparently, Asimov had read The Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire. And, he believed that he could do a similar story in his genre, science fiction. Well, also apparently, he was right. I was a teenager in the 1950s, but, hadn't yet gotten much into scifi reading. But, in my 20s and 30s, I really got into the genre. Read his trilogy even if such a thing was frowned upon by most people I knew. Then, I discovered Dune. That I read multiple times which was something very new for me. I'd never re-read a book before. More into the 1980s I read most of the rest of the Dune Chronicles. Got hung up in Chapterhouse: Dune and never finished it. But, Foundation was the beginning of all of that. Not real sure where my reading would have taken me if I'd not ever read Foundation. Probably would have still read Dune as it was recommended to my by a lot of my friends.

[davidranderson]

Great video! I'm doing a re-read of the Foundation series, just finished the original trilogy and was in the mood to hear the thoughts of others. Sci Fi is a great "what if?" genre. What if we develop this technology? See this scientific advancement? Continue along this path of social development? It's a great way of thinking about, anticipating, and maybe even preparing for the future. What I love about the Foundation books is they ask these big questions about the social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, politics, economics, etc.) rather than the physical sciences (physics, astronomy, biology, engineering, etc.). How has society developed, where are it's problems, and can it be reshaped? And what are the ethics of using the tools developed by the social sciences to reshape society, even if you're doing it for the "right" reasons. It seems even more relevant now, living in a world entirely controlled by "big data" and algorithms.

[rinnorthfell]

I just checked this edition and apparently people have noticed that that edition is missing pages when compared to the standalones (this was from the comments section of the B&N product page)

[Kronk-rpjf]

Dude. You describe the writing so well. I can't decide if I should read the next two books

[hamzamahboub]

I just started watching the apple series based on the books (foundation) and this end up with me discovering this wonderful channel I'm going to start following your reviews for now on 😅

[B.LEE.DbrianleedurfeeREVIEWS]

Imma start re-reading these soon. Haven't cracked them open since high-school