Foundation Book Review

In this video, I discuss my review of "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov. Enjoy!

[James-cfmr]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the review! I read this book in high school, and I am interested in reading it again someday since I find Asimov's writing style intriguing (I read some of A Pebble in the Sky last year). Since you asked, Dune is a book that I am interested in reading, and also works from Brandon Sanderson. However, for novels and the like, I am most interested in reading books from the 1800's. I just finished reading The Last Man by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville which was published in 1805. It is considered an early sci-fi novel and among the first to explore the concept of the end of the world. The 2002 translation by I.F. Clarke and M. Clarke was great with excellent notes and other materials that help the reader understand the context in the time in which it was written and the not-so-great translation from 1806.

By the way, I did read about a dozen Star Wars novels thanks to your channel. They included novelizations of the OT and many of the books prior to, and up through, the Heir to the Empire trilogy. Many of them were quite fun, so thanks for that! I especially liked your videos on the pros and cons of the Legends and Canon series of books too. They helped me decide which one to try out. Speaking of which, I am quite interested in Timothy Zahn's sci-fi books outside of the Star Wars universe too. I appreciate that he can really build a story in a logical way that is believable.

Thanks again, and have a nice day!

[forcesmuggler]

I just did a reread last year of this series. The original Trilogy, the 2 prequels and the 2 sequels. Such an engaging premise. The original 3 books, and the prequels were amazing. The 2 sequels aren't bad, and tie in his Robot and Empire novels (as do the prequels), but are not as good as the other books imo. I like what they bring to the table, but will expand on that when you get to those books, so as not to spoil you.

[thecirclegamer]

Hey man just wanted to say that I’m pretty new to the sci-fi genre, I’ve read the Star Wars EU books for as long as I can remember, but just recently got interested in the genre as a whole. Thanks for all your passion and love for the genre!

[Toospoonbig]

Asimov enthusiast here. He is absolutely amazing at writing ideas and concepts, but not so much writing characters. His characters are usually devices to move his plot forward. He got better at characters later in his life though.
I think you will like the sequels more. Foundation and Empire is only 2 stories. Second Foundation is a full novel and is amazing. Definitely better than the first book in my opinion.
The 2 prequels are all about Hari Seldom only.
The 2 sequels (foundations edge and foundation & earth) tie the foundation universe to his robot novels.
I encourage you to read at least the original trilogy.
Great review!

[entropy]

If you really want to get into this universe, I would recommend reading Asimov's Robots series and Empire trilogy beforehand. A commonly referenced reading order is:

ROBOTS
1. I, Robot
2. The Caves of Steel
3. The Naked Sun
4.Mirror Image (short story)
5. The Robots of Dawn
6. Robots and Empire

EMPIRE
7. The Stars, Like Dust
8. The Currents of Space
9. Pebble in the Sky

FOUNDATION
10. Foundation
11. Foundation and Empire
12. Second Foundation
13. Foundation's Edge
14. Foundation and Earth
15. Prelude to Foundation
16. Forward the Foundation

[martonjakabblatniczky]

All the Foundation books have been sitting on my shelf for months, I guess I gotta start reading them soon

[filmandpage]

I loved the Foundation Trilogy, I haven't gone on to read the other books in the series yet. Also I'd like to check out his robots series sometime.

[magnenoalex]

I have severe OCD with chronological order so I'll eventually get to this novel after all the robot books

[Revan-skqx]

I really enjoyed your thoughts on this one. I haven’t read Foundation or anything else by Asimov, but I’d really like to sometime. Maybe I’ll do it this year, we’ll see

Also, I’d love to see you talk about some more classics! I haven’t read a ton of them but they’ve always been an interesting experience. It would be cool to get your thoughts on some stuff like that

[BookishChas]

I agree with your thoughts on this book. I enjoyed it conceptually, and plan to read more, but there’s not a lot of meat or characters to get attached to. Have you watched the show? It’s very different, though it does use the essential framework of the book. I think the show is better in some ways, because it fleshes out the story more.

[larryladeroute]

I enjoyed Foundations Edge and Foundation and earth more than the original trilogy. Probably because they are novels instead of just the collection of ideas that are the trilogy. Have not touched the prequel novels or Second Foundation. Hopefully will reread these someday.

[magnenoalex]

I plan on reading all Dune stuff and foundation and Hyperion. I want to read all the big sci Fi stuff

[magnenoalex]

Well with the star wars comment. Zahn may have been influenced by Asimov but George got the city from the heir to the empire Novel.

[Tarotreadingisnonsense]

Hhhm. It might be getting to be time for me to reread Foundation.

[juanmorales]

Would Foundation be similar to IRobot which is referred to as a fixup collection?