Foundation

Author: Isaac Asimov

Rating: ⭐ 3/5

Date Read: 2012/10/22

Pages: 296

I really wanted to love this book. It’s a classic, after all, and it has an interesting premise. In a parallel to the fall of the Roman Empire, the Galactic Empire is doomed to fall. It cannot be stopped, but, if the correct steps are taken, the resulting dark ages can be limited to a period of “only” 1000 years. These are predictions from psychohistory, which uses statistical analysis to predict the future.

The scientist in me wants to stop here and point out that the quality of an inferential statistical analysis will only be as good as the data. Garbage in = garbage out. Asimov doesn’t explain where these data come from; he only points to complicated mathematics. But I digress.

The premise is interesting, but the execution is poor. Over the course of the book, we’re introduced to a large number of characters, most of whom are unlikeable and one-dimensional. Worse, the writing can only be described as lazy. This is a particularly egregious crime for Asimov, who was famously well-read, and should have known better.

Foundation was enjoyable, don’t get me wrong. However, I must call it what it is: good genre fiction, but nothing that can stand on it’s own based on literary merit.