Review 86: Foundation

Foundation by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To me, science fiction has always been about big ideas. Ideas, concepts, so large, that you are not always to wrap your head around them. Science fiction should not just be transmuting any story that can take place any other time or location, but truly offer something other genres can't, or at least would struggle to do. Scope, complexity and mind-expanding ideas are at the core of this. What this means in practice is that science fiction offers us a way of looking at ourselves as humans through an otherwise non-existent lens. It allows to ask the question ''What if....?'' and then go off in a million different directions. 

Foundation takes all of those aspects. Scope, because it deals with a near-infinite galaxy-spanning empire. Complexity, because it manages to deftly combine the intricacies of religion, science, politics and our own human history into a single story. Mind-expanding ideas and asking that one question; ''What if... a galactic empire were to fall apart, but we would know it beforehand and we have a way of cushioning our fall (in relative terms), before a second empire arises? The number of interesting questions that pop up are near endless. 

- Would the current leadership accept this ''prophecy''?

- If they did not, how would they respond? As humans always have when confronted with change?

- If they did, then how would they act? How would you act if you'd know your end was in sight and inevitable?  Fight against the dying of the light? Or step into the darkness, willingly?

- How would this impact the millions, billions (trillions?) living across the empire?

Asimov handles all these questions and more. And that, is the big draw of this book (and I assume its sequels). It is a humongous prospect, yet he manages to deal with it in an acceptable number of pages. The writing is quick, the pacing equally so. It features a large cast of characters over the span of hundreds of years, some more interesting than others.

Though the plot differs in quality, depending on the chapters, and the idea of nuclear technology being the core to an advanced society feels a bit antiquated, this is science fiction as it was meant to be. Dealing with big questions and forcing ourselves to look at our own history.

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