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Foundation

The first book in Asimov's seven book series
The first book in Asimov's seven book series
When Eric was ten and Emma was seven, as part of their bedtime routine, I read my kids Isaac Asimov’s seven book sci-fi classic, a story of one person and one cybernetic being’s impact on events across many worlds and lifetimes.

The narrative epic begins in the first two books with the story of the mathematician Harry Seldon, and his development of “Scientific History”, by which he could somehow predict and put things in motion to ensure the continuation of advanced human civilization in the wake of the decadence and deterioration of the current galactic human empire that Harry and the other characters of the book are living in. The rest of the story plays out in the final five books to show how well (or not) the institutions and artifacts Seldon created preserve human civilization through the next tumultuous five-hundred years of galactic human history. Continue reading →