The Foundation Series (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Isaac Asimov
- First Published: 1942
- Type of Work: Novels
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—future history
- Time of Work: 12,020-14,000
- Setting: The Galactic Empire
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: History, Values, Power, personal or social, Politics, Nature, Psychology or psychologists, Leadership, Future, Other worlds, Science or scientists, Space flight or travel, War, Historians, Truth, Science fiction, Adventure, Utopias, Information science or systems, Mathematics or mathematicians, Predestination, Robots or robotics, Technology
- Locales: Space, Kalgan, Terminus (fictive), Trantor (fictive)
The Plot
The vast Galactic Empire, composed of 25 million worlds and quadrillions of human beings, is in decline. Mathematician Hari Seldon, a provincial scholar from the distant planet Helicon, presents his learned hypothesis about the mathematical possibilities of what he calls “psychohistory” to a conference held on Trantor, the imperial capital. Seldon understands that his hypothesis is incomplete and untested. Nevertheless, it offers the prospect of mathematically predicting the empire’s future and, with this knowledge, influencing events so as to lay the groundwork...
[The entire page is 1293 words long]
See Also:
Isaac Asimov (Cyclopedia of World Authors)Isaac Asimov (Short Fiction)Isaac Asimov (Long Fiction)Foundation Trilogy, The (American Fiction)Foundation Trilogy, The (Character Profiles)Forward the Foundation (Magill Book Reviews)Foundation and Earth (Magill Book Reviews)Prelude to Foundation (Magill Book Reviews)
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