In 1982 Isaac Asimov returned to the science-fiction world of the 1940s to produce the long-awaited fourth volume of the Foundation series [Foundation's Edge]. Reasons (of many kinds) for a sequel have been clear for many years; most important of them, the Trilogy itself stopped after 400 years of the thousand-year saga envisioned in Hari Seldon's psychohistorical predictions, and concluded with some uncertainty about the situation in which it left the Foundation universe. (p. 15)

[A brief summary of Foundation's Edge would give] little suggestion of the flavor of the novel. In style it belongs to the 1940s—not simply to science fiction's 1940s but to Asimov's 1940s. It is no novel of character—not even a Caves of Steel or a Gods Themselves—but a discursive novel of ideas, much like the rest of the Foundation stories As the first extended treatment …—in fact the longest novel Asimov has written—it hangs together well.

Like the stories that make up the Foundation Trilogy, Foundation's Edge is largely dialogue, like them it contains little action, and like them it is readable, involving, and intellectually complicated. In "The Merchant Princes," the final story in the first volume of the Trilogy, Jorane Sutt tells Hober Mallow, "There is nothing straight about you: no motive that hasn't another behind it; no statement that hasn't three meanings."

So it is with Foundation's Edge. The suspense of the novel is sustained by repeated examples of motivations within motivations, wheels within wheels. (pp. 15-16)

[Deviousness] is common to all the characters. It comes naturally to the Speakers of the Second Foundation, who are revealed in Foundation's Edge as intriguing for power as relentlessly as any non-mentalist. Most important, it is characteristic of Trevise, who is the most important person in the novel, if not, indeed, its hero. Trevise is continually re-evaluating the actions of other characters, particularly in his conversations with Pelorat, whose major function in the novel is to act as confidante for Trevise…. Pelorat, though he is better characterized and plays a more substantial role, is Trevise's "Bigman" Jones.

The motivation-behind-motivation method is appropriate to the subject of the novel. When psychological control of people's actions and even of people's thought occurs, the hiding—and questioning—of motivation is natural. Moreover, Foundation's Edge operates both as a novel of intrigue and as a mystery. The various political intrigues that are at work in the First Foundation's councils on Terminus and that are found on Sayshell and, by implication, on every other planet in the Galaxy thrive on actions taken ostensibly for one reason but actually for another.

More significantly, the novel functions, in characteristic Asimovian fashion, as a mystery that begins with the apparent goal of locating the Second Foundation (the mystery that sustained the last half of the Trilogy) and then is diverted to locating the power that has kept galactic events impossibly close to Seldon's Plan, with subsidiary mysteries along the way, such as why information about Earth has disappeared from the Second Foundation's (computer) library, why Gaia is feared on Sayshell and why it is not recorded in Foundation files, etc. As a mystery the major question of the novel is who (or what) done it? Various characters are presented as suspects…. And, indeed, more than one turns out to be something other than what he or she seems.

Some reviews noted the increased role given to women, but the women of Foundation's Edge are not significantly female. The leader of the First Foundation, Mayor Harla Branno, is a woman, but she is cast in the same mold as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow. Though she makes a critical error in judgment, it would be a mistake to categorize this as a feminine mistake; it is motivated by ambition, and the other characters, mostly male, make similar mistakes. Novi, though more complex than she appears, has a public persona much like that of Valona March of The Currents of Space. Bliss, the Gaian young woman with the fast quip and the erotic outlook, is a bit different from most Asimov characters, but she may or may not be a robot. Bayta of "The Mule" and Arkady Darell of "Second Foundation," though they are not socially or politically liberated, are at least as sympathetically drawn.

In Foundation's Edge Asimov had to cope with the same problem he had faced in the later works of the Trilogy: how to bring the reader up to date on preceding events…. Foundation's Edge handles the situation with a prologue, as he did with "Search by the Mule," but he abandoned the quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica. In fact, the prologue is a bit like the synopses that used to precede later episodes of serials in the old Astounding. Asimov is good at this; it is a process of abstracting and communicating that he has perfected for his non-fiction. But he also devotes a considerable portion of the early chapters, including a substantial amount of the dialogue, to exposition, and it still seems awkward. At one point Compor asks Trevise, "Why are you telling me all this, Golan?" And the reader is tempted to ask the author the same question. I suspect that the question no longer bothers Asimov….

Early reviews pointed out that Asimov in the new novel updated his Foundation universe scientifically. This is true. Just as, in later editions of Asimov's "Lucky Starr" juveniles …, he pointed out the scientific inaccuracies that later discoveries had revealed, so in Foundation's Edge he made his Foundation Galaxy more scientifically plausible without going back to revise the earlier stories.

In the world of Foundation's Edge, however, Asimov is tidying things up. It is not so much that the Trilogy universe is scientifically inaccurate as that scientific accuracy is not that important; the speculation about future history and the prediction of events through psychohistory is what matters, and the limited use of computers (which Asimov was contemplating in greater detail in his robot stories) seems more irrelevant than a failure of the imagination. But at the age of 62, Asimov is another man with a different sense of values. He turned to the writing of science popularizations after Sputnik with a sense of urgency and dedication to increasing the general store of scientific knowledge. Now he cannot be as casual about separating the fiction writer from the scientist who knows better. In Foundation's Edge the computer plays a significant part—and perhaps one, if Asimov continues the series, that will grow even more significant. Asimov also neatens up the Foundation Galaxy with recent knowledge about galactic evolution and black holes, indicating in one place that the center of the galaxy is uninhabitable because of the huge black hole there, and in several other places that most of the planets in the Galaxy are inimical to human life.

Asimov also includes in Foundation's Edge references not only to the earlier Foundation stories but to other Asimov works: the robot stories, the Robot Novels with their future history of space colonization and robotic civilization that differs in significant respects from the other novels that fit more neatly into the Foundation future history, Pebble in the Sky, and The End of Eternity. (p. 16)

Asimov has returned the reader not just to The Foundation Trilogy universe of the 1940s but to the Asimov universe of the 1940s and 1950s. Asimov himself has returned, however, with a greater conviction about the importance of accurate science and of public understanding of science, and of the importance of ecology. Gaia, for instance, is ecology carried to the ultimate degree of self-awareness; it is ecology personified.

More important, Foundation's Edge alters the message of the Trilogy—the message that rationality is the only human trait that can be trusted and that it will, if permitted to do so, come up with the correct solution. That message is embodied not only in Seldon's psychohistory but in the actions of the men and women who work to preserve the First and Second Foundations and Seldon's Plan, and even those who try to destroy them. In the new novel, however, Asimov has allowed to creep in (or purposefully has included) a significant element of mysticism. Mysticism is present in Gaia, the planet that acts as a gigantic mind made up of variously sentient parts (although an explanation is proposed that the robots—perhaps going back to the unfortunate Herbie of "Liar!"—have perfected telepathy and are continuing their guardianship of humanity, as in "The Evitable Conflict"), and mysticism is evident in Trevise's grasp on correctness—when he is "sure" he is always right, like Paul in D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner."

Hari Seldon and his rational psychohistory are accordingly de-emphasized. Even though Seldon's thousand-year Plan is preserved as Trevise chooses the status quo and even though Gaia (which is the mysterious force both Trevise and Gendibal have suspected) has acted to restore Seldon's Plan after the disturbances caused by the Mule (who is revealed as a Gaian renegade), the Plan seems a bit inconsequential when compared to the Gaian vision of "Galaxia!… A living galaxy and one that can be made favorable for all life in ways that we yet cannot foresee…." It is a concept that rivals that of Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, but it is transcendence reached by faith rather than by reason. (pp. 16-17)

The book has a few minor flaws. On the plot level, for instance, the First Foundation's development of the "mental shield" catches the Second Foundation by surprise. Though it is described as the most secret of projects, it is the very thing—following Toran Darell's invention of the Mental Static machine in "Search by the Foundation"—that the Second Foundation psychologists would have kept closest watch on and would have sabotaged.

The Mule's origin on Gaia seems inconsistent both with what we know about the Mule and what we know about Gaia. His sterility, for instance, which was revealed so dramatically at the conclusion of "The Mule," is a logical outgrowth of his origin as a natural mutation. But there is nothing about origin on Gaia that would make sterility anything more than accidental, unless it was the reason for his becoming a renegade. But surely in a planetary gestalt dissident feelings and thought are impossible to conceal, and why would sterility disturb a member of the gestalt, who is survived by the entire planet. An elderly Gaian points out that "there is no more desire to live past one's time than to die before it."

Finally, on the level of ideas, Foundation's Edge features a significant and unhealthy emphasis on the control of others. Perhaps this was an inevitable outgrowth of the abilities of Second Foundation psychologists. Perhaps it is implicit in Hari Seldon's manipulations and even in his psychohistorical predictions. But … Seldon's manipulations are resistable and … it takes rational and determined people to make Seldon's Plan work. The logical persuasion practiced by Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow, and even the subterfuges resorted to by Harla Branno, are not fearsome and repellant in the way the reader (and Asimov) views the Mule's powers, and the similar powers exercised by Second Foundation psychologists seem little more benign. That is why I expected the First Foundation to restore the balance overthrown by the success of the Second Foundation plot in "Search by the Foundation." I thought Asimov dreaded the Second Foundation's "benevolent dictatorship of the mentally best" as much as I did.

In a way he did. The analysis performed near Gaia points out that the Second Foundation, if successful, would create "a paternalistic Empire, established by calculation, maintained by calculation, and in perpetual living death by calculation." On the other hand, Asimov seems to have lost his confidence in the First Foundation's rational men and women: the First Foundation would create "a military Empire, established by strife, maintained by strife, and eventually destroyed by strife." So we are left with Gaia's solution of "Galaxia."

Or perhaps not. Asimov promises a sequel, and perhaps it will resolve these quibbles. (p. 17)