Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The book Foundation is an interesting collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. The novel is segregated into five separate parts, part I being "the Psychoistorians," part II "The Encyclopedists," part III "the Mayors," part IV "The Traders," and part V "The Merchant Princes". These stories tell of our galaxy at an indefinite (but definitely very distant) point in the future. The first story tells of a young mathematician named Gaal who moves to the capital of the Galactic Empire, Trantor. Here he begins work for a slightly eccentric psychohystorian named Hari Seldon. Psychohistory is the mathematical study of social interactions which can, in essence, be used to predict the future. Hari is an expert in this field, and had come upon an alarming discovery. He discovers that Trantor will become vulnerable and will be destroyed in about 500 years, and after this the Galaxy will become less sophisticated, and will relapse into a Dark Age. He then goes to the Imperial Commission and states his discovery. Naturally, they are not happy about this, but Hari convinces them that Trantor can be saved if an Encyclopedia Galactica is written. He is given the out-of-the-way planet Terminus to send his researchers for the Encycl
The quote was describing the city-planet of Trantor, and it created quite an accurate graphical representation of the world in my mind. All in all I found this book to be rather decent; better in some ways than others. PSYCHOHISTORY-...Gaal Dornick, using non-mathematical concepts, has defined Psychohistory to be that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli..." (p.14) He could not see the ground. It was lost in the ever increasing complexities of man-made structures. He could see no horizon other than that of metal against sky, stretching out to almost uniform grayness, and he knew it was so over the land-surface of the planet. (p.11) The book was generally pretty good, but it had a number of weak points. The greatest would be its scattered organization. It takes five completely separate stories to relate the epic plot to the reader, but in doing so it is very confusing. It is often hard to remember what is going on and which characters are in which story. This is worsened by the fact the novel has no real ending. Despite this shortcoming the novel has many good points. One is Asimov's ability to engross the reader in his imaginary universe. One of the most creative ways he does this is by including segments from the Encyclopedia Galactica at the beginning of many chapters. The book utilizes many segments like the quote above to relate information to the reader without interrupting the continuity of the current storyline. Another device that Asimov uses to involve the reader in the book is his short yet graphic descriptions.
Some common words found in the essay are:
PSYCHOHISTORY-Gaal Dornick, Encyclopedia Galactica, Galactic Spirithe, Seldon Hardin, Hober Mallow, Seldon Psychohistory, Foundation Foundation, Galactic Empire, Merchant Princes, Mayor Foundation, encyclopedia galactica, read book, dark age, galactic empire, hari seldon, foundation missionary, encyclopedia project, leaders encyclopedia project, leaders encyclopedia,
Approximate Word count = 1125
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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