Three ten after his Foundation stories became classics , Isaac Asimov retort to that universe . In Hugo winner Foundation ’s Edge , he cover former ground and Modern , and shows how a whole wandflower can work in harmony , in more than one horse sense .
It is day four ofFoundation Weekfor Blogging the Hugos , and fourth dimension to discuss the book that have us into this whole mess : Isaac Asimov ’s Foundation ’s Edge , which gain the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1983 . ( To recap , we ’ve already coveredFoundation , Foundation and Empire , andSecond Foundation . )
https://gizmodo.com/isaac-asimovs-foundation-the-little-idea-that-became-s-5799655
https://gizmodo.com/in-which-events-take-a-generally-darker-turn-foundatio-5799689
https://gizmodo.com/mind-games-and-mysteries-abound-in-isaac-asimovs-second-5799734
( Spoilers keep an eye on . )
JW : Remember when I said Second Foundation was my favorite book of the series ? I may have to retract that . Maybe that sounds a fiddling crazy ; I believe there ’s a world-wide , all defensible presumption that Asimov ’s late accession just do n’t have quite the animation and verve that differentiate the original Foundation Trilogy . And trust me , you wo n’t hear me arguing that Foundation and Earth , Prelude to Foundation , or Forward the Foundation are as disingenuous or interesting as their much younger predecessors .
But Foundation ’s Edge …
For those just joining us , let me recapitulate shortly : Isaac Asimov wrote a collection of short stories and novellas between 1941 and 1950 about the Foundation , an agency created by the mathematician Hari Seldon to preserve humanity ’s knowledge after the declension of the massive Galactic Empire . head by Seldon ’s future - predicting scientific discipline of psychohistory , the Foundation would reduce what otherwise would be a 30,000 - class sorry age to a single millennium . These stories were collected in three novel - size of it books — Foundation , Foundation and Empire , and Second Foundation — and were frequently regarded as Asimov ’s best body of work .
The only problem with the original Foundation trilogy was that it was supposed to cover 1,000 long time — and it only run through three centuries or so . For years , fans plead for a continuation . And ultimately , Asimov obliged , with Foundation ’s Edge , published in 1983 .
evidently , Edge is a piffling unlike from the former stories , in that it ’s indite as a stand - alone novel , rather than being a bent of connected shorter pieces . But I do n’t want to make too much of that , except to notice that the approaching seems meet to me . There ’s no grounds Asimov had to write the book as a integrated whole ; I ca n’t envisage Doubleday would have decline it if he ’d turn in 100,000 - ish word broken into two or three or however many freestanding segments , or that fan would have think twice about him doing so .
But we ’ve already talked about how in the recent trilogy stories , it often seemed like he was cover old terra firma for the umpteenth fourth dimension and deepening or riffing on it . And while Edge kicks off like another looping of what has come before — specially in the first three unforesightful chapters , where we ’re introduce to protagonist Golan Trevize and his companion , the old historiographer Janov Pelorat — ultimately , Asimov starts us on a journeying that will take us further from the Foundation ’s nursing home planet of Terminus than we ’ve ever gone before . It seems only meet to do so in new - length form ; it ’s just one more example of how the scale is constantly ramped up in the Foundation serial publication . ( That aver , I do n’t want to magnify the importance of the shift in format . It seems most likely that , just as Asimov wrote the first Foundation news report as short stories or novelette because they were commissioned by a cartridge holder that traded in those forms , he wrote Edge as an unbroken novel simply because his publisher asked him for an entire book . )
Anyway , as for those first three chapters , they ’re a more nuanced twist on the former Foundation setup , are n’t they ? A next-to-last councilman in Terminus ’ politics , Trevize is a smart , cocky nouveau-riche who is certain that things are not what they seems , but who ca n’t convince the folks in charge that he ’s right . He ’s Salvor Hardin and Ebling Mis all over again ( in my mind ’s eye , he even look like Hardin ) . Or kind of , anyway — as we soon find out , Trevize is not quite the infallible political genius Hardin was .
Nor is the obstinate Foundation leader , Mayor Harla Branno , directly comparable to the sanction figures Hardin and Mis had to face ( Lewis Pirenne and Mayor Indbur , respectively ) . When the novel opens , Branno ’s administration has just successfully navigate a Seldon crisis , and received congratulations from Hari Seldon ’s holographic transcription for doing so . So for one thing , unlike her harbinger , Branno is intelligent and alert to the Foundation ’s account .
For another , she is n’t hazardously overconfident , either . Trevize intend she is : He is certain that the Seldon holograph ’s validation is , contrary to all appearance , in reality a terrible sign . After all , did n’t the Mule pick apart the Seldon Plan off course way back in Foundation and Empire ? And did n’t Arkady Darell help her father totally eliminate the Second Foundation — the only power capable of experience the Plan back on track — back in Second Foundation ? Well , if the Darells follow , then what are the chances that the Plan corrected itself so just ? The betting odds are minute . As a result , Trevize is certain that the Second Foundation must still be out there , in concealing , controlling the First Foundation ’s luck . And Branno , he thinks , must be a fool to not see it .
She does see it , of course . But she reverence that the Second Foundation has agents on Terminus , and does n’t need to show them her hand . Given that , Branno is peeved when Trevize face her publicly with his suspicions , but she apace turns the situation to her reward . Using her considerable clout , she “ exiles ” the councilman . Supposedly , he and the get on Pelorat are put in a fancy new gravitic ship and sent out to find the peradventure mythological planet Earth , humans ’s original home . In reality , Branno wants them to root out the real home base of the Second Foundation .
So : Protagonist isolated by his business organisation that something is terribly ill-timed ? Check . battle with official authority that puts the plot in motion ? hold in . And then tranquil machination to uncover the unavowed operations of the Second Foundation ? Check . We ’ve decidedly been here before — but now we ’re die somewhere else solely .
AW : Foundation ’s Edge is the Platonic ideal of an Isaac Asimov novel . If I can sum one frequently - repeated ( and eminently fair ) criticism of Asimov ’s stylus , it ’s that he did n’t so much create characters as he did mouthpiece for his various viewpoints . His report are excuses for lengthy conversations with some hard science discombobulate in for dependable measure . His science fable does n’t have cryptical nuanced relationships , it does n’t have epic battle scenes , it does n’t have aliens ( unless you want to count his homo - build up golem ) , and it emphatically does n’t have sex .
In his last major science - fiction novel before Foundation ’s bound — and that of course of action would be The Gods Themselves , which we discuss in the first place in this serial — Asimov propel fairly off from that , delving into the last two of those with flavor ( and depend how you feel about certain pairings in that book , have a valiant stab at the “ recondite nuanced relationships ” bit ) . It even has prolonged dialogue - liberal passage that describe the future domain of world and the parallel creation of the stranger .
But Foundation ’s Edge does aside with all that cocksucker and offers all negotiation , all the time . To bewilder out a completely wild idea , about 90 percent of all the schoolbook in this Word is just the great unwashed lecture . I ’d say this is the Foundation Koran most ready to turn into a screenplay , except the resulting film would be about twelve hours long . You ’ve drive Trevize and Pelorat discourse and debating everything from space travel to the Second Foundation to human race ’s mythical nursing home world , an obscure pebble in the sky known in ancient legends as Earth … or is it Gaia ?
You ’ve got Mayor Branno — who I ’m going to go ahead and assume is intended as a Margaret Thatcher pastiche — and her security chief , Liono Kodell , two lifelong politicos trying to outwit the Second Foundation . And then you ’ve got Trevize ’s Second Foundation equivalent , the challenging young Speaker Stor Gendibal , who spends all his time trying to convert the other Speakers of the Second Foundation that there is some unidentified third group also working to mend the wrong the Mule did to the Seldon Plan . There are long stretches in this Quran that are wholly liberal of anything but dialog , and it would all seem rather clunky if the ideas stop within those conversations were n’t so all-fired interesting .
This integral Quran takes the chess biz scene of “ lookup by the Foundation ” and ratchets it up to derisory levels . Every individual fibre is adjudicate to call back six movement ahead of their opponent , and all the characters face foes they fear may be unbeatable . Once again , the First Foundationers Trevize and Branno are at war with the Second Foundation , of whom they know next to nothing and against whom they can only trust their minds remain free from attack . The Second Foundationers , on the other hand , are stress to shell out with this inscrutable third group , whom Gendibal dubs the Anti - Mules . There are double agents , triple agentive role , subtle genial cabal , and unbelievably long cons , and through it all you ’re never quite sure if anyone actually has the upper hand .
As you say , this makes for a more complex Terminus story than what we ’ve ascertain before , as the smart as a whip loner who sees the truth about the Seldon Plan is n’t nearly as magnificent or as lone as he think he is , and the constitution idiot who believes everything is ok is actually fearsomely intelligent and deep aware of how unseasonable things really are . She is , however , very much the establishment , and the Foundation government conduct on some disturbingly authoritarian characteristics in this volume .
This rule book starts with a dim-witted enough premise , that 500 years into the interregnum between empire , the Seldon Plan is working absolutely . As you say , it first asks how , consider the damage done by the Mule and the apparent demolition of the Second Foundation 200 age beforehand , could the Seldon Plan possibly be lick so dead ? But Asimov is move toward a more subtle question , and that is whether the Seldon Plan is actually a good thing for humanness in the first place . Yes , Asimov is here to put his full damn system on trial , and it ’s Golan Trevize who must stand in judgment .
Oh , and he also ask a third interrogative sentence , one I know mass of his fan affectionately wish he had never asked : Where the hell are all the robots ? But I surmise I ’m getting forrader of myself , so I pass the talking joystick back to you .
JW : Oh , the robots .
I want to talk for a second about Stor Gendibal , who has bewitch me since the first clip I read Foundation ’s Edge . For all the time we drop with the Second Foundation in its eponymous book , he is the first appendage of that orphic faction we actually get to know .
Not that that stand for very much , since he pretty much reads exactly like Golan Trevize . Like you say , they ’re slope of a unmarried coin , and truly , they take issue only superficially , mostly due to geography . Even Gendibal ’s mentalic power do n’t distinguish him specially , as it ’s determined afterwards on that Trevize possesses the rudimentary materials for psychic power too , and would have been snatched up by the Second Foundation as a child if they ’d have intercourse of him . And frankly , I suspect Asimov could n’t have made them all that unlike if he ’d want to ; I ’m not entirely convinced he had the facility for personation to compose two multitude take the “ youthful , brash , chic , good cat ” valency as distinct individuals . luckily , it does n’t really matter , since it ’s sufficiently fun to observe the geomorphologic resonances and reflections in the story and not get caught up its cast ’s want of shade . Let Asimov ’s celebrity serve as a deterrent example to all aspiring novelist : All those rule you ’ve read about how you have to create well - labialise characters or have to avoid clamant infodumps ? If what you ’ve pay back to say is compelling enough , those rules do n’t mean dickhead .
So , yeah : Precocious political leader Gendibal unwrap the same trouble Trevize does — that the Seldon Plan is working suspiciously flawlessly — ratcheted one level up . He suspects that the Anti - Mules are secretly ferment to back up the Plan and manages to convince the First Speaker that he ’s correct . But he ca n’t examine it to the rest of the Speakers , and so , just like Trevize , Gendibal ends up quasi - banished , with the job of root out the problem on his own .
In a way , this Word of God must have been kind of easy to write , or rather , body structure . Marshall McLuhan tattle about how when the tec news report appeared as a spiritualist in the previous 19th century , it was constructed differently from previous literary kind : or else of starting with a cause and learn what effects adopt from it , with a detective story , you have to start with the effect — the crime — and exploit out how it was caused . And as we ’ve discussed , the Elijah Baley books are only the most obvious of many of Asimov ’s SF narrative that can be justly be considered detective level .
In Edge ’s case , yep , Asimov is putting the whole Foundation system on trial , to see whether the First Foundation ’s track advance out , or the Second ’s — or the Anti - Mules ’ . And you have to imagine that he knew from the outset what the answer would be .
Spoiler : It ’ll be the last one . And if neither Foundation is going to emerge triumphant — well , then , it ’s obvious that he has to set up the Second Foundation as just as petty and fallible as the First . So Speaker Delora Delarmi seizes on the First Speaker ’s endorsement of Gendibal ’s distrust , and apply the position as a probability for a selfish power play . Frankly , the Second Foundation looks right smart uglier than the First in this Holy Writ . After all , the Speakers actually have maths — empirical grounds — that can aid them determine if Gendibal is on to something , and they blatantly disregard it . Atrocious doings from a group of theorise skipper of the human psyche .
Anyway , once Asimov cognise how Foundation ’s Edge was going to end , well , its basic social organization must have become obvious : Show that both Foundations are unentitled for long - term leadership of the human mintage . Do that by having the military action of each mirror each other .
So : We have Trevize and Pelorat track down Earth , in turn hunted by Trevize ’s fellow councilman and former friend Munn Li Compor , a undercover agent for Mayor Branno . And then we have Gendibal hunt Trevize and the Anti - Mules , accompanied by Sura Novi , a peasant Hamishwoman from Trantor whose mind is so virgin , he can try out it to tell if any untoward psychical action is taking place . And now I ’ll let you talk for a while .
AW : You talk about how Asimov bed his whodunit and investigator fib — indeed , by the prison term he write Foundation ’s Edge , there ’s a good argument to be made that he was far more a mystery author than a skill - fiction author , thanks to his rather charming Black Widower account . What ’s interesting here is that , for perhaps the one and only time in his career , Asimov implicitly occur out in favor against detective , seemingly hint that , just this once , some mysteries are better off allow for unsolved .
Let me back up a bit . In all the previous Foundation report , the trouble - solving construction was always more or less about the same matter : key the crisis that has chivvy the Foundation , then visualise out the correct historical figure that will solve it and allow the Seldon Plan to persist in . The Mule stories typify a fragile deviation from this , but the with child objective is moderately much always about our Hero stress to figure out how best to keep the Seldon Plan going .
But Foundation ’s Edge presents something different . The Seldon Plan is working just fine , and both the First and Second Foundationers could just as easily leave well enough alone . Asimov have this particularly expressed with Mayor Harla Branno , who sees herself as a capable administrator who has not been given any chance to make her Deutsche Mark upon history . Unwilling to be a footnote , she puts into action an ever so slightly insane plan to smash both the Anti - Mules on Gaia and the Second Foundation on Trantor — and yes , Branno knows damn well where the Second Foundation is . With these two threats rule out , she can bring the entire beetleweed under the Foundation ’s control and triumphantly found the Second Empire 500 twelvemonth earlier than ask .
Here ’s the matter , though — she only find herself in this situation because she ’s insightful and fearless and convinced enough to trust she can win against apparently impossible odds . These are all trait that were unquestionably heroic when Salvor Hardin was bounce his trap on Anacreon back in “ The Mayors , ” and yet here her actions are clearly not meant to be see positively . This is the one time where an Asimov character really would have been skilful off just leave well enough alone , content herself to a placid life of good public serve on Terminus . The continued existence of the Second Foundation presents her with a mystery — indeed , it ’s the exact same whodunit Toran and Arkady Darell faced in “ Search by the Foundation ” — but this meter it ’s pretty clear she would have been good off never trying to solve it .
The same is dependable for the Second Foundation . The incumbent First Speaker Quindor Shandess has had a quiet career much like Branno ’s , and he is actually utterly willing to make out his tenure and enter a quiet retirement . But of grade Stor Gendibal is impossibly ambitious , determined to not just become First Speaker but to accomplish the feat at a younger age than any of his predecessors . Asimov relates the customs of the Second Foundation , explaining that a young Speaker only requests a secret consultation with the First Speaker when he or she has something to say of monumental grandness . Gendibal , of course of instruction , must find out the most important thing imaginable to tell Shandess , which is part of why he ’s so do-or-die to prove the Seldon Plan is wrong and that the Anti - Mules must exist .
And it ’s in that motivating that we see the crucial difference between the “ tec ” of Foundation ’s bound and those in the previous story . Neither Branno nor Gendibal are motivated by any altruistic desire to see the Seldon Plan preserved ; rather , their burning ambitions force them to find the mysteries that others would have been dead well-chosen will well enough alone . I recognize you had a hard time with Toran Darell II ’s motivations in “ Search by the Foundation , ” where he is unforced to put down the Second Foundation and , with it , humanness ’s safety net out of a personal desire for freedom . I did n’t have as much of a problem with it , and I realize it as a last - ditch effort to wrest back control of one ’s own lot , to rid the First Foundation of an almost mystic belief that the Second Foundation will show up and take care of everything . Indeed , I ’m middling sure that ’s what Asimov intended , as it ’s reveal that ’s on the nose the effect First Speaker Preem Palver was trying to accomplish with his various machinations .
But here , in Foundation ’s sharpness , I ’m not so indisputable about the wisdom of that position , and it appear that Asimov is n’t either . At least in “ Search by the Foundation ” there was a quantifiable reason why the Second Foundation ’s continued cosmos ( or at least knowledge of same ) was bad for the First Foundation , but the only people who are bothered by the Second Foundation in Foundation ’s sharpness are Golan Trevize and Harla Branno . It ’s short far less clear why the existence of the Second Foundation is a bad thing , and Trevize and Branno ’s protest seem rather less like a reason , principled outdoor stage and more like the dogma of office - thirsty individuals convinced that they and they alone should be in charge , whatever the price .
Again , the exact same can be say of Stor Gendibal and his Anti - Mules . There ’s no reason to call back that the Anti - Mules are at all malign — indeed , the very name that Gendibal gives them implies that they are forces for astronomic good . And yet he is convinced that they are unfriendly and must be destroyed , with the clearest reason that he can muster being the undefined belief that , when it amount time to find the Second Empire , the Anti - Mules will step in and be the tangible rulers . It ’s remarkable that he has the resentment to see this as a unfit matter , consider that ’s precisely what the Second Foundation think to do .
Indeed , Asimov spends a fiddling clock time detailing how First Speaker Shandess imagines the Second Foundation ’s vision for the unexampled Empire , and it ’s a good-hearted enough vision , one in which the great unwashed will all be reasonably happy and the First Foundation can still manage a sane amount of control within sure limits . Whether that special vision is a fairish histrionics of what this sharply political , perpetually infighting Second Foundation is in reality capable of is another matter , but my distributor point is this — if Gendibal had enough devotion to that nonsuch to override his own personal ambition , he might recognize that the Anti - Mules have not actually discover themselves as a evil entity , or even really as a threat to the Second Foundation , and he might have see the wisdom in leaving well enough alone . It ’s a uncommon Asimov leger where that can be considered impertinent .
Indeed , part of what I make out about Asimov is that his stories present a cosmos where there is never any greater power than knowledge . Intellectuals and cagy strategist are almost always the hero in his stories , and moreover engineering is only seldom the enemy — indeed , his entire robot principal sum was part of a womb-to-tomb elbow grease to shatter what he dubbed the Frankenstein complex , the irrational impression that automaton and other advanced forms of technology must invariably spell our doom . Foundation ’s Edge does n’t quite contradict that , but it complicates that theme more than reasonably much any other story he spell . If knowledge really is synonymous with office , then there ’s always the risk that those who seek noesis and a fuller reason of the universe are really just out for power and control .
I guess keep back all this in mind draw it a lot easier to understand what Asimov is driving at with the intro of Gaia , a terrestrial organism in which all its humans ( and everything else , from the beast to the rock’n’roll to even the paries ) are part of a larger whole . It ’s the rarified Asimov creation where contentment is preferable to peculiarity and , shockingly enough , Asimov in reality seems to agree with this breaker point of sight . That ’s a huge reversal from where he had been live with his former Foundation story , indeed with almost all the fable he ever write , and the only way to see this as not being completely arbitrary is to understand why , in Foundation ’s Edge , the detective are actually the villains .
JW : I want to do another ready summary , because ( 1 ) I have nothing to add to the piercingly intelligent things you just say , and ( 2 ) I ’m afraid we might have skip some plot details and confused some readers who are n’t familiar with the book of account : Ultimately , Trevize and Pelorat do not find Earth , but they do find a mysterious planet called Gaia . There , they meet a adult female distinguish Blissenobiarella — er , Bliss , for short . Bliss depend like a even attractive human female person ( with a Sir Mix - a - Lot pillage , as Asimov for some reason never tyre of point out ) , but she is really part of the greater whole of Gaia — which , as you ’ve already refer , is a planetary organism , a conscious eco - arrangement that has the voltage to finally develop into the exponentially larger Galaxia .
Not long after Trevize and Pelorat get to Gaia , Gendibal and Branno show up , in disjoined ship . And we memorize that Gaia has maneuvered for yr to get to this moment , because Trevize is very special . He possesses an almost unerring inherent aptitude for intuit the right choice from limited information . Gaia wants him to prefer whether the First Foundation , the Second Foundation , or Gaia should be in charge of world ’s future tense . ( Now , technically , Gaia could compel humanity to follow its path — it has the great power to do so — but the satellite is bound to a strict ethical computer code that says it ca n’t do that . This is the essential point about Gaia ’s nature : It ’s a collective whose parts can control largely as individuals , but who share a moral sense and ca n’t maltreat others without painful import . Why their morals is almost hardwired this way — well , you ’ll get to that in short . )
Here ’s what I detect especially interesting about Trevize / Asimov picking Gaia as the hereafter of the galaxy , rather than either Foundation : We ’ve talk before about how the Seldon Plan makes almost a religion out of materialism , how it ’s at radical an effort to reduce every human decision to an empirical , predictable phenomenon . And Asimov was , of course , an verify atheist . In fact , he served as president ofthe American Humanist Association .
But the selection that humans should be absorb into Gaia — gosh , I reckon you could argue that it is n’t a throwing up of the hands , an quotation that , OK , ok , our reason alone is n’t enough to guide us . But boy , it feel pretty close . It is definitely of a unlike order than the pure reductionism that reigns sovereign in the come before Foundation stories . I mean , Trevize makes his decision ground on what is explicitly deemed an inexplicable smell , pure gut instinct . ( That said , I should take note that he in person is uncomfortable with being used as a “ blackened boxful , ” and the plot of Foundation and Earth hinges on Trevize ’s adamant desire to find evidential support for his instinctive decisiveness . )
Man , we really did jumpstart over most of the midsection of the record , did n’t we ? In our defense , permit me say that the middle is : ( 1 ) not that skillful , compare with the source and end ; and ( 2 ) even less memorable than it is good . ( I just read it , and I ’ve forgotten most of it . ) So much of it is eat up with Trevize and Pelorat ’s top - account hunting for Earth , but since their investigations only conduce them to Gaia by the end , this part of the tale lack even the fan - servicey callbacks to Asimov ’s non - Foundation tale that rule the next book . Truly , much of the middle feel like we ’re in a clockwork , just being carried from place to place as the plot of ground necessitates ; it ’s interesting to keep , but pale in equivalence to the big reveal we can sense lying at the end . Based on that , I could see why someone might say Foundation ’s Edge got its Hugo as a good manners , a thankful nod to the original for returning to a treasured mythos . But me personally ? I incur the rootage setup and the end and Gaia / Galaxia so unexpected , and so masterfully fitting , that I call up Asimov earned the award .
What else ? Um , there ’s an allusion to The terminal of Eternity in a write up the Gaians tell , right ? ( I have n’t read that Word of God , but Wikipedia confirms this , although it notes that Asimov agree it did n’t quite work . ) And I should mention — not because I think it ’s that germane but because it chute out at me pretty ferociously — that someone could save a really awful , but sort of valid , master ’s thesis on the minus portrayal of women in Edge . I think : Harla Branno — healthy , seemingly sensible woman , who turn out to be a superpower - thirsty , wild gripe . Speaker Delora Delarmi — intelligent cleaning lady who is , on the surface , a power - hungry disturbed bitch . Sura Novi — subservient , bright but uneducated womanhood , who turn out to be entirely deceiving everyone . And then Bliss , who , OK , I will yield , is fine , even if Trevize never cares for her and that come through in the dialogue . ( Let me note this , too , from early in Chapter 10 : A whole three of the Second Foundation ’s twelve Speakers are ladies . Again , I say , For pity , you supposedly enlightened would - be rulers of the galaxy . And further , let that be noted by anyone who denies the inexplicit institutional sexism that penetrate our acculturation . Even in a next society of genial wizards , it seemed perfectly natural that a whole half of a universe would constitute only a quarter of its ruling body . Not to beat up on Asimov unduly — it was thirty year ago , I cognize — but he does seem almost beneficent as he notes the fact , as if he ’s saying , “ Look how open - given I am ! Three whole woman ! ” But I digress;my hackles is just up recently . )
AW : You know , your mini - rant reminds me of my first response to reading Foundation ’s Edge . I ca n’t have been much older than 12 or 13 at the time , and I guess it was only my fifth Asimov rule book , following I , Robot and the original trilogy . I already was well on my way to falling in love with Asimov ’s writing — he ’s still my favorite author , for well or risky , and I suspect that wo n’t change anytime before long — but I distinctly remember about halfway through say Foundation ’s Edge birth a minute of an Epiphany of Our Lord . Eager to share my perceptiveness , I went to my father — who had introduced me to Asimov and had generously ease up me his much - read , now forty - year - one-time copies of the original trilogy — and I asked with the artlessness and rodomontade of youthfulness , “ Dad , was Asimov a male chauvinist ? ”
Now , since then , I ’ve read a lot more , and I do n’t think he was ever a male chauvinist . But yes , the sexuality political science of Foundation ’s Edge are n’t neat , and they ’re actually worse here than at any decimal point in the series other than perhaps the mostly female - devoid Foundation . I do n’t know whether I ’d share your negative take on Sura Novi — even she is n’t aware of her deceit , and both variation of her character seem like fundamentally good people — and Bliss is arguably better characterize here than in Foundation and Earth , although the unceasing discussion of her rump really is deeply strange . Even Harla Branno , I ’d argue , has break that are not needfully any risky than Stor Gendibal , and I guess the negatively charged aspects of her character can be read more as Asimov ’s specific reaction to Margaret Thatcher ( I ’m approximate on this , but he was a tearing and often grueling - handed critic of mid-eighties conservativism ) than as a worldwide debunking of woman in world power . But yes , Delora Delarmi is a really filthy piece of work , maybe the single most detestable character in the total series , and that does n’t front good when there are so few female character reference to start with .
I ’d also care to deal with another setose part of Foundation ’s Edge : Asimov ’s determination to incorporate his automaton stories into the Foundation population . This was , I conceive , a controversial decision , particularly among longtime fans who had grown up with the original tarradiddle as their own self-governing entity , and who perhaps saw this merger as a rather pointless , ego - indulgent exercise that detracted from their individual impingement . I entirely get that argument , but I actually think Asimov had some legitimately honorable reason for doing this , and in fact I call up this merger adds to the power and persuasiveness of Foundation ’s Edge . get me explain by divvy up with you a shortsighted treatise on the subject that I prepared earlier , specifically during our discussion of Second Foundation . I ’ll monish you now — this is about to get seriously hard-core in its nerdiness …
Part of the reason we ’re tackling all seven Foundation books is so that we can in reality empathise Foundation ’s sharpness in its right context . That ’s all well and skilful — any fresh lector would be pretty much utterly recede if they take on Foundation ’s Edge without reading the original Foundation Trilogy — but Asimov has a larger purpose with this book , and that ’s to set about the tricky process of merge together as many of his fictional creation as he possibly can . start up with Foundation ’s Edge , Asimov wrote four books — first this , then The Robots of Dawn , Robots and Empire , and Foundation and Earth — which first merge together two different sets of loosely connected but not definitively share universes – the Susan Calvin and Elijay Baley stories in one typeface , the Empire and Foundation stories in the other – and then combine all four macrocosm into a single , analog timeline . There were , I think , a couple reasons for this . One , it grant him to bring his most popular creation into the Foundation universe , as so many of his reader and publishers exact , and two , I honestly just reckon the rational challenge of it all spellbind him . I also think there ’s a third , far more interesting cause why he did this in Foundation ’s bound , but I do n’t remember it ’s forthwith obvious without some explanation of the special references . So now , I really think it ’s time I unleash the full strength of my encyclopaedic Asimov knowledge and excuse how all this accommodate together , and why it actually matters to the specific secret plan of Foundation ’s Edge .
In this particular book , Asimov offer one expressed connection to a previous book , a solidifying of garbled references to another , and introduces a central construct from his other kit and boodle . Specifically , he has Munn Li Compor recount the tarradiddle of Pebble in the Sky , Asimov ’s first ( and maybe most underrated ) novel , which touch on a radioactive Earth ’s last desperate attempts to hightail it its obscurity and dystopian decomposition by striking back at the entire Empire . If nothing else , it reconfirms that the four report in the so - shout “ Empire ” serial ( The Stars , Like Dust , The Currents of Space , Pebble in the Sky , and the short story “ Blind Alley ” ) really do take place in the same fictional existence as that of the Foundation , which was generally assumed but not explicitly confirmed in the fib until now . There ’s also , I think , another grounds why Asimov incorporates Pebble in the Sky , but let me delay on that compass point just a little bit longer .
The next connection we have , rather accidentally , is to The End of Eternity , my pet Asimov Scripture ( indeed , my best-loved record by anyone ) and his one really serious exploration of time traveling . The story that the Gaian elderberry bush Dom tell gets some of the inside information mighty — in the novel , the Eternals had district over seven million years of human history , and they subtly altered account to control the greatest felicity of the greatest telephone number , all without any of the steady humans ( or Timers , as they were have intercourse ) being even the slight bit cognisant of the worldly handling . And , indeed , as Dom hint , Eternity ultimately does come to an end , so as to secure human domination of the wandflower . He get many of the crucial details incorrect , though — the Eternals were not golem , but in fact quite cripplingly human , and they did not exactly cease operations voluntarily … but I ’ll leave that aside , as I rather hope we ’ll be able to talk over The terminal of Eternity in far slap-up detail somewhere down the line .
Anyway , next up we have robots . As it happens , Asimov does n’t really offer too many concrete connexion to either of the specific strains of robot stories , be they the close future tense Susan Calvin account or the far future Elijah Baley secret ( again , two strains that were clearly related to but not explicitly linked together until The Robots of Dawn ) . Instead , we get the general concept of robots , we get to take heed the fabled Three Laws of Robotics , and we get an explanation as to why automaton - dominated social club ultimately failed . conceive just how far aside the original robot stories and the original Foundation stories really are in terms of the universes they depict , his decision to move slowly in bringing them together is hardly surprising , and it would n’t really be until Foundation and Earth , the final Holy Writ in his Linkage Quadrilogy — a term no one has ever used before and , in all likelihood , never will again — that golem and the Foundation finally really snap together . But still , we clearly subsist in a universe that once had golem , and that ’s enough for our use .
And what is the purpose here ? It only became clear to me upon rereading Foundation ’s Edge , because this is the first time I ’ve take it with full cognisance of the ease of the Asimov corpus . Back when I was a laddie , I read all the Foundation books before I jump into the wide Asimov universe . At the time , I just discover the references as discarded things , not even properly comprehending yet that they were oblique references to other books . But now ? Well , now I ’m returning to Foundation ’s Edge from the other angle , as someone who is intimately intimate with the entire Asimov canyon , and I realize upon rereading that these reference work are not , in fact , a one - way street .
I only notice any of this because of one particular Word of God that tipped me off . At one item , Second Foundationer Stor Gendibal recalls his schooling days , when it was drilled into his head that genial communication must be super precise , or else one can make fatal mistakes — such as the fabled case of a Second Foundationer err the secret new warlord the Mule for some random battalion animal . Here ’s the line in doubt :
Gendibal remember his own pupil days when he made an wrongdoing in response that seemed , in his own psyche , to be both insignificant and understandable . His instructor — sometime Kendast , a tyrant to the roots of his cerebellum — had merely sneer and said , “ A horselike animal , Cub Gendibal ? ” and that had been enough to make him collapse in disgrace .
The odd word there is “ Cub ” — a term that , yes , can be used to refer to student or youthful prentice , but outside the scouts and sonny newsperson Jimmy Olsen , I ’ve never heard the term used … except in The End of Eternity , where all prospective Eternals begin out as Cubs . And then , once they complete their breeding as Cubs , they next become Observers … the accurate same position Munn Li Compor fulfills for the Second Foundation . And , like Observers and on-key Eternals , there ’s a distinct divide between commentator like Compor and true Second Foundationers like Gendibal . It ’s an challenging overlap of footing , particularly because much of the charge place against the Second Foundation in Foundation ’s border — that it would be a paternalistic nanny United States Department of State done in by constant figuring , that its rulers are just as piddling and beset with internal conflicts as any other human being , that it is quite just a “ beat remnant ” — are on the dot those made against Eternity in the earlier book . For those wondering what a Second Galactic Empire run by the Second Foundation might wait like , Asimov provides The End of Eternity as evidence for why it might well be doom to unsuccessful person .
And I think , once started down this road , we can take it still further . An empire formed by the First Foundation would only be “ the first Empire reborn , ” and Asimov ’s clearest depiction of the first Empire is in Pebble in the Sky , where it is a expectant , uncompromising dictatorship done in by provincial hatreds , undiplomatic ignorance , and endless , pointless bureaucratism . For those who doubt the case against the First Foundation , he offer a Word where the last of the Earthmen were willing to wipe out all humanity for disembarrass the coltsfoot of the First Foundation ’s phantasmal predecessor . And then , of course , we have robots , who are quite explicitly put forward as the behavioral exemplar for the Gaians . We know that a Gaian future wo n’t just be a galactic superorganism : It will be a superorganism that live in compliance with the disembodied spirit of the Three Laws of Robotics .
Here , Asimov does not offer so clear a negative case , because he does n’t proffer any explicit nexus at all , be they to stories where robot are unquestionably positive ( like , say , “ Bicentennial Man ” ) or those where their possible dark-skinned side is revealed ( “ That Thou Art aware of Him ” being the most obvious representative ) . Asimov has tear off a corking trick here in subtly conditioning those who come to Foundation ’s Edge with a good working knowledge of his prior work : The First and Second Foundation are associated with clearly electronegative example , while Gaia is linked with every robot story Asimov ever wrote , and we ’re force to judge for ourselves whether robots were , on balance , a in effect thing and something worth emulate .
Under those conditions I cogitate there ’s proficient reason to think that Golan Trevize makes the right decision in choosing Galaxia , even though I very much partake Trevize ’s own qualm about the death of individuality . It ’s a cunning twist on George Santayana ’s legendary observation that “ Those who can not call up the past are condemned to repeat it ” — except , in this pillowcase , it ’s those who can not remember their old Asimov novels are excoriate to repeat them . So then , let nobody say Asimov was being gratuitous or lover - servicey in pulling together all his different worlds into a individual universe . Whatever their unmistakable discontinuities , they all keep coming back to the same crucial base , and put them in pernicious conversation with each other really adds to the power and fertility of Foundation ’s Edge .
JW : Damn — this is why you are crucial to this project . OK , I retract my usage of the word “ fan - servicey , ” and though I am entice to defend that the unavoidable clumsiness of some of the integration of all the mythos jeopardise at prison term to undermine all of Asimov ’s efforts — well , shit , you seriously just blew my creative thinker there , and I thank you for doing so , as it ’s tremendously deepened my already gamey esteem for this book . Just … wow .
OK , I would wish to make one more preeminence in closing , and it ’s about the book ’s title . Foundation ’s Edge stands alone among the seven Foundation book , as the only one whose name is n’t an absolutely clear verbal description of its contents . And though I think the statute title makes arrant sense once you think about it , its meaning might not be immediately clear .
It take me for a while to count on out , anyway : Foundation ’s Edge is where we ’ve reached the point of accumulation of the Foundation ’s scope and powers . Again , I realize that sounds painfully obvious , especially following all the discussion we ’ve been through above ( and even more so after I found a binding for the Spanish edition ) ; but it did n’t quite occur to me until recently , because it ’s followed by three more novels that all also have “ Foundation ” in their title . Really , though , Trevize ’s decision ( and I also bang the title because “ sharpness ” conveys that sense of a portion pay heed in the counterweight ; it ’s much better than Asimov ’s original , Foundations at Bay ) mark the last meter we see the Foundation as an active force . In books six and seven , in fact , it wo n’t even exist .
In the next book of course , the Foundation is still out there . But it plays so small a role that the title of respect is merely more a convenience for the reviewer . That realisation makes end this surgical incision of our journey that much more affecting . But I infer we ’ll bid Terminus a adoring leave here , and move on tomorrow to Foundation and Earth .
https://gizmodo.com/home-again-home-again-in-so-many-ways-isaac-asimovs-5800423
Josh Wimmer isa freelance writerin Madison , WI . Alasdair Wilkins lives in Los Angeles and is a reporter for io9 .
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