Foundation (Asimov novel)

Foundation is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is the first published in his Foundation Trilogy (later expanded into the Foundation series). Foundation is a cycle of five interrelated short stories, first published as a single book by Gnome Press in 1951. Collectively they tell the early story of the Foundation, an institute founded by psychohistorian Hari Seldon to preserve the best of galactic civilization after the collapse of the Galactic Empire.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is one of his earliest and best-known works, which he began when he was only twenty-one. It helped to redefine the science fiction genre with its seamless interweaving of science fact with fiction. Foundation is set in the future, when the world is barely remembered, and humans have colonized the galaxy. The book introduces Hari Seldon, a brilliant visionary and psychohistorian whose job is to use mathematics and probability to predict the future. Seldon does not have the ability to prevent the decline of humanity that he predicts. Instead, he gathers together the galaxy’s top scientists and scholars on a bleak outer planet and sets out to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind, and begin a new civilization based on art, science, and technology. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation and designs it to withstand a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare he predicts will last for 30,000 years. But not even Hari has foreseen the intense barbarism lurking in space or the birth of an extraordinary creature whose mutant intelligence will destroy all he holds dear.