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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A fun romp through Trantor! Culture! Empires! Emotions! And probably the best surprise ending in the series!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Many people disdain the books that are outside of the original trilogy, but this book ties together the last book of the 5, as well as the first of the trilogy. (Just, read about the series to get through that sentence.)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Many people disdain the books that are outside of the original trilogy, but this book ties together the last book of the 5, as well as the first of the trilogy. (Just, read about the series to get through that sentence.)
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Some repetitions
I'm not sure if Asimov intended it to tie his other novels together or it's a result of writing this book after others but quite a few of the plots are repetitive. Some similar to Trev and Pel's adventures in the later Foundation novels and some similar to Daneel and Giskard's. I enjoyed the novel overall and it does serve as a good bridge between the robot novels and the Foundation ones. Can't pass a good Daneel book anytime!
I'm not sure if Asimov intended it to tie his other novels together or it's a result of writing this book after others but quite a few of the plots are repetitive. Some similar to Trev and Pel's adventures in the later Foundation novels and some similar to Daneel and Giskard's. I enjoyed the novel overall and it does serve as a good bridge between the robot novels and the Foundation ones. Can't pass a good Daneel book anytime!
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Oh boy, sad to see that Asimov ended up writing books like this one. The previous books were extremely superior. This one is just garbage.
The only reason this book has a star is because Daneel appears by the end of the book. All the things that happened before were dull and repetitive.
Even the plot twists were predictable, which was hard to do with the previous books, the books that were published in the 50s.
The only reason this book has a star is because Daneel appears by the end of the book. All the things that happened before were dull and repetitive.
Even the plot twists were predictable, which was hard to do with the previous books, the books that were published in the 50s.
I read the original Foundation series way back when I was a kid in my 20s. I am just now getting around to the additional books Asimov wrote beginning with Prelude. It made me want to follow the entire series agin in order and I will over time. This precursor is a satisfying look at how Hari Seldon got started down the path of psychohistory and predicting future events. It doesn't move as fast as the books of today's thriller authors, but it does keep you engrossed and following the fortunes and misfortunes of Hari and his entourage as they search for a working foundation for his novel mathematical postulate.
My review at
https://stuff.graves.cl/posts/2023-02-22_05_41-book-review-prelude-to-foundation-by-isaac-asimov/
https://stuff.graves.cl/posts/2023-02-22_05_41-book-review-prelude-to-foundation-by-isaac-asimov/
This was interesting, but maybe more interesting if you know Foundation, which I do not. The first half of it dragged substantially, to the point where I almost DNF’d it. Thankfully it got substantially better when stakes actually manifested and cultural aspects at various locals are introduced, and were actually fairly interesting. There are a couple twists that also brought it together. The structure felt so weird to me. It was tedious and then ramped up dramatically. It was welcome but jarring. I’ll continue with the series but does feel like conceit and plot wise, not all that much was actually accomplished for such a lengthy novel?
So, of the "later written" Foundation books that Asimov wrote in the 1980s (near the end of his life), this one is the best so far. It does not have nearly the levels of cringy-ness that the sequels had, and the characters actually had some variability and understandable motives. Also, Asimov starts to bring up actual dynamic science in his character discussions of psychohistory - chaos theory, deterministic systems, path dependence, etc.
All that being said, it seems that Asimov was so incredibly fixated on two motifs in his fiction - finding Earth and robots - that he simply cannot escape from them. One gets the sense that he uses them as a crutch, so it makes sense that he would staple this to the end of his previous series (Robot and Empire) to make it into a not-so-subtle appendage.
While not Asimov's fault really, he did a truly terrible job with forecasting how technology would advance. I have to remind myself that, when this was written (1988), public knowledge and use of the Internet was in its infancy, because he does not conceive of the idea that computers could be networked, which would save a lot of the problems encountered by the characters.
Finally, the idea that forecasting the future, a la psychohistory, would be of absolutely no interest to most people in the future just seems baffling. Humans have been trying to forecast the future for literally millennia - magic, augurs, astrology, and now mathematical models. There is no reason to believe that people would stop being interested in that pursuit. Even now, social scientists are trying to develop a real-world psychohistory (though I am dubious of the prospect that we would have enough data to validate the conclusions).
All that being said, it seems that Asimov was so incredibly fixated on two motifs in his fiction - finding Earth and robots - that he simply cannot escape from them. One gets the sense that he uses them as a crutch, so it makes sense that he would staple this to the end of his previous series (Robot and Empire) to make it into a not-so-subtle appendage.
While not Asimov's fault really, he did a truly terrible job with forecasting how technology would advance. I have to remind myself that, when this was written (1988), public knowledge and use of the Internet was in its infancy, because he does not conceive of the idea that computers could be networked, which would save a lot of the problems encountered by the characters.
Finally, the idea that forecasting the future, a la psychohistory, would be of absolutely no interest to most people in the future just seems baffling. Humans have been trying to forecast the future for literally millennia - magic, augurs, astrology, and now mathematical models. There is no reason to believe that people would stop being interested in that pursuit. Even now, social scientists are trying to develop a real-world psychohistory (though I am dubious of the prospect that we would have enough data to validate the conclusions).