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A review by rujein
Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov
4.0
This book takes place 14,000 years after the Robot Series (the mystery/scifi series with Elijah Baley as the main character), and is part of the same continuity/universe (although the books were not originally written as such).
As usual, it is more of the ideas explored in the book which interest me. As a conception of the future, this book is pretty interesting. From the very tech-based civilisation in Robot settled on a few planets and with an abundance of robots, human civilisation has spread out to a lot more planets (with the 'main' planet Trantor being the most diverse), the idea of human civilisation having started on a single world is now considered a legend, and robots no longer exist. The form of governance is now back to an empire-style situation, with a supporting First Minister (why; because the more people there are, the more difficult it is to consider all their views and interests in government?).
Think the idea of one single human civilisation spreading out to other planets and being super successful everywhere is not that much of a leap of imagination, although it might be a bit optimistic. At the same time, while Asimov repeatedly emphasises how different the different worlds/societies can be, I was a little disappointed not to see types of societies which don't really exist today/are unimaginable. The societies Asimov described are quite easily paralleled with societies today - Mycogen as some fundamentalist religious tribe, and Dahl as an industrialising country. Not sure if Asimov intended to portray this message, but I got a sense that much has changed (the spread to the entire galaxy) and nothing has changed at the same time (human societies), which is of course what facilitates reflection about the various facets of our society today.
Seldon visits two 'sectors' on Trantor in the course of the book, Mycogen and Dahl, himself coming from another planet Helicon. In the future, much like in many countries today, the main city Trantor where the emperor resides is the most dynamic and populous, and the other worlds are almost negligeable. (Honestly, this makes it hard to believe that people in the future don't believe in a single origin world, because their situation is not that different from having a single world). Asimov didn't really go into detail on how Helicon is different from Trantor, and how Seldon had to assimilate into the various sectors in Trantor. He describes differences in clothing and manners of speaking, which I suppose is fair enough, but I can't help thinking that these are rather superficial variations, and there are no deep-seated differences in terms of ways of thinking or being. I suppose Mycogen is supposed to be more radically different, since they are essentially a cult, but Asimov described many of the same power struggles and social divisions in Mycogen and in Dahl (a ruling class and everyone else, dislike of outsiders), but perhaps this is the message that Asimov is sending? Human nature and concerns remain much the same across time and place.
After the imperial sector, Seldon is first sent to Mycogen, which is a very closed sector akin to what we would understand as a cult. It was cult-like in that everyone was prescribed to wear the same, monotone clothes and shave all their bodily hair, and they even had a sacred book. They were mortified/insulted when Seldon implied that they had faith or believed in a God and I suppose the shock/twist was that all this time, their 'religion' was, as one of the Mycogens proudly put it, history - something which most would consider to be to be objective truth/scientific, rather than an article of faith. This made me reflect on how we distinguish between objective beliefs and superstitious ones today. The Mycogens behave similarly to religious folks, in having strict codes of behaviour (which seem to have no logical basis/link to their 'book') and rituals, but insist that their book/beliefs are strictly objective. How would we classify them then? Would we take them at their word and consider them totally objective and rational, or would we still consider them crazy cultists? How would we classify groups who believe in completely objective facts but are then led by these facts to behave in irrational ways?
(On Mycogen, there was also some hint of a theme on gender equality, because the two genders don't speak to each other, and women are generally supposed to perform chores and cannot go into the scared religious buildings.)
After having deeply offended the Mycogens by entering their sacred building, Seldon and Dors have to escape to Dahl, an 'industrial' sector. Social divisions hold on Trantor, as we see from the fact that Dahl is generally considered a poorer and more dangerous sector. There are divisions even within Dahl, as many of the small minority of low-level white-collar workers despise the blue-collar workers, perhaps in an attempt to seem or feel superior. Asimov's sympathy for the blue-collar workers is clear, and he portrays a few among them more sympathetically/more three-dimensionally than he does the Mycogens. Raych is shown to be street-smart, Amardyl is a math genius, and Davan is well-intentioned and righteous. The outsiders - Seldon and Dors - seem to be above such prejudices and sympathise with the blue-collar workers. But perhaps they can only enjoy the luxury of being liberal because they are outside of this system of hierarchy and need not be judged and fight for a stake within it.
The plot and language are average as usual for Asimov. Thought it was pretty contrived that a single concept so dominates the entire book and is so central to the plot. For such a central concept, it seems to me to be rather badly-explained, and it's not clear to me why it's so important that so many different parties fight over Seldon's allegiance. And why would Daneel need psychohistory to influence the future when he has already successfully overseen 14000 years of human history so far...
On that note, I rather enjoyed the twist that chetter hummin/eto demerzel/daneel were one and the same. It was pretty easy to guess that Chetter was not an ordinary Trantorian, given that he seems so invested in the fate of the world, and somehow so powerful despite being only a journalist. But, it was unexpected that Chetter would be Daneel from the Robot series and - even more unexpected - that he has been guiding human history since then. It kinda goes back to the tension which Gizard brought out in the Robot series - how would we feel about powerful/omniscient robots which paternalistically manipulate human events for the general good of humanity? Think the book uncritically accepts that this is for the good, and does not question whether it is favourable outcomes are still desirable if they come about at the expense of free will. It also does not question what "good" really means, or even try to envision an alternate human history which might have existed if Daneel had not manipulated events.
It would also have been interesting to explore the idea of the effect of a long life on experiences/feelings. but Asimov sidestepped that because the long-lived individual was a robot, to which thoughts and emotions were not attributed (although Dors was also a robot and she seemed to have normal human emotions?).
As usual, it is more of the ideas explored in the book which interest me. As a conception of the future, this book is pretty interesting. From the very tech-based civilisation in Robot settled on a few planets and with an abundance of robots, human civilisation has spread out to a lot more planets (with the 'main' planet Trantor being the most diverse), the idea of human civilisation having started on a single world is now considered a legend, and robots no longer exist. The form of governance is now back to an empire-style situation, with a supporting First Minister (why; because the more people there are, the more difficult it is to consider all their views and interests in government?).
Think the idea of one single human civilisation spreading out to other planets and being super successful everywhere is not that much of a leap of imagination, although it might be a bit optimistic. At the same time, while Asimov repeatedly emphasises how different the different worlds/societies can be, I was a little disappointed not to see types of societies which don't really exist today/are unimaginable. The societies Asimov described are quite easily paralleled with societies today - Mycogen as some fundamentalist religious tribe, and Dahl as an industrialising country. Not sure if Asimov intended to portray this message, but I got a sense that much has changed (the spread to the entire galaxy) and nothing has changed at the same time (human societies), which is of course what facilitates reflection about the various facets of our society today.
Seldon visits two 'sectors' on Trantor in the course of the book, Mycogen and Dahl, himself coming from another planet Helicon. In the future, much like in many countries today, the main city Trantor where the emperor resides is the most dynamic and populous, and the other worlds are almost negligeable. (Honestly, this makes it hard to believe that people in the future don't believe in a single origin world, because their situation is not that different from having a single world). Asimov didn't really go into detail on how Helicon is different from Trantor, and how Seldon had to assimilate into the various sectors in Trantor. He describes differences in clothing and manners of speaking, which I suppose is fair enough, but I can't help thinking that these are rather superficial variations, and there are no deep-seated differences in terms of ways of thinking or being. I suppose Mycogen is supposed to be more radically different, since they are essentially a cult, but Asimov described many of the same power struggles and social divisions in Mycogen and in Dahl (a ruling class and everyone else, dislike of outsiders), but perhaps this is the message that Asimov is sending? Human nature and concerns remain much the same across time and place.
After the imperial sector, Seldon is first sent to Mycogen, which is a very closed sector akin to what we would understand as a cult. It was cult-like in that everyone was prescribed to wear the same, monotone clothes and shave all their bodily hair, and they even had a sacred book. They were mortified/insulted when Seldon implied that they had faith or believed in a God and I suppose the shock/twist was that all this time, their 'religion' was, as one of the Mycogens proudly put it, history - something which most would consider to be to be objective truth/scientific, rather than an article of faith. This made me reflect on how we distinguish between objective beliefs and superstitious ones today. The Mycogens behave similarly to religious folks, in having strict codes of behaviour (which seem to have no logical basis/link to their 'book') and rituals, but insist that their book/beliefs are strictly objective. How would we classify them then? Would we take them at their word and consider them totally objective and rational, or would we still consider them crazy cultists? How would we classify groups who believe in completely objective facts but are then led by these facts to behave in irrational ways?
(On Mycogen, there was also some hint of a theme on gender equality, because the two genders don't speak to each other, and women are generally supposed to perform chores and cannot go into the scared religious buildings.)
After having deeply offended the Mycogens by entering their sacred building, Seldon and Dors have to escape to Dahl, an 'industrial' sector. Social divisions hold on Trantor, as we see from the fact that Dahl is generally considered a poorer and more dangerous sector. There are divisions even within Dahl, as many of the small minority of low-level white-collar workers despise the blue-collar workers, perhaps in an attempt to seem or feel superior. Asimov's sympathy for the blue-collar workers is clear, and he portrays a few among them more sympathetically/more three-dimensionally than he does the Mycogens. Raych is shown to be street-smart, Amardyl is a math genius, and Davan is well-intentioned and righteous. The outsiders - Seldon and Dors - seem to be above such prejudices and sympathise with the blue-collar workers. But perhaps they can only enjoy the luxury of being liberal because they are outside of this system of hierarchy and need not be judged and fight for a stake within it.
The plot and language are average as usual for Asimov. Thought it was pretty contrived that a single concept so dominates the entire book and is so central to the plot. For such a central concept, it seems to me to be rather badly-explained, and it's not clear to me why it's so important that so many different parties fight over Seldon's allegiance. And why would Daneel need psychohistory to influence the future when he has already successfully overseen 14000 years of human history so far...
On that note, I rather enjoyed the twist that chetter hummin/eto demerzel/daneel were one and the same. It was pretty easy to guess that Chetter was not an ordinary Trantorian, given that he seems so invested in the fate of the world, and somehow so powerful despite being only a journalist. But, it was unexpected that Chetter would be Daneel from the Robot series and - even more unexpected - that he has been guiding human history since then. It kinda goes back to the tension which Gizard brought out in the Robot series - how would we feel about powerful/omniscient robots which paternalistically manipulate human events for the general good of humanity? Think the book uncritically accepts that this is for the good, and does not question whether it is favourable outcomes are still desirable if they come about at the expense of free will. It also does not question what "good" really means, or even try to envision an alternate human history which might have existed if Daneel had not manipulated events.
It would also have been interesting to explore the idea of the effect of a long life on experiences/feelings. but Asimov sidestepped that because the long-lived individual was a robot, to which thoughts and emotions were not attributed (although Dors was also a robot and she seemed to have normal human emotions?).