Krishna Agaram

The Foundation Saga, by Isaac Asimov

11 Jun 2025

Goodness gracious. I almost forgot about the post due today. We’ll start with a book series review that took me a fair fraction of 2024 to cover most of (yes, I haven’t still read them all). It was totally worth the effort.

The author first: Isaac Asimov was a biochemist who wrote extensively on science and science fiction. He is best known for the namesake of this post, the Foundation Saga. The series is a grand tapestry of speculative human history, spanning thousands of years, tons of planets across the galaxy. The entire series spans 20,000 years of human history, from around the current time when generalist robots have just been invented but are often large hunks and mistake-prone, to the exploration and colonization of nearby planets, interstellar travel and the colonization of star systems, to the rise of a Galactic Empire, to the eventual inevitable fall of said Empire, and the cleverly orchestrated rise of a second Empire, finishing with plans of turning the galaxy into something very special indeed. Naturally, it was also written over a period of fifty-one years and comprises 20+ books, with three independent series (Robot, Foundation and Empire) glued together by a common thread of characters and events, prequels, sequels, and more standalone novels. (Personal opinion: I do not think anyone but a scientist in the know could have written such a series given the depth and realism of the science involved. Then again, it is hard to believe that a scientist could be so ingenious in creating the so-very-relatable social and political dynamics in the series. Asimov was a rare gem indeed.)

The main draw of the series in my opinion, apart from the sheer scale and scope of the story, is the portrayal of very realistic scientific, social and political dynamics that inevitably show up in the history of a civilization. A few examples follow.

  • Consider the development of a robot that has been programmed to never harm a human, both physically and psychologically. Anne and Brit approach the robot. Anne is in love with Bryan, but the reverse is sadly not true. Anne asks the robot if Bryan loves her. The robot, having been programmed with overruling priority to never harm a human, says yes. And you can probably guess the rest of the soap opera that unfolds.

  • As a more serious example, consider the planet Terminus recently colonized by a group of scientists and engineers, suddenly showing up with technology that is far advanced than that of the neighboring planets. Terminus has essentially no resources of its own, both for sustenance and for military freedom. What does Terminus do, desperate to stay alive? As it happens, not something very nice, but something that has indeed happened over and over in our own (real) history. They start by nuclear-war blackmail and spread misinformation among the neighboring planets, causing them to fight amongst each other and divert attention from Terminus. The real punch comes next. They set up a techno-religious hegemony, operating their tech under a veil of mysticism and magic. It’s hard to believe how well that worked for them. They simply won outright (details: please read the book). To compound matters, the neighboring planets also depended on Terminus for technology, and Terminus traders capitalized hard on the monopoly. Finally, the neighboring planets simply collapsed on themselves, marking the first successful expansion for Terminus-folk.

  • The whole book, “I, Robot” is a part-parody, part-serious take on all the various ways robots can “accidentally” bypass their programming and the ingenious ways to set them right. The book is a collection of short stories, each with a different robot and a different situation, but all connected by the same theme of robots and their interactions with humans. The stories explore the ethical implications of robotics and the complexities of human-robot relationships. No more spoilers here, it’s far too much fun reading the book oneself. Betcha you’ll lose your marbles at least thrice :D.

The series has had real impact on science, too (yes, the name “Robot” is also due to Asimov). All robots are programmed with the so-called “Three Laws of Robotics” (extended much, much later to include a zeroth law), a set of extremely relevant and realistic laws that robots are constrained by.

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Asimov explains that the laws are enforced by means of potential walls in robots’ positronic brains. Essentially, the thinking pathways are designed to travel down low-energy paths, and pathways that would lead to a violation of the laws are held back by a high potential wall, forcing other paths to be taken. Unfortunately for robots, sometimes there is no path that does not lead to a violation of the laws, and the robot is forced to attempt jumping a wall, most often leading to the robot’s brain’s destruction. While still futuristic for today’s standards, such an approach to enforcing laws in robots is not entirely unrealistic. The laws of robotics still influence research in artificial intel security.

Another central concept in the series is “Psychohistory”, a fictional science that combines history, sociology, and statistical mathematics to predict the future of large groups of people. The idea is that while individual actions are unpredictable, the behavior of large populations can be modeled and predicted with a high degree of accuracy. Scientist Hari Seldon first created this science, only to discover that the Galactic Empire was predestined to fall. Using his science, he injects the Foundations at ends of Galaxy, two groups of people filled with just the right people and instructed in the right ways so as to induce humanity along a path with a heavily-shortened period of chaos following the Empire’s collapse, with a speedy recovery and formation of a new Empire. To put it rather oversmartly but memorably, psychohistory is behind the foundation behind the Foundations.

It would be rather unsatisfactory if psychohistory was exact, since there is an obvious element of uncertainty in human dynamics, even taken together, especially when the predictions are made over a long time period. Indeed, this happens with almost disastrous consequences when a mutant with mental powers, completely unaccounted for by psychohistory, appears on the scene (Foundation and Empire). A small branch: mentalist powers play an increasingly prominent role in the series, with the scientific basis for the ability to influence and (slightly) control human minds described as a consequence of extensive understanding over millenia of the electromagnetic waves emanating from the brain upon its information processing. Mentalists are able to manipulate these waves to influence the thoughts and actions of others, a power that becomes crucial in the later books of the series. Lots of different modes of power in this series!

A quick note on Asimov’s writing style: it’s most often straightforword with little flowery prose, favoring clarity and storyline over . This approach makes his books accessible and easy to follow, though it can sometimes feel a bit dry. The characters tend to be lightly sketched (well, it isn’t a drama or high fantasy, cut him some slack!), and the dialogue may come across as stiff at times. Still, the sheer originality and depth of the ideas more than compensate for any stylistic limitations.

Finally, here is a brief chronology of the series (not including a few standalone books, e.g. Nemesis) goes like so:

Robot Series:

  • I, Robot (1950) [Pilot to the whole saga. Set in the very near future; robots are just being invented and tinkered with]
  • The Caves of Steel (1954) [Murder mystery. A thousand years later. Colonization is on, and the robot-powered terraformed planets house long-lived, disease-prone humans]
  • The Naked Sun (1957) [Another whodunit. few decades later. Earthmen colonize again] and sequels:
  • The Robots of Dawn (1983) [Yet another, some years later. This time, a very powerful robot is the victim.]
  • Robots and Empire (1985) [Two centuries later. Earth’s fate in the balance here, with colonizers trying to get rid of it.]

Empire Series (mid-life of the Foundation Universe, tidbits from the formation of the First Galactic Empire):

  • The Stars, Like Dust (1951)
  • The Currents of Space (1952)
  • Pebble in the Sky (1950)

Foundation Series:

  • Foundation (1951) [Fast-forward to 20,000 years in the future. The Galactic empire is failing. The first Foundation is set up at Terminus and faces a rocky start to existence.]
  • Foundation and Empire (1952) [The empire (tried to) strike back. One last time. A slightly mentalist mutant proves to be an extremely strong antagonist.]
  • Second Foundation (1953) [The reveal of the Second Foundation, a perfect south to Terminus’ north. If Terminus-folk played chess, they didn’t even see the full board as the Second Foundation did.]

and sequels:

  • Foundation’s Edge (1982) [Something very important is orchestrated to happen, and the power behind is not Terminus or the Second Foundation. A third power was always hiding in the shadows.]
  • Foundation and Earth (1986) [The backward edge to the Robot Series. The search for the Mother Planet, Earth and meeting the true powers of the galaxy. Of course, the aforementioned final transformation of the galaxy into something fantastic.]

and latest, prequels (On the development of Psychohistory and on Hari Seldon, the brain behind the Foundations):

  • Prelude to Foundation (1988)
  • Forward the Foundation (1993)

(as you might have guessed, the books without a brief explanation adjoining them have not been read yet.)

Well, as any wise Pundit will have you know, one must say their closing prayers: my apologies for the overly long review, any typos and incorrect grammatical usage, and the possibly obvious lack of a proper edit (too close to my three-day deadline, oops).

And then, that elusive section 7, Conclusion. The Foundation saga is a must-read for both the beginner to sci-fi and the seasoned sci-fi afficionado. Outside the sci-fi and all the fancy robots, tech and space travel, the series is a deep exploration of society, politics and ethics. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend you do so. And if you have, I hope this review brings back memories fond and frustrating from the saga, as it did for me. Since this series has impacted me fairly, I’d like to plagiarize the Sunday times’ review of the Lord of the Rings and summarize:

“The science-fiction population is divided into two groups: those who have read the Foundation saga and those who are going to read it.”

That’s a wrap. Until next time on Saturday the fourteenth. Do ping me if you’ve got comments or suggestions. I’m very new to this business of blogging and could certainly use some help. You can reach me at the usual email address: kagaram@cse.iitb.ac.in.

Happy reading!

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