Archives: Sacred Cows

Here is a slim little volume that I found intriguing. Isaac Asimov is a little-known American author. Let me state here that his lack of popularity stems not from a lack of talent, but rather is due to the author's pathological self-effacement. He is, apparently, shy to a fault. Add to this his woefully meagre output and you begin to see why the name Asimov is not a little more prominent on the bookshelves. Hopefully Foundation will change all of that.

Foundation deals with the minutiae of human existence. It dissects and analyses every nuance of the human condition through an intimate portrayal of a close community spread across a million planets. It is like Jane Austen on an intergalactic scale.

The actual story deals with the efforts of Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian (aren't they all? Sorry ...) to limit the period of barbarism that will follow the fall of the current ruling Empire. The Empire is in a period of decline, you see, and it is about to fall. I don't know where Asimov got the inspiration for this novel plot line but it's a corker. Actually, a better title for the book would be The Decline and Fall of the ... oh, hang on ... Anyway, Hari, the main character, dies. Now this would have presented a bit of a problem to a lesser writer, but the whole point of the story is that Hari knows what is going to happen next. This is what is so impressive about psychohistorians, they can predict the future. Not an individual's future, but that of a whole society. Before you get carried away with notions of entire civilisations going out to meet tall dark strangers and travelling overseas, I'd better point out that what is predicted are the trends a civilisation will follow.

These universal trends are as follows: Decline, Fall and then the building up of a Replacement. Given that the Decline is already well in place and the Fall is imminent, the astute reader might pick up a tiny flaw in the book. But that would be mere hair splitting. Okay, The Decline and Fall trends are a tad easy for Hari to predict, but he does get them in the right order. He could easily have said that there will be a Fall followed by a Decline. I will admit that he does cheat a little with the Replacement trend as well, because he actually sets up the Replacement for the Empire before the old Empire actually falls. I think this is called "betting on a sure thing".

The stylistic approach of the novel is worth commenting on because it is actually a series of short stories. Now, a lot of people heap abuse upon the short story writer — novelists mainly, but also a few essayists who feel threatened. Novelists claim that short stories are easy to write and are not worthy of publication, but the short story does have its own unique charms. They are short, and they are easy to read, and they pretty well form their own chapters, and lots of other attributes too numerous to mention here. And, contrary to popular opinion, they are not easy to write. Each short story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I mention this because a lot of writers get them in the wrong order. But not Asimov. Here is a true master of the short story form. Not only has he written a series of short stories, each with its own beginning , middle and end, in the right order, but he has them put them one after the other and still got them in the right order! I guess that's psychohistory at work.

All in all this book is a winner: well-rounded characters, beautifully realised settings, and, thanks to the short stories, more climaxes than you can poke a stick at. It even has a nice picture of a spaceship with red stripes on the cover. Nothing whatsoever to do with the story, but it always works as far as I'm concerned. My only hope is that Asimov will get on with some serious writing. And I am talking quantity here rather than quality. I feel he needs to increase his output and, unless I'm very much mistaken, I think there might be room for a sequel to Foundation.