Forward the Foundation

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: This is a great book but I recommend reading the rest of the Foundation Series first as even though this takes place before it, it was written after and was meant to be read after you read the other books.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: This book links between "Prelude to Foundation" and "Foundation". It continues personal stories of Hari Seldon that started in the previous novel. I believe Isaac Asimov's writing style has gone through some changes, from rigid and lofty writing that you may spot in books about 30-50 years ago to the sentences we are familiar with these days, in the 90s. This book is one of the latest of Asimov's and can be read with ease. Not only his writing style, but the content of his writing, I think, has changed a bit, too. More entertaining, in my view. Not being a reader of a great appetite, I found this book more entertaining than any other in Asimov's foundation series.

Rating:
Summary: So good! So sad!
Review: This book is great! It tells the story through partial biographies of Eto Demerzel, Emperor Cleon, Dors Venabili, and Wanda Seldon. The problem with telling the story this way is because of the way every biography has to end. Who would want to see the end of all the characters you've learned to know and love? That's why it's so sad. It's a must-read for the foundation series, but, since it clears out old characters from the prelude to bring in new ones for Foundation, it's very sad.

Rating:
Summary: This book alone will not do...
Review: Take it from someone who has read *all* (500 something on the last count) the books Asimov's come out with: get all the "Foundation" works you can lay your hands on (or afford) at the same time. It will save you repeated trips to the book-store, or, if you order on-line, the pain of waiting for the additional books to be delivered.

Rating:
Summary: Too big, without the content of the trilogy
Review: When you come from a series of excelent books as the foundation trilogy definetely is, forward the foundation is still good, but looses the charm and energy that the previous books have. If you liked the trilogy, don't expect the same quality.

Rating:
Summary: Solid Foundation in liturature
Review: Forward the Foundation is a must for any Asimov fan. This enigmatic novel beautifully provides substance and character to the shadowy character who founded the Foundation- Hari Seldon. Asimov gives his characters extreme depth coupled with an intense and thought provoking plot. It is a perfect addition to the completion of the Foundation series.

Rating:
Summary: After the robots before the Foundation
Review: Prelude to Foundation, this book and Foundation and Earth are connecting the robot series (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire) with the Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation). Still I would recommend first to read the robot novells and the Foundation Trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I would like to start by saying that I am a big Asimov fan, and that this is the only novel I have ever read of his which would earn anything under four stars. "Forward the Foundation" takes place about 10 years after "Prelude to Foundation" (which was one of my favorites by the way,) and continues to feature Hari Seldon as he develops his psychohistory. While all the other Robot and Foundation novels offered some unforseen twist or new emphasis, this book did nothing of the kind. The first two stories were fun and interesting and promised to make this at least a four star book, but it was all downhill from there. I grew so board with the reiterated speculations about "lemonade death," that it took me a week to read that one section. Although the epilouge provided a somewhat satisfying (if somewhat predictable) ending, for the most part the entire second half of this book is extremely boring. Another unsatisfying aspect of this book, is that Asimov never even answers all the questions raised at the beginning when the emperor is killed. He asks how could psychohistory ever acount for such random events as that? and then never answers at the end. although you should definitly read this book if you've read the others in the series, you may be disappointed, as I was.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: The foundation series is one of Science Fiction's best works. This was the last book Issac Asimov wrote in thise series, and in my opinion very best of these books. It tells part of the life of Hari Seldon, the father of phycohistory. I would recommend reading the other foundation novels first, to really appriciate this book.

Rating:
Summary: Asimov's final novel.
Review: This was Isaac Asimov's last novel; he died in April of 1992. This book, a part of Asimov's noted Foundation series, concerns events taking place between "Prelude to Foundation" (1988) and "Foundation" (1951) and helps pull together those two books. It consists of a series of four stories, each taking place at a different time in the life of the mathematician Hari Seldon. The first story ("Eto Demerzel") begins about eight years after the end of "Prelude to Foundation." Seldon's work on his mathematical theory of psychohistory is going slowly. He finds that he has to assist the First Minister of the Empire, Eto Demerzel, in defeating a populist demagogue. (A new Foundation trilogy was begun in 1997. "Foundation's Fear" by Gregory Benford takes place between the first and second stories in "Forward the Foundation." Greg Bear's "Foundation and Chaos" and David Brin's "Foundation's Triumph" also take place within the time frame of "Forward the Foundation") The second story, "Cleon I", takes place ten years later. Seldon is now First Minister of the Empire and he finds that he and his adopted son, Raych, must defeat the remnants of an opposition group and stop an assassination attempt. In the third story, "Dors Venabili", occurring about ten years later, Seldon and his wife, the historian Dors Venabili, must quelch the designs of a ruthless military junta that is governing the Empire as well as detect and stop someone within the psychohistory project from taking it over. In the last story ("Wanda Seldon"), about six years later, Seldon and his granddaughter Wanda must find a way to obtain funding to continue the research after Hari Seldon dies. He soon comes up with the idea of two, independent Foundations whose goal it is to return the Galaxy to his former glory after the upcoming millennia of dark ages. In addition to these four stories, there is a short Epilogue that takes place two years after the end of Part I of "Foundation" (1951). This series has had an enormous impact in the history of science fiction and all serious students of science fiction literature should be familiar with all of the books in the series.