This was the first foundation book written after the long, 20 year gap after the original trilogy, and boy, is it bad. It follows the story of Golan Trevize who is booted off the Foundation for claiming that the second foundation still exists. He is sent off to locate the second foundation, if it still exists, but there are actually larger things at stake. A "living" planet named Gaia wants Golan to "choose" who should be in charge, the First Foundation or the Second Foundation. Why is Golan empowered to make such a decision? Because, we're told, he's a good chooser. At the end, he chooses for everyone to become one with the living planet Gaia, so we can lose our individuality and become psyhically linked to trees and plants. Golan's professor friend gets a robot girlfriend to have sex with as a consolation prize.
This book is dumb on so many levels, the biggest of which is this: what kind of an ending is it to say that humanity will merge into a group consciousness with rats, birds, trees, and daisies? And why was Golan such a great chooser? After seeing his decision, he seemed like a lousy chooser to me. The story is slow, very little happens, and the ending, which Asimov is usually best at, is a real dud.
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| Plot Summary of Foundation's Edge |
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"This was one of Asimov's later Foundation books. It details the story of an exiled politician who is sent in search of the Second Foundation. But along the way he finds an "intelligent planet" which is running the show, and the smart planet gives him a big, big choice to make about how the galaxy should be run."
Steve, Resident Scholar
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"This books picks up from the end of the famed Foundation Trilogy, namely, Second Foundation where the First Foundationers supposedly eliminated the "threat" of the Psychohistorians when the Psychohistorians had truly eliminated the threat of the First Foundationers. But the very perfection with which both Foundations supposedly quelled their respective anatagonists leaves the Foundationers in a blanket of false security. Two people, namely Golan Trevize of the First and Stor Gendibal, of the Second, defy their superiors in firmly believing that both Foundations have not succeeded and an "alien" force is guiding the universe to it's own ends..and their ominous doom. This incredible galaxy-hopping book (in which many secrets of the Psychohistorians are revealed) describes the separate and ultimately intersecting path of Trevize, his companion, Pelorat and Stor Gendibal, towards an unknown part of the Galaxy and towards an encounter which will change the future of the Galaxy forever."
Mithun Jacob, Resident Scholar
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