Second Foundation: Isaac Asimov’s Hunt for the Hidden Guardians of the Seldon Plan
The individual human being acts unpredictably, but the reactions of human masses can be treated statistically: that was the conclusion Hari Seldon reached, and the larger the mass, the more accurate the prediction. It is the idea on which the whole Foundation saga rests, and in Second Foundation (1953) Asimov puts it to its hardest test.
Author: Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
Title: Second Foundation (1953)
Format: English Kindle edition (Spectra)
Series: Third book of the original Foundation trilogy
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B000FC1PWU (ASIN B000FC1PWU)
A Foundation in Ruins
After years of effort, the Foundation lies in ruins, shattered by the mutant mind of the Mule. Yet there is a legend that Seldon also established a secret Second Foundation, whose location was unknown even to the leaders of the first.
The Hunt Begins
The main mission of the Second Foundation was to guard humanity’s knowledge and protect it through the centuries of barbarism. Now that the first Foundation has fallen, the Second Foundation is forced to reveal its existence. The Mule wants to find it in order to destroy it, but he is not the only one: the survivors of the first Foundation also want to finish it off, before it finishes them.
Two Searches
The book is made of two linked stories. In "Search by the Mule", the Mule sends Han Pritcher, a former Foundation officer now converted to his cause, and Bail Channis, a young man who claims a gift for guessing, to find the Second Foundation. In "Search by the Foundation", set decades later, a group of scientists on Terminus become convinced that the Second Foundation is secretly steering their lives, and they set out to discover where it is and destroy it. Both searches turn on deception: in a game played by people who can influence minds, nobody can be sure that their own thoughts are their own.
Arcadia Darell
The second part is carried by Arcadia Darell, the fourteen-year-old granddaughter of Bayta from Foundation and Empire. Clever, impulsive and determined to become a writer, she stows away on a spaceship and ends up in the middle of a galactic conspiracy. Asimov clearly enjoyed writing her, and she brings a lightness to the most intricate book of the trilogy. Through her, the reader sees how ordinary people live under the Seldon Plan without knowing it.
From Magazine to Book
Like the earlier volumes, Second Foundation began as stories in Astounding Science Fiction, published between 1948 and 1950 and collected as a book in 1953. Asimov felt he had said everything he wanted to about the Foundation and turned to other projects for almost thirty years. When his publishers finally persuaded him to return, the result, Foundation’s Edge (1982), won the Hugo Award and became a bestseller.
Where Is Star’s End?
The trilogy’s last mystery is the location of the Second Foundation, hidden in a cryptic phrase of Seldon’s about "the other end of the Galaxy". Asimov’s final twist is a lesson in how to read: the answer depends on what you assume the words mean. Do not look it up; it is worth working out for yourself.
Who Should Read It
Anyone who has read the first two books, obviously; but also readers who enjoy spy stories, because at heart this is a novel of agents, double agents and misdirection, with minds rather than guns as the weapons.
Why Read It
This is the most cerebral book of the trilogy, a game of hidden identities and double bluffs in which the question is not who has the biggest fleet but who can see furthest ahead. It closes the original trilogy in a satisfying way, although Asimov returned to the Foundation decades later with several more novels.
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