My fifth 2011 book is a classic of Sci-Fi literature and admittedly the first straight Sci-Fi I've ever read. "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov is considered a novel that reinvented Sci-Fi books and storytelling for the genre.
However, as far as story goes it was incredibly dry. It's written in four parts, each part able to stand alone as a short story if necessary. It tells the story of how society can survive after the collapse of a huge Galactic Empire. The collapse having been foreseen by a brilliant mathematician named Harry Seldon, who then sets up events to go in a prescribed way in order to shorten the time of instability and chaos that follows the collapse of a huge governing body. Each main character of each part try to determine the course of action that Seldon laid out. Of course to preserve the path he saw and introduce as few variables into the mix as possible, Seldon doesn't tell what the right course of action is, only that it will be a series of crises that will have only one possible solution.
The MC's are dry, and all variations on the same character. The only female character is a bitchy, cold wife who does nothing to further of the plot.
All in all, it's like reading a study of the sociological, psychological, economical ways a society deals with the collapse of one government and the building of another. Reading it, I can see examples from history in the situations Asimov uses to tell the story, making think he believed history was cyclical.
All in all, I'm glad I read it because it's kinda like reading Austen or Dickens: you really should partly to say you have and partly because they are works of art; doesn't mean you always like the work of art but at least you can appreciate it to some degree. But it was boring with a capital B and I probably won't read any more Asimov.
My next book is "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card
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