The Bay Post/Moruya Examiner team shares their entertainment obsessions.
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… Second Foundation.
If that sounds a bit sci-fi nerd, it’s because it is – but it’s also a classic, so I can cling to my literary pretensions.
Isaac Asimov was alive and kicking from 1920 to 1992, and was a terrifyingly prolific writer, producing over 500 books. He held degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, and his writing reflects a precise, scientific mind. If you like your sci-fi to be creative, but also plausible and consistent, Asimov is your man.
The Foundation series is set in a future where a unifying civilisation has crumbled, leaving chaos behind. Like 1984 and Brave New World, the premise feels a little close to home. Luckily for Asimov’s imaginary universe, a visionary social psychologist was able to model the collapse – and a way to shorten the ensuing galaxy-wide anarchy to a cheeky 1000 years.
Asimov was writing post WWII, when population health was taking off as a way to predict patterns of disease, and psychology was emerging as a more empirical discipline. Pulling those ideas together in 1953 was no mean feat. It’s a neat premise – even neater now we live in a world where ‘clicks’ and ‘likes’ are used to determine patterns of behaviour for population groups.
If you’re more of a sci-fi than science/history buff, there are some hidden treasures in the Foundation series for you too. Mind controlling mutants (who are oh-so-lonely deep down inside) are reminiscent of the X-Men. Asimov scatters footnotes from the fictional ‘Encyclopaedia Galactica’ throughout his work, which will give any Douglas Adams fans a chuckle – and an indication of just how influential Asimov is. Elon Musk recommends him – and although Mr Musk’s social skills may leave something to be desired, it’s fascinating to get a window into the ideas which have shaped his vision.
Possibly the best part of reading Foundation is the realisation that the challenges we face today – pollution, corruption, the ethics of science, the future of AI – aren’t quite as new and impossible as we think they are. And in the same way the wilderness was the ultimately-tameable bogey-man of early fairytales, these may be the equally manageable bogey-men of our times. Asimov certainly thought so.