When I was in high school, there was a certain type of person who read Isaac Asimov. I can picture one in particular: male, white, bowl cut, spent a lot of time smoking bowls on the industrial-sized trampoline in his back yard. Nice enough dude, but I didn’t fit the profile, so I didn’t read the books (to be fair, I was pretty deeply immersed in my Stephen Kings and Holocaust memoirs). I’m happy to say I’m less inhibited about reading books that aren’t “mine” these days, but this does mean I missed out on some really foundational books, like Asimov’s Foundation. In fact, I’m not even sure I really thought about the book until I started watching the series on Apple TV.
What drew me to the series (beyond my husband’s recommendation) was how beautiful it is (and not just because they cast Lee Pace). The on-screen world is painterly (in one season expressly so as “Dusk” Cleon is actually painting the murals in his palace). What kept me there is the fascinating characters (especially Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin) and political machinations that made the world feel real and urgent. I kept thinking, “There must be so much more of this in the books! I must read the books!” I found the second two in a local Little Free Library, but it took me ages to actually order the first. What a surprise it was to finally read about this world I thought I knew.
There will be spoilers ahead, if you can spoil a 75-year-old book and a series that debuted four years ago. There may also be misinformation as I’m going off my poor memory here. But I won’t say too much, because, as always, I most want you to get excited enough about this story to experience it for yourself.
Characters make a story
As I said, I was all in on Gaal Dornick as a character. Watching her float face up in the seas of her water-logged world. Seeing her absolute need for knowledge, a quest so intense it pulls her apart from her family, culture, and planet forever. Witnessing her stumble and triumph and stumble again as she comes into her own power.
Gaal was only one of the many characters we got to invest in in the series: Hari Seldon (the psychohistorian), Emperor Cleon (presented in the three forms of his cloned self-Dawn, Day, and Dusk), Demerzel (the woman who seems to make the Empire run), and Salvor Hardin (warden of Terminus and Gaal’s daughter). Each of these characters has an interesting backstory and a way of being in the narrative that drives the story forward. For example, Gaal is present as the Foundation is exiled from Trantor (the seat of Empire), her daughter is an integral part of the Foundation’s existence on Terminus, and Gaal becomes an important catalyst for the second Foundation.
Creating continuity across galaxies and lifetimes
The book is different. Not only is Gaal not a woman (almost no characters of consequence are), the character is incidental to the plot. In fact, most of the characters are incidental. As I was reading Foundation, I realized that part of what I’d loved about the series was the way the characters provided a touchstone for me as we hopped across planets and leapt forward in time over and over again. We lost a few of my favorites along the way, but there were always others I could lean on, knowing how their sympathies did and did not square with mine.
Without this continuity, I felt thrust into story line after story line without really knowing how to get my bearings. Whereas the series creates an entire history, this lack of continuity in the book provided me with outlines of what each stage of history was and could be, but I found it a lot harder to get inside (or to care).
Political evolutions
There’s also a stark difference between the series and the book in that we continue to experience the Empire in the series. That adds to the continuity of the story, but it also adds weight and context to what the Foundation is playing against. We didn’t have to see the whole history of Empire to imagine why it might decline (though we get touches in flashback). And when we flash forward, there’s context in what’s happened politically (and what’s about to happen) because we are grounded in both worlds. In the book, Empire (seemingly) ceases to exist over generations.
Also, the book feels much more jumpy. It wasn’t until near the end that I could pinpoint why (besides missing the characters), but I finally realized that each new crisis really sets a stage for Asimov to discuss a political system. When one of the characters calls the other a demagogue, it clicked—I felt like I was inside an Ayn Rand novel. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been deeply immersed in Rand’s work at various times in my life, and I’ve never been sorry I read it, but her work feels instructional, not narrative. The characters are often cardboard cutouts meant to push us forward to a conclusion Rand wants us to make.
I stopped reading Rand when I realized how little room there was for me in the books. One of the things I love about a book is bouncing myself off the ideas in conversation and coming away with my own thoughts. With Rand I could only agree or disagree. There wasn’t enough there for more.
I don’t think it’s an accident that Asimov and Rand share Russian lineage and a general time period. Their work both reads like they so forcefully need for us to believe something so we can change the world together. For me, though, I think the best way to change the world is to engage with the people around us, find out what they want changed about the world, and build a collective vision of what could be better.
I don’t know if I’ll read more Foundation books. I probably will just to see. I’m also off the series a bit after the most recent season. But believe me when I tell you that the first two seasons are gorgeous. Better yet, watch them for yourself!
If you want to read Asimov for yourself, order Foundation from Bookshop.org. If you use that link to purchase anything, you’re keeping indie bookstores in business and I receive a commission.
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