![]() Dust-jacket illustration from the first edition. | |
Author | Isaac Asimov |
---|---|
Cover artist | Edd Cartier |
Language | English |
Series | Foundation series |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Gnome Press |
Publication date | 1952 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 247 |
Preceded by | Foundation |
Followed by | Second Foundation |
Foundation and Empire is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov originally published by Gnome Press in 1952. It is the second book in the Foundation series, and the fourth in the in-universe chronology. It takes place in two parts, originally published as separate novellas. The second part, "The Mule," won a Retro Hugo Award in 1996.
Foundation and Empire saw multiple publications—it also appeared in 1955 as Ace Double (but not actually paired with another book) D-125 under the title The Man Who Upset the Universe. The stories composing this volume were originally published in Astounding Magazine (with different titles) in 1945. Foundation and Empire was the second book in the Foundation trilogy. Decades later, Asimov wrote two further sequel novels and two prequels. Later writers have added authorized, and unauthorized, tales to the series.
Foundation and Empire is composed of two stories: "The General" and "The Mule". The former was first published in the April 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the title "Dead Hand", while the latter was first published in the November and December 1945 issues of the same magazine. [1] : 26–28
General Bel Riose of the Galactic Empire governs the planet Siwenna. He comes across myths regarding the Foundation and attempts to confirm them by coercing the aid of Ducem Barr, a Siwennian whose father Onum met the Foundation trader Hober Mallow decades ago. After further research through visiting Foundation territory, Riose determines that they are a threat to the Empire and declares war upon them, both to fulfill his duty to the Empire and satisfy his personal pursuit of glory. Barr is familiar with Hari Seldon's psychohistory and through it is confident of the Foundation's inevitable victory, an assertion Riose repeatedly disputes.
Riose captures and interrogates Lathan Devers, a Foundation trader who reveals in private to Barr that he allowed himself to be taken in order to disrupt Riose's operation from the inside. Devers is met by Ammel Brodrig, Emperor Cleon II's Privy Secretary who was sent to Riose in order to keep an eye on the general. Devers tries to implicate Riose in an attempt to overthrow Cleon. However, Brodrig betrays Devers to Riose. Barr knocks out Riose before he can subject Devers to more effective interrogation and Devers and Barr escape in the latter's ship. Barr only cooperated with Riose to prevent the discovery of a planned Siwennian uprising in the event of the Foundation's triumph over Riose.
Devers and Barr head to Trantor in an attempt at turning Cleon II against Riose by implicating the latter in a conspiracy to overthrow the former with the help of Brodrig. However, in their attempt to bribe their way up the chain of bureaucracy, they are caught in the act by a member of the Secret Police, but manage to flee the planet before they are arrested. During their escape, they intercept news of Bel Riose and Brodrig's recall and subsequent arrest for treason (both are later said to have been executed), which leads to Siwenna's rebellion and the end of the threat to the Foundation.
During the festivities celebrating Siwenna joining the Foundation, Barr explains to Devers and the Foundation's top merchant prince Sennet Forell that the social background of the Empire made the Foundation's victory inevitable regardless of what actions they and Bel Riose took, as only a strong Emperor and a strong general could have threatened the Foundation, but an Emperor is only strong by not allowing strong subjects to thrive, and Bel Riose's success made him into a threat that Cleon II needed to eliminate. With the Empire nearing its end and the Second Foundation not expected to be met until centuries later, the Foundation anticipates no further opposition. However, an internal conflict between the Foundation's merchant princes and the traders is foreshadowed.
Approximately one hundred years later, The Empire, after its final phase of decline and civil war, has ceased to exist, Trantor has suffered "The Great Sack" by a "barbarian fleet," and only a small rump state of 20 agricultural planets remain. Most of galactic civilization has disintegrated into barbaric kingdoms.
The Foundation has become the dominant power in the galaxy, controlling its territory through its trading network. The outline of the Seldon Plan has become widely known, and Foundationists and many others believe that as it has accurately predicted previous events, the Foundation's formation of a Second Empire is inevitable. However, the leadership of the Foundation has become dictatorial and complacent, and many outer planets belonging to the Traders plan to revolt.
An external threat arises in the form of a mysterious man known only as the Mule. He is a mutant and can sense and manipulate the emotions of others, usually creating fear and/or total devotion within his victims. With this ability, he takes over the independent systems bordering the Foundation, and has them wage a war against it. In face of this new threat, the provincial Traders join with the central Foundation leaders against the Mule, believing him to be the new Seldon crisis.
As the Mule advances, the Foundation's leaders assume that Seldon predicted this attack, and that the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Seldon will again tell them how to win. To their surprise, they learn that Seldon predicted a civil war with the Traders, not the rise of the Mule. The tape stops when Terminus loses all power in a Mule attack, and the Foundation falls.
Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell, along with the psychologist Ebling Mis and "Magnifico Giganticus," a clown fleeing the Mule's service, travel to different worlds of the Foundation, and to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe can defeat the Mule. They also suspect the Mule wishes to know where the Second Foundation is as well, so that he can use the First Foundation's technology to destroy it.
At the Great Library, Ebling Mis works until his health fatally deteriorates. As Mis lies dying, he tells Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico that he knows where the Second Foundation is. Before he can reveal its location, however, Bayta kills him. Bayta had realized, shortly before, that Magnifico was actually the Mule, who had used his powers in every planet they had previously visited. In the same way, he had forced Mis to continue working and find what the Mule was looking for. Bayta had killed Mis to prevent him from revealing the Second Foundation's whereabouts to the Mule.
The Darells are left on Trantor. The Mule leaves to reign over the Foundation and the rest of his new empire. The existence of the Second Foundation, as an organization centered on the science of psychology and mentalics, in contrast to the Foundation's focus on physical sciences, is now known to the Darells and the Mule. Now that the Mule has conquered the Foundation, he is the most powerful force in the galaxy, and the Second Foundation is the only threat to his eventual reign over the entire galaxy. The Mule promises that he will find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserts that it has already prepared for him and thus that he will not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts.
Groff Conklin described Foundation and Empire as "fine swashbuckling galactic adventure [based] on some extremely hard-headed, scientific and mature social-political thinking." [2] Boucher and McComas, however, panned the volume, declaring that "Anyone with a nodding acquaintance with Gibbon, Breasted, or Prescott will find no new concepts [here] save the utterly incomprehensible ones contained in the author's own personal science of 'psycho-history'." [3]
Although Hugo Awards were established only in 1953, too late for the novel to be eligible, both parts of Foundation and Empire originally published in Astounding Science Fiction were later retroactively nominated for Retro-Hugo Awards, one of them winning the 1946 Retro-Hugo Award for the Best Novel (of 1945):
The Foundation trilogy, of which Foundation and Empire is the second book, won a Hugo Award in 1966 for Best All-Time Series.
The Visi-Sonor inspired the Holophonor, a similar instrument that appears several times in the cartoon Futurama . [5]
Foundation's Edge (1982) is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the fourth book in the Foundation Series. It was written more than thirty years after the stories of the original Foundation trilogy, due to years of pressure by fans and editors on Asimov to write another, and, according to Asimov himself, the amount of the payment offered by the publisher. It was his first novel to ever land on The New York Times best-seller list, after 262 books and 44 years of writing.
Prelude to Foundation is a novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, published in 1988. It is one of two prequels to the Foundation series. For the first time, Asimov chronicles the fictional life of Hari Seldon, the man who invented psychohistory and the intellectual hero of the series. The novel was nominated for the Locus Award.
The Foundation series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First published as a series of short stories and novellas in 1942–50, and subsequently in three books in 1951–53, for nearly thirty years the series was widely known as The Foundation Trilogy: Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953). It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov later added new volumes, with two sequels, Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986), and two prequels, Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993).
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in the Foundation series of novels by Isaac Asimov. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor, Seldon develops psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allows him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. On the basis of his psychohistory he is able to predict the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire and to develop a means to shorten the millennia of chaos to follow.
R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "Robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society during Earth's early period of space colonization. Daneel is introduced in The Caves of Steel, a serialized story published in Galaxy Science Fiction from October to December 1953. The full story was published by Doubleday as a hardcover book in 1954.
Foundation is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is the first book in the Foundation Trilogy. Foundation is a cycle of five interrelated short stories, first published as a single book by Gnome Press in 1951. Collectively they tell the early story of the Foundation, an institute founded by psychohistorian Hari Seldon to preserve the best of galactic civilization after the collapse of the Galactic Empire.
Second Foundation is the third novel published of the Foundation Series by American writer Isaac Asimov, and the fifth in the in-universe chronology. It was first published in 1953 by Gnome Press.
Forward the Foundation is a novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, published posthumously in 1993. It is the second of two prequels to the Foundation Series. It is written in a format similar to that of the original book, Foundation, composed of chapters with long intervals in between, although Forward takes place within only one lifetime. Both books were first published as independent short stories in science fiction magazines.
Foundation's Fear (1997) is a science fiction novel by American writer Gregory Benford, set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. It is the first book of the Second Foundation Trilogy, which was written after Asimov's death by three authors, authorized by the Asimov estate.
"Blind Alley" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the March 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and later included in the collection The Early Asimov (1972).
Psychohistory is a fictional science in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe which combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. It was first introduced in the four short stories (1942–1944) which would later be collected as the 1951 novel Foundation.
Bel Riose is a fictional character in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. In the 1945 novella "Dead Hand", he is the last great general of the declining Galactic Empire. He targets the Foundation both as a perceived threat to the Empire and to further his own ambitions, but is outmaneuvered by its agents.
The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation series. The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans. For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328. The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun. Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority. The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels.
The Foundation Trilogy is an eight hour-long episode radio series that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 6 May and 24 June 1973. It is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy. Patrick Tull presented the first four episodes while Mike Stott presented the last four. David Cain directed the series. The series was repeated in 1977 and 2002.
The Foundation universe is the future history of humanity's colonization of the galaxy, spanning nearly 25,000 years, created through the gradual fusion of the Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation book series written by American author Isaac Asimov.
Foundation is an American science fiction television series created by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman for Apple TV+, loosely based on the Foundation series of stories by Isaac Asimov. It features an ensemble cast led by Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey. The series premiered on September 24, 2021. In October 2021, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on July 14, 2023. In December 2023, the series was renewed for a third season.
The Mule is a fictional character in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. First appearing in the 1945 novella "The Mule", he is a mutant and telepath who seizes control of the galaxy as a dictator after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Though he conquers the Foundation, his obsession with destroying the Second Foundation proves to be his undoing in the 1948 novella "Now You See It...".
Demerzel is a fictional character in the 2021 Apple TV+ television series Foundation, an adaptation of the Foundation series of novels by Isaac Asimov. She is portrayed by Finnish actress Laura Birn. Demerzel is a gynoid, or female-presenting humanoid robot, who serves as the majordomo to the revolving trio of Emperor Cleon clones, Brothers Dawn, Day and Dusk. In season two, it is revealed that Demerzel is the real power behind the Imperial throne, guiding humanity on a millennial scale.
Cleon, commonly referred to by the metonym Empire, is the name of multiple fictional characters in the 2021 Apple TV+ television series Foundation. They are the Genetic Dynasty of clones who rule the Galactic Empire. In the series, the 12,000-year-old Empire has been ruled for 400 years by a revolving trio of Cleon I clones: Brother Day, a Cleon in his prime; Brother Dusk, a retired and aging Cleon who serves in an advisory role; and Brother Dawn, a young Cleon being trained to succeed Brother Day. The series is an adaptation of the Foundation series of novels by Isaac Asimov, and stars Lee Pace as Day, Terrence Mann as Dusk, and Cassian Bilton as Dawn. Cloning does not factor in Asimov's novels, though emperors named Cleon I and Cleon II appear as supporting characters.
{{cite conference}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)