The currents of space (Written by Isaac Asimov) - Published in 1952

Isaac Asimov was a prolific writer, somebody who write fiction and non-fiction in vast numbers, starting with writing science fiction stories that magazines would scoop up (although sometimes if one magazine rejected it, another would take it). He has even written science textbooks, and during a period in his career, was so interested in writing non-fiction books that he practically stopped writing his science fiction. Over his long career, he is most famous for 2 specific series of science fiction books, these being the books about robots (in fact, there is this logical set of laws called The three laws of robotics that he introduced in his books), and the Foundation series (about a massive galactic empire of the future, and how it starts to fail because it is too big and full of inertia, and needs to be replaced by The Foundation).
The Currents of Space is one of his early novels, having been published in 1952, before the first spaceship went into orbit and before a lot of research into space had really been conducted. Although it is to be said, Asimov's novels are not so much about science fiction as they are about describing societal behavior of human societies of the future, their problems, their evolution, and so on. If you read these books and love them, you will love all the Asimov books, even the ones which are not his best (such as The Currents of Space),



Part of the future as per Asimov is where mankind has gone through several rounds of settlement in planets outside the solar system, with society either using robots or totally staying away from robots. Now, millions of world have been settled, and the Galactic Empire, based at Trantor as the center, is slowly forming, absorbing worlds in order to grow. There are planets which are independent, although there are political games happening between Trantor and these planets. One of these planets is Sark, which rules another planet called Florina. The reason to keep Florina subjugated is that for some reason, a wonderful fiber called 'kyrt', grows here, and here only. All attempts to grow it elsewhere to the level found on Florina have failed. Continued capture of Florina ensures that Sark has the market for 'kyrt' and earns massively. Sark has setup a captive bureaucracy on Florina and rules with an iron hand (this entire set is based on the concept of Southern slave-owners having slaves to work on their cotton fields).
The novel starts with a person trying to communicate a major discovery, but is captured and a psychic probe is applied, which ensures that the person will reveal their secret, but also loses a large portion of mental capacity and becomes like a child. That is Rik, who is found on Florina and is struggling to get mental capacity back. A girl in Florina takes care of him, even though she works in a mill and has quotas to meet, helped by a local Florinan official, who seemingly works for Sark. The story spins further and further, with Sark trying to determine exactly what is happening, agents for Trantor trying to put their own finger here, and the ever growing memory of Rik and his realization that something serious is about to happen to Florina.
Read this novel; it's not very long but is decently interesting.

Novel - The Positronic Man (published in 1992) - Written by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is one of the most famous authors of science fiction, but he is not just a writer of science fiction. He wrote on a number of subjects, and was the author of a large number of science books, not only fiction. Asimov had an interesting life, born in the late 1919, or early 1920 in Russia and then his parents moved to the United States when he was only 3 years old. His moved to the Brooklyn area of New York, and that is where he grew up. He started writing for science fiction magazines at an early age, and was soon making a good going out of these. He also grew up in a age where there was worries about science and inventions, with the Frankenstein complex riding high on the minds of people, especially about the concept of robots (which were not a reality at that point of time). He enunciated over a period of time, the concept of the 3 Laws of robotics, which was a theory about the construction of robots such that they would always be subservient to humans, and would not act in a way that would be out of control. And then he went ahead and wrote stories where there were robots who were unusual, and in some cases, the robots had some tweak where they could be a danger.
The novels and short stories by Asimov were not only science fiction in the classical sense, but they actually talked about societies in the future, whether these be societies living in a cave scenario, people who have never seen the sun and would be frightened to go outside; or there were stories about a society which lives under 3 suns, and has never seen night, so what happens when there is a specific time when all of the suns go down and suddenly the society is faced with night that it has not seen in thousands of years (this was the premise of the book, Nightfall). Asimov also wrote a series of books set way in the future, which formed the Foundation series, another of the series of books for which Asimov is famous.




In one of his short stories "The Bicentennial Man", Asimov wrote about a robot who was different from the other robots of that time. A small modification in the robot had causes this robot to almost have an individuality, and the family that owns that robot was fairly rich and liberal, and encouraged him, almost as a member of the family. Because the robot, Andrew, had some unique artistic skills, he was able to make money out of these skills, and starts to display some properties related to emotion, something that robots were deemed incapable of, properties that seemed to differentiate humans from robots. However, this was not easy; there were many challenges from society, even members of the family could only accept part of his desires. Even the corporation that made him, U.S. Robotics, is puzzled over what gave him this creativity, but they are not comfortable with his quest for getting rights, and even change the structure of their robots to prevent his kind of occurrence.
By now, Andrew has rights, but wants the ultimate right, the right to be recognized like a human being; and for that right, in the end, he makes the ultimate sacrifice; he takes the right to die like humans do. Towards this end, over a period of time, he has replaced many of his body parts with organic parts to gain even more acceptance.

Novel - Prelude to Foundation (published in 1988) - Written by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was one of the most prominent writers of science fiction; but he was not just a writer of science fiction, but wrote a lot about science and other subjects, writing a large number of books overall. He was born in the Soviet Union in late 1919 (or early 1920) and moved to the United States with his family when he was just 3 years old and settled in the Brooklyn area of New York. In the United States, at an early age he became fascinated with science fiction and was selling his stories to magazines when he was as young as 19. He continued writing books and articles for the rest of his life, finally dying at the age of 72 in 1992.
He is now mostly known for the books dealing with Robotics (primarily his enunciation of The 3 laws of robotics; which were meant to provide a rulebook for robots so that they would remain under human control) and for his Foundation Trilogy. The Foundation Trilogy was a series of 3 books that described a future galaxy under the control of a Galactic Empire which is decaying, but only one man believes that he knows this. This man is Hari Seldon, who finally created the science of psychohistory, which would enable the foretelling of the future of large groups of people. The idea of Hari Seldon was to prevent the 30,000 years of turmoil and conflict that would emerge at the end of the Galactic Empire and through the creation of 2 Foundations, change this 30,000 year period to a 1,000 year period at which a Second Galactic Empire will create peace in the galaxy.

Prelude to Foundation was a book that Asimov wrote long after he had written the original Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation), these 3 having been written in the early 1950's, and then Asimov wrote 2 more books called Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth in 1982 and 1986. However, Prelude to Foundation was supposed to be a prequel, providing more detail about Hari Seldon and his background, and also about his growth of the study of psychohistory, how he developed it. The books does not have any ground-breaking revelations, it just shows how Hari Seldon moved to different parts of Trantor while trying to figure out how to develop psychohistory.
The book starts with Seldon presenting a paper concerning the basics of psychohistory and how it could be used. This brings him to the attention of the emperor Cleon I, but when Hari cannot promise instant revelations, Cleon dismisses him. And then he meets the people who will be most significant to him - he meets a reporter called Chetter Hummin, who scares Hari by claiming that the all powerful first minister Eto Demerzel is trying to catch him, and he needs to escape. Chetter then introduces him to Dors Venabili (his future wife) and they start on a run through the different sections of the planet, with different societies, on the run from Eto while Hari is trying to determine a section of society that can form the base for his research. He moves through different sections of Trantor in his flight, meeting very different societies, and even ending up with a powerful sector that is forever looking to replace the emperor. Who is Eto, why is Chetter helping him ? All of these are powerful questions for which Hari Seldon gets answers at the end of the novel.

Novel - Robots and Empire - A book by Isaac Asimov (published in 1985)

Isaac Asimov was a prolific writer of books, which included both science fiction and non-fiction science related books. Over the years, he has become extremely famous for the numerous science fiction novels he wrote, and the way he wrote about societies of the future. His societies of the future have a certain tinge of familiarity with the society that we can see now, but he also showcases societies which seem extremely warped in terms of how they operate (especially when you see the societies that he has described in the Spacer worlds).
Asimov was born in Russia and moved at a very early age to the US and settled down in the Brooklyn area of New York. Although he was associated with different universities including Columbia and Boston University and even spent some time in the army (having been drafted), his heart was always in writing. He became a contributor to the famous science fiction magazines of the time, and also moved into writing science rather than science fiction. Isaac Asimov is most famous for the series of short stories and novels he wrote on Robots (and played his part in removing the Frankenstein complex about Robots through his Three Laws of Robotics - although the development of military robots seems totally contrary to these law of robots and seems more fueled towards the Terminator kind of world).
He also wrote a series of books that are collectively known as the Foundation Series (the first three of which came in the early 1950's and the remainder were written after a period of 30 years). They explore a period in which the massive Galactic Empire that has kept peace in the Galaxy is decaying and will eventually die, causing a prolonged period of anarchy and a scientist attempts to reduce this time period to a much smaller interval.

The novel is the 4th novel in the series, starting with the The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn. The main difference between these 3 novels and this one is the non-presence of the team of Elijab Baley and his humanoid robotic partner, R. Daneel Olivaw. The time period is set around 2 centuries after the previous novel, which means that Elijab Baley is no longer on the scene, having died as per human timelines. However, the lady he met in 2 of the previous novels, Gladia Delmarre, is still alive since she is a spacer and spacers have developed a much longer lifeline than that of humans.
But there has been a great transition in the overall balance of power in the galaxy. In the time of Elijah, the spacers were very powerful while earth was a much weaker source of power. However, the movement started by Elijah and a few others and supported by the faction of spacers led by Dr. Han Fastolfe, who wanted the settlement of the galaxy to be done by humans rather than using humanoid robots, grew wings and the humans started spreading outwards, outpacing the spacer worlds and using the huge population of earth to settle new worlds.
Even though Dr. Fastolfe had died, his enemies were still in place and could not digest what was happening, and were not able to withstand the increasing number of worlds being populated by human settlers. They want to destroy Earth in a way that is not traced back to the spacers and they believe that this will ensure that earth is not able to achieve its aims. In all this, is present a descendant of Elijah Baley, called Daneel Giskard Baley, who is part of these groups of settlers. He wants the help of Gladia for help in figuring out why her now abandoned planet of Solaria is destroying spaceships that land there, and also wants to recover the robots that are now there, apparently without any owners. Gladia decides to help, and gets Giskard and Daneel (with their super strength) as companions.
The former opponent of Dr. Fastolfe, Kelden Amadiro has got a new supporter and helper, Levular Mandamus. Till now, Giskard has been able to use his telepathic powers to stop all efforts by Amadiro to stop earth, and now he and Daneel have to proceed on their most difficult fight as yet, the effort to stop Amadiro and Mandamus from destroying earth through an increase in radioactivity (the net result of which was displayed in a mostly radioactive earth, in Pebble in the Sky). However, while trying to stay in line with the Three Laws of Robotics while trying to stop these 2 is a big challenge, and Asimov tries to get more inventive, trying to create a Zeroth law of Robotics, which places humanity above individual humans, but this effort places a huge impact on the minds of the robots and causes a breakup of the minds of Giskard. And the earth does become radioactive, but not in a few years, but over the next 150 years.
Asimov tried to use this novel to link his robotic series with his Foundation series, using Daneel in the last of the Foundation series and also introducing the worlds of the spacers as dead worlds.

Novel - The Robots of Dawn - Isaav Asimov (published in 1983)

Isaac Asimov is known as one of the masters of science fiction, but he was more than just a writer of science fiction. In addition to science fiction, he wrote a science books and with a total book collection (books that he would have written or edited) in the hundreds. His books came out in a time when there were many other authors of science fiction, but Asimov has always been counted among the top writers in his field, along with other authors such as Arthur C Clarke and Robert A Heinlein.
Some of the most famous works of Asimov includes the Foundation Series (which takes a look at society during and after a massive galactic empire came to an end), and also includes the science of psychohistory (that seems to predict the future based on large masses of people, but is not usable on small scales). In addition to this, Asimov is also very famous for his many books on robotics, some of them set on their own and others in terms of their involvement with non-earth societies at a time when they were shunned on earth.
He is also very famous for his 3 laws of robotics which seek to provide safeguards on the actions of robots and prevent them from behaving in a Frankenstein manner.
And of course Asimov was also famous for his short story Nightfall, which took a society which has always every had light in its sky, and how it reacts when it knows that all those suns that light up the sky will vanish for a period of time and there will be night (a concept that people have never had).

Robots of Dawn is the next novel in the series of the earth-based plainclothes detective Elijah Baley (with the earlier novels in this series being 'The Caves of Steel' and 'The Naked Sun'). So far, the interaction with the spacers and with robots (primarily the detective partner, the humanoid R Daneel Olivaw) has led to changes in the attitudes of Elijah. He has started believing that it is the future of humanity to move out and occupy planets rather than the spacers doing so. For this, they have to start moving out from their caves of steel and become more comfortable with open spaces and with being under the sun. So, far because Elijah has been successful in his past investigations, he has managed to gain fame and also enabled some rights for earth.
But each time, he faces investigations where there is a lot at stake. If he fails, not only will he face demotion, but earth will also lose out. And now he is getting into a murder investigation where there is a lot more at stake. There is a tussle going on on the world of Aurora, which is seen as the chief spacer world, and where there are groups which are fighting a power struggle over whether new worlds would be settled by spacers or by people from earth. The group favoring spacers wants to use humaniform robots (which look exactly like humans / spacers) but the technology for them is only available with the robotist Dr. Hans Fastolfe. And the murder is that of one of the 2 humaniform robots in existence, R. Jander Parnell.
Because of the skill needed to create a mental block in such a robot, Dr. Fastolfe is the one who is blamed for the crime, and he himself admits that only he has the abilities, but that he did not do it. However, if he is proved guilty, then his faction will lose power and the group advocating spacers doing the resettlement using robots will win. And into this mess is inserted Elijah Baley, and since the winning of Dr. Fastolfe's group is so important to earth, he is again under a lot of pressure. He is partnered with R. Daneel Olivaw again, and this time, he comes into contact with another robot, not a humaniform robot through, with the name of Giskard.
So starts the investigation, and Elijah comes across a number of people, some in favor, and some against him But because he is doing the investigation of this important case, they also have to give him an audience. He comes into contact with a person from the previous book, Gladia Delmarre, who had the robot in her staff, and who had also taken the robot as her sexual partner and treated him like her husband.
How does Elijah Baley overcome all the problems placed in his path ? Does he manage to prevent Dr. Fastolfe from being proven guilty ? How did the robot get a mental block which effectively killed the robot.

Novel - The Caves of Steel - Isaav Asimov (published in 1954)

Isaac Asimov is one of the most famous science fiction writers of all time. The number of fiction and non-fiction books that he has written number in the hundreds, more than 500 books of different genres. Asimov is mostly famous for his science fiction novels, but he has written a number of others books, almost all of them on science. Along with other authors such as Arthur C Clarke and others such as Robert Heinlein, he was one of the most famous science fiction writers of all time. His most famous legacies include the 3 laws of Robotics (meant to ensure that humans have control over robots) and for the Foundation series of books. For many science fiction readers, Asimov would have been the first author whose books they may have read. He had also won many of the science fiction awards that were there, and one of his short stories, Nightfall was very popular with critics. For those who have read the books, there are many aspects of the books that are not science fiction per se, instead they are a beautiful description of the society of the future.
Asimov was born as a Russian Jew in the period just after the First World War, with the exact date of birth unknown (sometime between 1919 and 1920). When Asimov was very young, his family moved to the United States and settled in New York. During the Second World War, he was working in a Navy station stateside, and joined the Boston University School of Medicine. He started writing short stories in 1939, and also with novels in 1950. Within a couple of years, he also went into writing non-fiction books. Over a period of time, he wrote a large number of books, with an increasing concentration on science books rather than non-fiction. In fact, as he mentioned in the Foundation Series, he had to be literally forced by his publishers to write some of the later Foundation books. Unfortunately, after writing a huge collection of books, many of them incredible books, Isaac Asimov died in 1992.
The Caves of Steel was the first in a series of novels that starred the human investigator Elijah Baley and his humanoid robotic partner, Daneel Olivaw. The book was first published as a series in Galaxy Magazine, over the last quarter of 1953, with the hardcover editing being published in 1954. This was the book that showed a time when travelers from earth (using hyperdrive) managed to colonize external planets. However, these colonizers, over a period of time managed to control disease, developed the science to live much longer and grew very rich, comfortable with robots to help them with their lives. At the same time, on earth, there was a reverse process. Humans retreated into living in large cities of steel (and an aversion to open space or outside), with severe restrictions and control on all facilities, hating those who had gone outside (the Spacers) and hating the control they had on earth, and most of all hating their machines, the robots.

In this setting, Elijah Baley is a policeman, with some of these biases as well. He has a family, and due to his status as a policeman, he has some facilities that others don't have, but there are many that he does not have because of his current rank. And then, a disaster occurs. A Spacer, one who wants people on earth to start going outside again, to other worlds, is killed just inside Spacetown (the guarded location on earth where Spacers live, and where people from earth are only allowed after being disinfected). He has been killed using a blaster, but it is a proper murder mystery since it is not easy to detect as to who did the murder. The disaster and opportunity for Elijah is that his boss, the Commissioner, wants Elijah to take up the murder investigation, and his partner will be a robot who looks just like a human, called R. Daneel Olivaw (the R stands for Robot).

There is no evidence of how the murder occurred and it is now upto Elijah to do all the investigations to figure out why the murder occurred. He has to fight with unknown people, work against an organization that wants nothing to do with Spacers and with robots and is looking to implicate Elijah in a situation where he will be accused of destroying valuable property. How does he do it ? Is he successful ?

Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1993)

Isaac Asimov wrote a huge amount of science fiction over the years, and is known for many of his books such as the Empire Series, and most famously for the Foundation Series. The 3 main Foundation books were the 'Foundation', 'Foundation and Empire', and 'Second Foundation'. It was later, in order to try and fill more details, that Asimov wrote more books for the Foundation, that include books that were both prequels and sequels. The last such book that he wrote was called 'Forward the Foundation', and was released in 1993, a year after Asimov died. Forward the Foundation was a sequel to 'Prelude to Foundation', carrying on with the story of Seldon's search for how to develop the story of psycho-history.



In end of Prelude to the Foundation, Hari Seldon learns that Otto Demerzel, the powerful advisor to the Emperor 'Cleon 1' is actually a robot. He solicits Demerzel's help for continuing the research into psychohistory, and Forward the Foundation continues into that effort, and is meant to show 4 different time stages in Seldon's life. The novel starts 8 years from the end of Prelude to Foundation, as Seldon gets more involved in politics, helping Otto fight off attempts, and then moves a further 10 years down the line. Demerzel has vanished, and Seldon is now First Minister. However, after the assassination of Cleon 1, Seldon slowly starts losing his family members. His wife, Dors, is killed when trying to save him from an assassination attempt, his adopted son (the 12 year he met in Prelude to Foundation) dies elsewhere in another violent act, his assistant Yugo Amaryl dies of over-work, and it is left to Seldon and his grand-daughter Wanda to try and set a process in place to guide events when Seldon is no more. And so starts the story of 2 different Foundations, one of the physical base, and the other, a society of mentalics.

Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov (Published in 1986)

Foundation and Earth did not satisfy avid readers of Asimov (and fans of the Foundation series). After all, it was still only covering a period midway during the 1000 year period that was required to establish the second Galactic Empire, and neither covered the period after that, nor did it cover the period required for the establishment of Galaxia. Asimov's widow Janet revealed after his death that Asimov was unexpectedly somewhat of a loss after Foundation and Earth to write about what happened post that period. He ran out of ideas, and hence went back to detail the Foundation periods in more detail, with Prelude to Foundation, and Forward the Foundation. Further, Foundation and Earth did not have a very gripping continuous story line, almost with individual stories tending to a final end (that was supposed to establish the robotic theme that combined the Robot Series, the Foundation Series, and the Empire Series).



Foundation and Earth covers the time period immediately after the decision by Trevize in Foundation's Edge to use the basis of Gaia for building up a true Galaxia. However, he continues to have doubts, and is not sure whether he has made the right decision. He decides to continue searching for Earth, sure that the fact that Earth has tried to remove all traces of itself means that once he found Earth, there must be something there that would help him confirm his decision. So he sets out on an expedition along with Golan Trevize and and Bliss (a representative of Gaia) and travel to a number of planets, trying to get traces of the location of Earth.
They reach Comporellon, where they are imprisoned since the local inhabitants want to get control of the advanced gravity ship. In this case, Trevize literally manages to sleep his way out of this problem, and manage to get out of the planet. From Comporellon, they get the location of Spacer worlds (the first time Spacer worlds are mentioned in the Foundation series).
Next they reach Aurora, the most powerful Spacer world in its time, now a planet without humans and Spacers. They have an adventure here when wild dogs almost manage to pin Trevize down and only Bliss manages to save Trevize by using the power of Gaia.
They next land in Solaria, a world which was the most isolated of the Spacer worlds; with the inhabitants of that time even then refusing to meet each in person, instead meeting only through videographic depiction. The inhabitants have developed a great power called transducer lobes which allows them to channelize natural energy into great use, and live in big estates alone (and are now hermaphrodites, capable of handling reproduction alone). The 3 travelers land in the estate of one of them called Bander, who explains their history and eventually wants to kill them. They only manage to escape when Bliss reluctantly kills Bander (she blocks his energy use and that fries his brain since energy is still coming in but is blocked from going out). They also encounter the young child of Bander, Fallom, who will be killed since she is immature and cannot handle the estate. They manage to escape the robots sent to investigate the death of Bander and take Fallom with them.
They still have a Spacer world to go to, and reach Melpomenia, where they need to wear suits since the atmosphere has long vanished. They find a building with the coordinates of all the spacer world, and also encounter a moss that seems to grow on their suits and manage to kill it by using their blasters and then escape the planet without carrying the moss with them. These coordinates give them a way to find the likely location of Earth since they are able to possibly find the position of Earth at the center of these coordinates.
They next go to a Binary sun system from the above process, and reach a watery planet revolving around a star called Alpha Centauri. The inhabitants are friendly, but they soon discover (through a lady who has had sex with Trevize) that they are being poisoned. They also learn that there was an attempt to restore Earth's soil (as mentioned in Pebble in the Sky), but it was abandoned. There was also an attempt to terraform the planet of Alpha, but that was also left half way. They also escape from Alpha, but are pretty sure that they are close to Earth now.
And finally they reach the Solar System of Earth, first seeing huge gas giants including one that has large rings around it (just like the legend), and the third planet has a very large satellite. They have found Earth, but Earth is radioactive and does not support any life. They find themselves getting pulled to the Moon, where they eventually find R Daneel Olivaw, who explains that he called them here. He explains the whole history of how he has been guiding the human race for 20,000 years now, including the settling of Alpha Centauri, the creation of psychohistory, the setting up of Gaia. But he is out of time, his brain does not last long and creating a new one does not help. He wants to combine with Fallom, with her long life as a Spacer, it is enough to ensure that Galaxia is setup; Galaxia is the only way to safeguard the Galaxy against aliens from other Galaxies.

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov (1982)

Imagine being in a position where you are begged by fans and forced by your publisher to write another book. This book is the sequel to a series that was voted as the Best All-Time Series (a one time award that was never repeated). And the book that you write becomes a bestseller for the first time in your career and wins awards from the industry. This is what happened to Isaac Asimov and the book - Foundation's Edge. The book was published in 1982 (and since the Second Foundation was published in 1953, this one was a long time in coming). It was much thicker than the first 3 books of the Foundation series and was also a bestseller on the New York times best-seller list (and given that Asimov was a prolific writer, it took a long time for him to reach the best-seller list).



Foundation's Edge takes the timeline of 500 years after the birth of the Foundation, half-way into the 1000 year period predicted by Hari Seldon for the formation of the next Galactic Empire. The Mule has long been gone, and the distortion introduced in the Seldon Plan by the emergence of the Mule has gone away (due to the careful attention of the Second Foundation). So too has the thought of the Second Foundation, ever since the First Foundation believed it destroyed the agents of the Second Foundation on Terminus.
However, not everyone believes this. The all powerful Mayor of Terminus (and consequently the ruler of the Foundation), Harla Branno, is not sure whether the Second Foundation is truly gone. Similarly, there is a young and impetuous Councilman, Golan Trevize also believes that the Second Foundation exists and is willing to ask this in open Council even though the Mayor is not willing. He has already confided his feelings to another young Councilman Munn Li Compor, who has however disclosed all this to the Mayor. The Mayor is all powerful right now, since there was a opening of the vault and an appearance by Hari Seldon that strengthened her position immensely; she is able to arrest Trevize and send him to exile. She wants him to search for the Second Foundation, while apparently searching for the obscure hidden planet Earth with a older researcher Janov Pelorat. He is given the most advanced ship that the Foundation has, a gravity ship that takes its energy from the gravity forces in space.
Simultaneously, there are more political battles happening in Trantor, the home of the Second Foundation, where 2 upstarts are competing to be the next one to take over as First Speaker, with Stor Gendibal trying to warn about the belief that there is some power stronger than the Second Foundation. In this he is opposed by an opponent Delora Delarmi, who wants to diminish him since that would leave the path clear for her to be the next First Speaker.
In the midst of all this, the entire sequence is actually being guided by the planet of Gaia (Wikipedia), an extraordinary planet where everything is conscious, and part of one. Everything on the planet has one thought, one consciousness, and together the planet wields immense power, even stronger than the Second Foundation. The Gaia concept is also non-threatening in the sense that there is no ambition, but there is a touch of vanity since Gaia believes that the entire Galaxy should be like Gaia, with all elements of the Galaxy being part of one. The reason why Gaia is manipulating everyone is that it wants to bring the situation to a head, and make Trevize decide the future of the Galaxy (he apparently has a very strong intuition, and Gaia wants to him decide whether the future of the Galaxy should be based on the physical power of the First Foundation, or the mental control of the Second Foundation, or the wholeness of Gaia). Whatever decision he makes will be implemented by Gaia.

Second Foundation (1953) - Author Isaac Asimov

The Second Foundation was the story that was the 3rd such published book in the Foundation Trilogy (although some later books were introduced that told the story before this book). The Second Foundation was published more than 50 years back (to be precise 55 years back, in 1953 by Gnome Press). The book was the sequel to the book - Foundation and Empire. I would not treat the book purely as science fiction, given that science is not the central theme of the book. The book weaves science in and out, but the book is all about human emotions, including the strongest ones, ambition. In the previous 2 books (Foundation & Foundation and Empire), Asimov had only given trace descriptions of the Second Foundation. It is this book which describes the Second Foundation in some detail, but not enough (more detail is revealed in the book, Foundation's Edge).



The actual novel is the combination of 2 separate stories separated by 55 years. Both are about searches for the Second Foundation, Search by the Mule, and Search by the Foundation. The Second Foundation was the Foundation set up by Hari Seldon to be composed of mentalists (people who can control and influence human thought) (although the initial novels never really clear as to how people came to develop these powers - it was only once you read the later novels such as 'Prelude to the Foundation' that reveal as to how all of this was a great plan).
The Mule had conquered everything that was visible, including the great Foundation itself (from its base on Terminus). He was searching for the Second Foundation, since they, the shadowy society of mentalists, were the only one who could break his plan (and he had started finding that some of his important people were getting modified, and could only be possible by the Second Foundation). It was important for him to find the Second Foundation, and it was this story that details his search, and how eventually, the First Speaker of the Second Foundation fulfills his duty by modifying the Mule to make him not care anymore about the Second Foundation (and eventually the Mule would die a natural death).
The Second Story, 55 years after the death of the Mule, was about the Foundation (the First one, the one that grew based on physical power) wanting to find the Second Foundation and destroy it. With the encounter with the Mule, it was clear that the Second Foundation existed. The Foundation and its leader could not stand to have the prospect of anybody but them being the center of the next Empire, and if the Second Foundation consisting of mentalics remained at large, the Foundation would never be the dominant power. And hence, driven by ambition, the search for the Second Foundation through the use of technology - this technology enables them to determine the way to disrupt the use of the telepathic powers of the Second Foundation and to cause harsh mental pain to any such agent of the Second Foundation. They eventually find agents on the same planet, Terminus (since the Second Foundation is at star's end, and circling the galaxy comes back to the original point).
However, have they really ended the Second Foundation ?

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (1952)

Foundation and Empire was the second book published in the Foundation series. The novel takes place in 2 parts (and were published as separate novellas), and form the 2 halves of the book. The 2 parts of the book follow on from the original 'Foundation' novel, and the story follows from the time when the First Foundation came up as a project of Hari Seldon on the planet Terminus way on the edge of the galaxy, and how the Foundation eventually reveals its true colors of setting up a power center that will start growing as the center of a new alternative to the Empire.
One of the attractions of the Foundation Series is a lot of societal information, and the turmoil and political activities inside a society, even if the society is way in the future. Both the stories of the book talk about societies under stress, and the actions of powerful people in these societies, in one case where the person finally lost the battle, and in the other case, managed to beat the problems.



The book covers 2 separate stories, both around the Foundation, one is a success story for the Foundation, and the other is a story where a single person is able to use his mutant powers to break the stronghold of the Foundation and take over planets one by one. The 2 stories are:
1. The General: This is the story of a time when the Empire is decaying, still powerful, but the Foundation is growing on power. A direct confrontation with the Empire, which has forgotten about the setting of a group of scientists on a remote planet Terminus on the edge of the galaxy (and which has now grown into a seemingly obscure but powerful entity known as the Foundation) is on the cards. The story talks about a society on the powerful central planet Trantor run by Emperor Cleon II (with his advisors and courtiers). A powerful and young general, Bel Riose is exploring the edges of the galaxy and coming up against the Foundation, and has started attacking parts of the Foundation already. How can he stopped ? The story takes a non-violent view of this approach, whereby the Foundation uses the insecurity of the Emperor against a powerful General (who is already very popular); the Emperor will be suspicious of the motives of a General who already controls the loyalty of a huge section of the armed forces.
2. The second story is about the 'Mule'. A mutant, who is able to control the emotions of people and is looking to take control over the galaxy. The Empire no longer effectively exists, with the capital planet, Trantor having been sacked. The Foundation is now much more powerful, but is no longer the vibrant and strong self, with an earlier upstart having instituted hereditary rule. The Mule emerges in this scenario, latching onto a set of Foundation newly-weds, and moving along with them. While doing this, he also manages to sway the leaders of various planets and break their resistance. The Seldon plan also fails to predict the Mule, since the Seldon plan and psychohistory work on massed numbers, and cannot predict the impact of an individual.