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Title: Foundation and Empire
Series:
Foundation #2
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages:
218
Words: 77K
When I read this for the first recorded
time in 2008, I only gave it 3stars.
https://bookstooge.blog/2008/11/12/foundation-and-empire/
I don’t know if that was because I
was comparing it to my emotional attachments reading this as a
teenager back in the 90’s or what, but it didn’t impress me that
much. This time around, I am fully impressed.
Part of that I know is because of my
continuing one man war against the Sandersonization of books. Some
books should be long, but not EVERY book needs to be long. Foundation
and Empire consists of 2 novellas that together make up a very short
book. I LIKE that. Spare me the details and give me the broad
strokes so I can fill in the details for myself in my imagination.
GIVE ME THE FREEDOM TO USE MY IMAGINATION IN READING!!!!!!!! Nor does
every book need to be a pared down tale like this. But the pendulum
is swinging away from this side and so I rail and declaim and shake
my fist. And accomplish nothing but disturbing the air around me.
However, another part is because this
is just a fething good story. Another Seldon crisis happens and the
Foundation is protected by the social forces that nobody is aware of.
And that gives them all a Happy Feeling as they think they are now
invincible. Only to have the Mule come along and literally kick the
Foundation to the ground and take over. But it introduces us to the
idea of the Second Foundation, which has been mentioned before but
never given any page time. Now, the groundwork has been laid for it
to come to the forefront.
I am glad I am re-reading this trilogy
and having such a smashing time of it. I just love, love, love when I
re-read a book/series and it gets better!
★★★★★
From Wikipedia.org
The
General
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.
The
Mule
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. 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.