Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
Overall Rating: 3-1/2 stars
(Importance to the filed of science fiction — 4 stars; Writing style, plotting and execution — 2-1/2 stars; Value as an indicator of prevailing societal/genre attitudes — 4 stars)
Reviewing a book that one first read decades ago is always a many faceted experience; one that differs, significantly, from simply reviewing a book written many years previously that one had recently read for the first time.
Foundation feels to me like a book that was important to the development of the entire science fiction genre although I don’t at the moment have anything but anecdotal data to back up that statement. When I was in my teens this was one of those books that science fiction aficionados would list as “must reads” or “books that changed them.” Many of the science fiction writers/reviews who I read at that time also mention Foundation (and the other books in the
Bookish Comments 