THE FOUNDATION NOVELS
Prelude to Foundation
It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall—those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.
Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire … the man who holds the key to the future—an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.
Foundation
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves—or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.
Foundation and Empire
Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its superior science and technology, the Foundation has survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior-planets. Yet now it must face the Empire—still the mightiest force in the Galaxy even in its death throes. When an ambitious general determined to restore the Empire’s glory turns the vast Imperial fleet toward the Foundation, the only hope for the small planet of scholars and scientists lies in the prophecies of Hari Seldon.
But not even Hari Seldon could have predicted the birth of the extraordinary creature called the Mule—a mutant intelligence with a power greater than a dozen battle fleets … a power that could turn the strongest-willed human into an obedient slave.
Second Foundation
After years of struggle, the Foundation lies in ruins—destroyed by the mutant mind power of the Mule. But it is rumored that there is a Second Foundation hidden somewhere at the end of the Galaxy, established to preserve the knowledge of mankind through the long centuries of barbarism. The Mule has failed to find it the first time—but now he is certain he knows where it lies.
The fate of the Foundation now rests on young Arcadia Darell, only fourteen years old and burdened with a terrible secret. As its scientists gird for a final showdown with the Mule, the survivors of the First Foundation begin their desperate search. They too want the Second Foundation destroyed … before it destroys them.
Foundation’s Edge
At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations has come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation have proved victorious; and now they return to Hari Seldon’s long-established plan to build a new Empire on the ruins of the old. But rumors persist that the Second Foundation is not destroyed after all—and that its still-defiant survivors are preparing their revenge. Now two exiled citizens of the Foundation—a renegade Councilman and a doddering historian—set out in search of the mythical planet Earth … and proof that the Second Foundation still exists.
Meanwhile, someone—or something—outside both Foundations seems to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose. Soon representatives of both the First and Second Foundations will find themselves racing toward a mysterious world called Gaia and a final, shocking destiny at the very end of the universe.
Foundation and Earth
Centuries after the fall of the First Galactic Empire, Mankind’s destiny lies in the hands of Golan Trevize, former Councilman of the First Foundation. Reluctantly, he had chosen the mental unity of Galaxia as the only alternative to a future of unending chaos.
But Mankind as massmind is not an idea Trevize is comfortable with. So he sets off instead on a journey in search of humanity’s legendary home—fabled Earth—hoping to find a solution to his dilemma there.
Yet Earth has been lost for thousands of years, and no one can say exactly where it is—or if indeed it exists at all. More important, Trevize begins to suspect that he might not like the answers he finds.…
Forward the Foundation
As Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory and ensure a place for humanity among the stars, the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse. Caught in the maelstrom are Seldon and all he holds dear, pawns in the struggle for dominance. Whoever can control Seldon will control psychohistory—and with it the future of the Galaxy.
Among those seeking to turn psychohistory into the greatest weapon known to man are a populist political demagogue, the weak-willed Emperor Cleon I, and a ruthless militaristic general. In his last act of service to humankind, Hari Seldon must somehow save his life’s work from their grasp as he searches for its true heirs—a search that begins with his own granddaughter and the dream of a new Foundation.