Time Warp: The Foundation Trilogy
Randy Streu, Senior Editor
Welcome to the first
column of our newest feature, "Time Warp." The goal of column is to remember the roots of the Science Fiction and Fantasy works which helped to lay the foundations of the genre for today's and tomorrow's writers. And, perhaps, to allow a new generation of readers and writers to discover and gain an appreciation of those who came before.
For me, then, beginning this new feature with Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" is appropriate on several counts. In the first place, any writer in the genre today who claims to be uninfluenced by the works of Asimov can only be speaking from hubris or from ignorance. Isaac Asimov is as responsible for what are considered the conventions of Science Fiction as J.R.R. Tolkien is for Quest Fantasy. A fish may or may not understand what we call "water" -- but he swims in it, just the same. The same can be said for any Science Fiction writer and the foundations laid by Mr. Asimov.
The original Foundation Trilogy (for several books were added to the series later) was and is something of an anomaly in long-form fiction. The three books did not follow the same structure -- nor even the same characters throughout the series. Instead, it spanned hundreds of years and followed the collapse of an empire, the rise of new civilization structures and the attempt of one of these civilizations -- The Foundation -- to bring the galactic society back into order.
In truth, the first book (Foundation, published in book form in 1951) should not have worked at all. And in the hands of a lesser author trying to lay out all the necessary exposition and trace the history of the civilizations involved through the centuries, it wouldn't have. The first book alone follows several different generations, switching focus from one main character to the next in successive parts. In fact, when I first read it, it felt more like several short stories mashed together into a single narrative. This makes sense when you research the book's history, because that's exactly what it is.
Foundation was originally published in Astounding Magazine as a series of short stories between 1942 and 1950. And it is this fact, I think, that makes Foundation work as a narrative. When you're doing a history of this sort, you have several options before you. Do you treat the civilization as the primary character? Do you choose a few participants and follow their lives as a proxy for the story? Or do you do something in between? Asimov's genius with Foundation was in choosing this third option. Asimov traced the story of The Foundation through characters central to the movement of the story. But Asimov chose not to simply follow their life stories, introducing peripherals that could well have buried the story he was trying to tell (often the chief pitfall of the second of the above options). Instead, Asimov joined these characters minutes before they were called or forced by circumstance to act, then followed them until the point at which they had done what needed to be done. Then he simply moved on and allowed his characters to live whatever lives they had left while he continued with The Foundation's narrative through the next character-catalyst.
Book two, like most novels, actually follows a similar basic structure, but on a much larger scale for its central characters. This makes Foundation And Empire read like much more traditional fare, but without breaking the narrative tone established in the first book. For example, this book only goes the span of a few years and follows only a few central characters from beginning to end. Second Foundation (book three), meanwhile, combines the two approaches and follows two stories, building on the narrative by revealing more about the Plan hatched by Hari Seldon in Foundation and following the history of the second civilization vital to the reorganization of society.
The reader should not mistake me, however: Asimov's focus on narrative over character does not mean his characters are flat or boring. Hober Mallow, a central character in the first book, is a good example of this. He is a fully-realized character whose motivations, though somewhat mysterious, are at least always displayed as existent. He is intelligent, cunning and, where he needs to be, brutally pragmatic. And here, Asimov proves his mastery over the form by showing these traits in the narrative, rather than wasting time and word-count in explaining it to you.
And, in fact, it is Asimov's characters which make The Foundation Trilogy a classic, not only of the genre, but of literature. They are intriguing and likable. And even if their primary motivation is not the furthering of Asimov's Foundation, these interesting individuals make the reader want to continue reading to see how the role they played will ultimately work into the final outcome.
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series
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