When Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation’s Edge, a sequel to the original Foundation trilogy, he was very much into his project of integrating all of his major works into one universe. The year of publication was 1982, thirty years after the appearance of the trilogy in novel form and a full forty years after he started the Foundation stories as a young man of 21. So in some ways, Foundation’s Edge is an excellent sequel but in others it opens up a whole new dimension. (If interested, you can read my reviews of Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation for the background stories.)
As he explains in the afterward to this novel, the discussion of robots, which were never mentioned in the earlier trilogy, points toward all of his robot stories and his famous three laws of robotics. Other elements reflect the tampering with human reality by beings existing outside the human temporal framework, as described in The End of Eternity. These connections enrich, I think, the story of psychohistory, the Seldon Plan, and both the first and second foundations.
For me, Foundation’s Edge winds up being a satisfying reading experience despite the fact that it is too long (200,000 words) and consists almost entirely of the Asimovian trademark scenes in which two people interrogate each other. One plays the role of explainer, patiently drawing out of the other a recognition of something that person at first dismisses as ridiculous. But the conversations in this novel mostly succeed in building the dramatic tension and push toward more and more interesting dimensions of reality in this universe.
A key aspect of the story is that it goes beyond the “Seldon crises” of psychohistory that drive the plot of the original trilogy. It is now almost 500 years since the founding of Terminus and the first Foundation. The Galactic Empire has fallen, as Seldon predicted, Trantor has been sacked, reverting to agriculture for its vastly reduced population, and the first Foundation is well on its way to dominating the galaxy and forming an empire of its own. But, strangely enough, the story begins with a Foundation councilman on Terminus shouting out that the Seldon plan is meaningless.
That is Golan Trevise, who is promptly arrested and sent into exile by Mayor Harla Branno (a strong older female character, so unusual in Asimov’s male world) who is basking in the glory of having acted correctly to avert the latest Seldon crisis. Joining Trevise on this journey is Janov Pelorat, a retiring older scholar whose fascination is studying the legends of ancient Earth, rumored to be the original home of humankind. Mayor Branno thinks Trevise could be under the control of the Second Foundation and that he could lead the Foundation to determine the whereabouts of that shadowy organization and root it out once and for all. I never quite grasped why the two Foundations, both created as part of Seldon’s plan, should be antagonistic, but that has been the driving force of several stories in the cycle to this point. The original Foundation on Terminus has succeeded primarily by virtue of its vastly superior technology and economic power and looks forward to extending its reach to the entire range of worlds once controlled by the now failed empire that preceded it.
Just as Trevise is challenging the basis of the Seldon Plan on Terminus, so is another brilliant young man doing the same on Trantor, the secret home of the Second Foundation. Stor Gendibal hopes to become the youngest First Speaker, or guiding intellect, of the elite group of Speakers who monitor and make adjustments to the plan created by Hari Seldon. Gendibal persuades the current First Speaker, Quindor Shandess, that the Seldon plan’s perfection in recent decades is the sure sign of its irrelevance. He believes that there must be a third force keeping the plan on track through a source of intellectual power unknown to either of the existing Foundations. Gendibal believes that Trevise might be the key to discovering this new power, and so he is sent off to locate the ship from Terminus and track its movements. His companion on this trip is Sura Novi, a farm woman who wants to become a scholar. She at first appears to be totally subservient to the condescending Gendibal, but their relationship becomes a real friendship as time goes on. And later in the story she plays a crucial role.
All the action converges in a star system which has never been catalogued in the vast databases of the Galaxy, the Gaia system. Trevise and Pelorat arrive there first when their ship is grabbed by a powerful force emanating from a space station orbiting a planet they suspect could be Earth. A ship from the station comes alongside theirs and soon a mysterious figure enters their ship. This turns out to be “a young and undeniably pretty woman.” Here comes the most cringeworthy scene, as the woman, calling herself Bliss, steps out of her space suit in translucent clothing, giving the narrator a chance to describe her body in detail. She throws wide her arms, declaring ”Men have died for this body.” It turns out she is a representative of the planet Gaia where consciousness infuses every living and nonliving thing. She is also a much more complicated figure than she at first appears to be. Her initial role is to escort Trevise and Pelorat down to the surface where an elder named Dom (for short, there are another fifty or so syllables to his name) can explain fully what is going on.
I won’t go into the rest of the story, except to say that robots and the three laws of robotics come up for discussion, and it becomes clear that Gaia is not Earth. So Foundation’s Edge sets up the search for Earth in Foundation and Earth, the last novel in the chronology of the Foundation universe, and the one that most explicitly weaves together this series with the robot novels. (Asimov would go on to write two prequel novels at the end of his life in the 1990s.) What I enjoy about Foundation’s Edge is that it pushes the unfolding story of the first trilogy in a different direction and introduces a lot of exciting ideas. While Asimov’s characters, especially the women, and his scene structure show little change over time, his great strength is creating an interesting battle of wits while leading the story into intriguing new territory. I would call this essential reading for fans of the Foundation trilogy.
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