Foundation's Fear

Amazon.com
This is the first installment of The Second Foundation Trilogy, based on Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation series. Acclaimed hard science fiction writers Gregory Benford, David Brin, and Greg Bear will each produce a work for the trilogy. Benford kicks off exploring the beginnings of the Foundation itself and its creator, Hari Seldon. Seldon is working on a project to ease the inevitable collapse of the universe-spanning Empire and the Dark Ages that will ensue. But the current emperor has other plans, like appointing Seldon first minister and thus thrusting him into a world of political intrigues and assassination attempts that ultimately will bring him up against future history's greatest threat.


From Library Journal
Hari Seldon, now a candidate for first minister, finds himself embroiled in a psychohistorical conundrum?he must deal with the re-created personalities of Joan of Arc and Voltaire, who surface as computer simulations. Gifted storyteller Benford (Far Futures, LJ 12/95) makes the characters come alive. Isaac Asimov's estate authorized this extension of Asimov's "Foundation" series; expect additional volumes from Greg Bear and David Brin. Highly recommended.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Here begins the Second Foundation Trilogy. Isaac Asimov wrote the first trilogy all by himself, but the second is a project that Benford begins and David Brin and Greg Bear will carry on. The overall intent is to cover Hari Seldon's career before the original trilogy's events. As Benford's contribution commences, Seldon is the leading candidate for first minister of the empire and naturally attracts rivals, opponents, and outright enemies, both on account of his political prominence and out of suspicion of his theories, which approximate early versions of psychohistory. Eventually, in this book's most absorbing part, he and his humaniform robot wife must flee to a primitive planet where they narrowly escape murder while their minds occupy humbler primate bodies. With some luck and the aid of the venerable R. Daneel Olivaw, an elder statesman of the humaniform robot community, they finally return to Trantor. The book continues, more successfully, Asimov's late efforts to reconcile the Foundation stories with his robot novels and also profits from the fact that Benford is a more visual writer than Asimov. His rendition of Asimov's concepts is distinctively his; the many readers who probably would fall rapaciously upon any continuation of one of the most durably popular sf conceptions should appreciate it. Roland Green


From Kirkus Reviews
Benford's previous output includes a sequel to a story written by Arthur C. Clarke (Beyond the Fall of Night, 1990). Here, he inaugurates a trilogy (subsequent authors will be Greg Bear and David Brin) that will form a quasi-sequel to the late Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation series (Forward the Foundation, 1993, etc.) about ``psycho-history,'' the mathematical modeling of human behavior, and the fall of a far-future galactic empire. The mathematician Hari Seldon is first in line to be appointed First Minister by Emperor Cleon, even though his psychohistorical theories remain incomplete; Hari's meager political skills will be boosted by the secret efforts of the immortal robot, Daneel Olivaw, and Hari's wife, Dors Vanabili--another robot! The slippery and ruthless Betan Lamurk, however, a rival candidate for the office, will stop at nothing to oust Hari. Additional complications arise when a couple of electronically reconstituted personalities, Voltaire and Joan of Arc, escape into planet Trantor's computer network; the ``tiktoks'' or subintelligent machines stage a revolt; and some ancient disembodied computer-entities, blaming robots for the destruction of their machine-civilization, seek revenge. Sometimes needlessly and annoyingly meddlesome, but yet another curious blend of reinventions and retrospective criticism, intriguing and engrossing when Benford extends and embellishes Asimov's vision. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Taking up where original author Asimov left off, Benford continues the Foundation series. Hari Seldon is close to perfecting his theory of Psychohistory, and is a reluctant candidate for the position of First Minister. But there is considerable, and dangerous opposition.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices