I agree the Foundation Trilogy is important for any science fiction fan to understand because its one of the classic works everyone has read. To miss it is to miss out on that common experience that makes us part of a community.
On the other hand, I found reading it as a child in the 80s a great disappointment. At the time I was learning about chaos theory and the butterfly effect. It was painfully obvious to me that the Seldon theory of psychohistory was impossibly simplistic. Human society and culture is just too unstable and susceptible to disruption for long term predictions of the kind the plot relies on to be viable.
Yet despite that, it's still a worthwhile story with valuable lessons. Asimov realised that random events could disrupt the predictions of any system like psychohistory. The way I read it now, I don't think Asimov necesserily believed something like psychohistory was possible, instead he was positing a classic SF 'what if'. The point is that even if long term predictions like those of psychohistory were possible, there a still random events such as mutation that are outside the scope of any deterministic system that can derail it.
Hmm, it's interesting that you found yourself disappointed by Asimov's treatment of chaos. I can't help but suspect that you may have missed something when you first read it. I know I certainly did. Actually, Asimov's treatment of chaos is what sold me on hard scifi. Here are some of the high points that directly address your concerns:
1) The "thermodynamic" explanation of psychohistory (small, unpredictable actions "average out" in some sense) was bullshit even inside Asimov's fictional universe. It was merely an excuse that Seldon used to get the Foundation placed where he wanted it so that #2 could happen. The fact that the characters in-universe continued to buy in to the deception could have confused you (it certainly confused me). In my final analysis I consider this a stroke a brilliance on Asimov's part, even if it was introduced retroactively (I don't remember if this was the case).
2) Seldon's plan didn't rely on precise predictions of any kind (broad or narrow). He simply had to ensure that the set of probable broad predictions led to the next attractor state (Seldon crisis) so that intervening chaotic deviations could be neglected for the purposes of computing the subsequent ~50 years. For instance, the metaphorical pebble-in-the-shoe-that-loses-the-war would be handled by ensuring that both outcomes of the war led to the next Seldon crisis. In fact, this is the very subject of the 2nd book in the series.
3) The "random events such as mutation" that you suspect would spoil Seldon's predictions form the driving force behind the plot of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th books in the series. While Seldon's solution can hardly be considered elegant, it was somewhat effective and more believable than a great many things I'd be willing to suspend disbelief over. It makes for good reading in any case.
Your conclusion that psychohistory was more of a "what if" than a serious proposal holds true but I still think you haven't given Asimov enough credit for subtlety in addressing the chaos problem.
I'm listening to the series now. One of the oddities which struck me is how psychohistory could predict the microminiaturization of nuclear power cells. Nuclear power had been known for about 15,000 years, but only in the last 200 hundred was there a specific need by a resource-poor planet to figure out how to make those things, and so they did. Yet it was essential that those power plants exist in order to power the trade goods and the personal shields.
Sure, the Empire thinks in terms of large scale, but there's always a need for small, energy dense power systems. I can't figure out why they didn't exist already. And even if they didn't exist already, I don't see how psychohistory could have predicted that it would exist.
While on the other hand it makes the prediction that nothing will replace the standard jump technology for interstellar travel. If there were a way to go from Terminus to Trantor in, say, 1 jump instead of many, or if they could be done much faster, then the dynamics of the civilizations would also change in quite unexpected ways. There would be no "edge" of the galaxy, for example, since every planet would have about the same travel time to the other.
How can psychohistory make that prediction? More importantly, by the end of the original series, the "Lens had performed a near-revolution in interstellar travel", making hyperspace travel much faster. How could psychohistory predict that it would exist, much less when it would arise?
Either one of these - the lack of small nuclear power sources, or earlier creation of the Lens - would make big changes in the Foundation. And big enough changes that there's no way it would get to the same sort of semi-stable attractor as the alternative.
I think the answer is that Seldon probably knew that Psychohistory only works within fairly specific parameters. If something like the Lens were discovered then the assumptions underlying his predictions would be come invalid, therefore he simply had to hope that something like the lens would not be discovered.
As for miniaturised atomics, it's quite possible that the only reasons they hadn't been discovered already were sociological in nature - regulatory rules put in place at the behest of incumbent monopolies to protect vested interests. Seldon may have been able to plot the curve of atomic tech development up to the point the regulations killed further development, and then assumed that with the destruction of those vested interests along with the empire, tech development would continue on it's previous trajectory.
This is getting too close to describing how making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs is meaningful.
The introduction is quite clear that the mathematics is understandable by other mathematicians. The commentary from the Encyclopedia Galactica (116th edition, published about 1020 years after Sheldon's death) describes "Seldon found the field little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound statistical science." Gaal, by the end of a day of collaboration, was able to accept that its predictions were valid. It's hard to imagine that Seldon managed to hide the uncertainties in his work, given that others would be looking for precisely those uncertainties.
The justification in the series was that need drove development of micro atomic power units. Terminus is described as a metal-poor planet which needs to import just about everything. (Which then makes me wonder how there's enough minerals in the soil to provide the food needed for humans to survive. Do they even import the zinc needed to prevent zinc deficiency?)
But atomics weren't the only power source. Trantor uses only geothermal power because it's cheaper than atomics. So it isn't like there's a complete power monopoly. In addition, the personal shield would be quite the coup. Given "the known probability of Imperial assassination", there's a strong inventive for the Emperor and others to push for a personal shield, and a matching power source.
So you have the strange case where out of the million inhabited planets, only one retained atomic power and the rest fell into "barbarism." 200 years in the new era, fully 1/4 of the population was no longer under Imperial control, and yet all the rest of the people stopped understanding how nuclear power worked. That speaks to a very rote-based education system. But then how did the people of Terminus manage to not only remember it but advance on it?
It just doesn't make sense. Of course, in book it's all a fraud. The Second Foundation, full of psychics, and of course the robots, are working behind the scenes to keep everything on track. I think that's a cop-out, and I found it very hard to accept the later books in the series.
And of course in real life it's a SF version of the fall of the Roman Empire, and as that's the history that we (as Western readers) know best, the parallels feel comfortable. Had it been based on the Incan or Mongol empires, there would be a completely different sense of inevitability.
Thinking on this further just now, one of the biggest concepts of the series is how the tiny Foundation had to survive purely by out-thinking and out-maneveuring the larger Empire who had more people, resources, etc.
Fundamentally - no pun intended - isn't this what we do for a living?
By the numbers, our startups are in the same position. Our competitors have 100x the revenue, cash on hand, employees, partnerships, patents etc, etc. According to the spreadsheets, they win.
Instead, lack of resources becomes hunger and creativity. Lack of people becomes a lack of bureaucracy and results in flexibility. When you have very little, "losing everything" isn't scary.
Challenging the Empire just got to be a little more fun. ;)
I just want to express my support for any personal perspective that demonstrates and encourages reading of Isaac Asimov, especially my favorite series. Perspective win.
Personally, I tend to think of it as hindsight before the fact.
When people look back at major events like WWI, WWII, the fall of Berlin Wall, and eventually the Soviet Union, most of the signs were there. There were subtle "vibrations" appearing in the system and major rattling in the system. It's only after the fact that everyone says "oh yes, given A, B, and C, it was obvious."
I think about Seldon's psychohistory less as predicting the future and more of simply identifying A, B, and C before the "obvious" event occurs. Throw in the Second Foundation's tweaking and it seems plausible.
I'm sure you're right, but many of my SF reading friends bought into the concept of psychohistory hook line and sinker, which got me into lots of arguments. It's those disagreements with other fans of the book which coloured my perception of it, I'm sure unfairly.
The trilogy came along at the wrong time for me. I could never get past the 1st time-jump. When an author abandons characters so frequently, I get lost in the whiplash and quit reading. I guess I feel indignant at trying so hard to connect with the characters, just to have the author throw that away and ask me to do it again.
So no never read it. Never got past a few pages in the 1st book. Similarly, never read the Rings trilogy. Nor Dune, which I regard as the ultimate hey-let-me-tell-you-about-this-cool-dream-I-had book which always annoy me.
Yet I have read thousands of Science Fiction stories. Just not the ones you have. SO I can connect pretty good, while I hope keeping a fresh perspective in the community.
Much of older science fiction doesn't connect with readers that have read authors that are better technically in the writing craft. Also many of the themes and "science" hasn't aged well. The best vision of the Foundation universe is Donald Kingsbury's "Psychohistorical Crisis". It is more up-to-date and crafted well as a large novel.
As a side note, the one author that has built a multi-book "Future History" that I recommend is John Barnes. Not celebrated as someone like Ian Banks, but as well crafted and readable.
I'm just reading the series for the first time, and the time jumps in the first book really threw me off too. However you should be aware that it mostly stops after the first book. The second book (Foundation and Empire) has two stories, but most of it focuses on the second one (The Mule), and the books after that are more like regular novels with no jumps.
For me the first book was by far the worst and I consider it more of a background filler than an actual story. I enjoyed the rest of the series far more, especially Foundation's Edge.
>> On the other hand, I found reading it as a child in the 80s a great disappointment. At the time I was learning about chaos theory and the butterfly effect. It was painfully obvious to me that the Seldon theory of psychohistory was impossibly simplistic. Human society and culture is just too unstable and susceptible to disruption for long term predictions of the kind the plot relies on to be viable.
I would disagree on that one. Of course, it would be impossible to predict particular events - like Harry Seldon does in the book - but I find it completely possible to foresee general trend in the future. For example, Immanuel Kant predicted the rise of an European Union back in the 18th century [0]. For example, I'd take the prediction that at some point in the future, technology will be so advanced to make travelling across the Earth or remote working completely seamless and costless, so people will have the ability to access to the same kind of jobs or activities wherever they are based, resulting in an homogenisation of the whole planet. You could argue that this trend started already when travelling in plane and internet were made affordable to most.
But yeah, the potentiality of prediction in the book are completely exaggerated, with Seldon being able to time the major events. On the other hand, it my be realistic if he can set up a secret group of telepathic people to influence the future and prevent anything to disturb his visions.
I "suspended disbelief" for most of the science fiction elements, and found myself enjoying the political drama unfold.
I suppose I'm saying even if the science lacked luster, the "geo-political" (perhaps even "Machiavellian") story-line was compelling and required little "suspension of disbelief."
This looks fantastic, but how on earth can it be listed here as public domain? The original novels are still very much in copyright, so I would think that a radio adaptation would be, too. (Even if the publisher licensed the rights to the BBC, it's hard for me to imagine that allowing a public domain recording.)
The books are still very much copyrighted, but I am not so sure that means much. The content may be the same but the book and the radio series are still entirely separate entities in copyright law. That is why you can copyright a recording of a presentation of Beethoven's 9th.
I assume archive.org has done their homework here, but IANAL.
Assuming radio plays required copyright notices in the US at the time, the BBC didn't have them on broadcasts they sold to the US so that is probably what happened here.
The novel and radio play will still be very much under copyright in Europe.
From the third comment on archive.org :
"The three novels which make up the original Foundation trilogy were written as a magazine serial between 1940 and 1950, for a science fiction magazine edited by the legendary John W Campbell. They were thus composed as a series of short stories, giving them a number of advantages over the later books by which Asimov added to the story forty years afterwards."
So there is no Asimov copyright problem as it's based on Campbell's work.
Yet it's presented as Assimov's trilogy. So I don't know what to believe.
Copyright is now 70 years. So, assuming it was published between 1940 and 1942, it effectively felt in public domain hence, inmho ianal, both original story and recorded are now in public domain.
In addition to economics, I reread "The Wizard of Oz" recently. In the book, the witch's shoes are silver while in the movie they are ruby red. This was only one of places where the book and movie diverged. I can understand that someone who likes the movie may prefer to read the book of the movie, rather than the original book.
The books are still very much copyrighted, but I am not so sure that means much.
That means everything. The audio recordings are a derivative work, so the audio"ness" of it is a separate copyrightable/copyrighted work (but the underlying novel itself remains subject to the original copyright). This means that the audio recording is subject to both copyrights unless part of the license given to the creators of the audio work includes a license to redistribute the audio work, which may be the case given that it is a BBC production.
Right, since it is a legal licensed redistribution it seems logical to me that the situation is not as simple as it just being another publication of the same work. It is a licensed re-performance of the same content, but my understanding is that it is a separate legal entity (something that the legal owner of the original work agreed to upon licencing.)
So the Asimov estate has no beef with the BBC, since all licensing was done there, the BBC presumably has no beef with archive.org users, and the Asimov estate has no beef with archive.org users because it is not their place to.
That would be my guess (and IANAL, either). The BBC presumably paid Asimov for worldwide distribution rights for the audio performance, so the Asimov estate has no reason to kick.
I alluded to this in my initial comment: I find it hard to believe that Asimov's publishers would have agreed to a license deal that permitted public domain distribution of the derivative work. If this recording truly is public domain today, I should be able to type a transcript as a novel and sell it, right? What sane publisher would sign such a deal?
> If this recording truly is public domain today, I should be able to type a transcript as a novel and sell it, right?
No, that is not what "public domain" means. A public-domain work is still properly attributed to its creator. A person can't take credit for it on the ground that it's in the public domain.
[For the record, my intent wasn't that I'd pretend I was the original author, just that I'd sell the transcribed book. But running with your take on this anyway, and with the usual IANAL disclaimer:]
Morally, you're certainly right: it's wrong to take credit for work that is not your own. But legally, I thought this is precisely what "public domain" means. Disney can make a movie out of Snow White without bothering to credit the Brothers Grimm (or their sources) at all, much less needing permission from their heirs. Public domain works can be used by anyone, in any way, for any purpose.
As one example to illustrate this, Creative Commons provides a way to "dedicate work to the public domain". Their human-readable summary says,
"You can copy, modify, distribute and
perform the work, even for commercial
purposes, all without asking permission."
That's pretty much what I was attempting to describe in my previous comment.
Yes, but not having to ask permission isn't the same as not having to include an attribution of the source and its author. The latter is required in virtually all cases. Consider the issue of plagiarism -- is it plagiarism if the plagiarized work is in the public domain? I think you know the answer.
I'm a college professor and a research scientist: I'd better know the answer! But I've never heard that plagiarism is a legal issue. Are there actual laws on the books that criminalize plagiarism of public domain material? (I live in the US; is that answer different here than elsewhere?)
But honestly, your objection here is very much a side issue. As I already said, the point of my example earlier was to wonder whether someone could hypothetically transcribe the Foundation stories from the audio recording and sell the resulting novels, complete with a cover reading "Isaac Asimov's /Foundation/" (and perhaps with "Edited by J. Smith" in small text somewhere).
> But I've never heard that plagiarism is a legal issue. Are there actual laws on the books that criminalize plagiarism of public domain material?
It's more typically an issue of academics ethics. Plagiarism is a very serious charge in academia (and to some extent in politics), regardless of the source of the plagiarized material.
As to its being a legal issue, I don't think so, but IANAL. My earlier point was about proper attribution.
> As I already said, the point of my example earlier was to wonder whether someone could hypothetically transcribe the Foundation stories from the audio recording and sell the resulting novels, complete with a cover reading "Isaac Asimov's /Foundation/" (and perhaps with "Edited by J. Smith" in small text somewhere).
I have to say I don't know how that would play out. I guess the example of Shakespeare's plays stands as an example of the freedom one may have in such a case. But that's not plagiarism -- defined as claiming another's work as your own.
A while back I wrote a quick little perl script to convert archive.org metadata into RSS feeds that a podcast client can read. So for anyone interested, here is this feed in podcast format: http://sitosis-static.s3.amazonaws.com/foundation.xml
The meme wasn't quoted correctly. The actual version is funnier.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I have reread the series three times. The last time was about a year ago. It reads like history to me. As if this all really happened. I think that is one of the aspects that captured my imagination as kid. I could never fully articulate it. I look forward to listening to this while I work next week.
The reason it reads like history is that it was heavily based on actual history in terms of general political narrative (especially on Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"). You might want to read Asimov's "The Foundation of S.F. Success"; a copy is at http://www.bowlandcentral.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6886... for the moment. It's quite amusing.
This is a dramatized version of the books. It is not an 'audiobook' version. I just started listening to it, and it has the Encyclopedia Galactica entries -- but other than that, seems to have no other narrative -- it's just the dialogue between people.
Still sounds great, though I'm not sure it'll be easy to follow for someone who hasn't read the book.
Radio serials have been my favorite format of media ever since I listened to all of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They are like the best parts of audiobooks combined with the best parts of film or television.
I really liked the books, but I have to agree with you there. Even series 3-5, which followed the books instead of preceeding them, were superior in radio format I think. (Particularly the conclusion to the series)
As an avid Asimov reader, I'd be curious what specific elements you're talking about. I'm not as familiar with the Stars Wars universe (I've watched the original trilogy a few times, and the first two from the new trilogy).
Aside from various themes common to storytelling form time immemorial, I don't really see what you're talking about.
You need the watch the Akira Kurosawa movie "the hidden fortress". Basically, the parts of the first Star Wars that weren't borrowed from WW2 movies were lifted from this movie. Many story elements, C3-PO/R2 and parts of the musical score are very similar.
As a kid, I thought it was goofy that they had walking talking robots like C3PO, but Luke and Han had to aim the turrets of the Falcon manually instead of it being computer controlled. It made more sense when I learned it was just ripped off from WWII bomber movies.
Coruscant is Trantor, but that's a pretty minor detail and Star Wars is hardly the only thing to have copied it. Other than that I can't think of much.
Other than Tatooine (which isn't a desert planet, by the way) and a sand worm (which appears in many stories), what parts of Dune you see lifted for Star Wars?
The whole point of Dune was the vulnerability of the empire to a single resource; spice. Similar to the [our] real world's relationship with oil.
I've read Dune many times. But only watched SW once or twice. I didn't "see" Dune, I was thinking of the old space opera stories - or something like Buck Rogers.
This article http://moongadget.com/origins/dune.html has a chart comparing story line points. I am unable to locate my copy of the book "The making of dune" in which Herbert considers taking legal action about the similarities, but decides not to.
As others have pointed out, Asimov is not in the public domain...but I got the urge to go purchase his writing...how is it that almost none of his story collections are available as ebooks? I don't think there are any on Amazon, aside from collections in which he is one of a few collected authors
"The Foundation Trilogy" is analogous to Start-Up Accelerators
set up at the two edges of the Galaxy to bring back the civilization quicker, after the current order is lost into chaos. One of the best book series I have read.
Technically the "bootleg" terminology still applies, but to be clear all of the live recordings of Grateful Dead shows are legal as long as no profit is made on them. They even had special tickets for "tapers" to avoid having an unwieldly cluster of microphones at shows.
The New Yorker had a piece about it all in very great detail -- turns out there's an official archivist of these Dead recordings and much, much more, if you're interested in this sort of thing:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_...
I believe Asimov did apologize for this in print on several occasions, possibly including his autobiography. He attributed it to his utter awkwardness around women that he suffered from at that time of his life.
On the other hand, I found reading it as a child in the 80s a great disappointment. At the time I was learning about chaos theory and the butterfly effect. It was painfully obvious to me that the Seldon theory of psychohistory was impossibly simplistic. Human society and culture is just too unstable and susceptible to disruption for long term predictions of the kind the plot relies on to be viable.
Yet despite that, it's still a worthwhile story with valuable lessons. Asimov realised that random events could disrupt the predictions of any system like psychohistory. The way I read it now, I don't think Asimov necesserily believed something like psychohistory was possible, instead he was positing a classic SF 'what if'. The point is that even if long term predictions like those of psychohistory were possible, there a still random events such as mutation that are outside the scope of any deterministic system that can derail it.