This is the final episode of the Foundation series, written by my favorite SF writer. I don’t know how one might properly finish such an epic series of novels (they cover more than 500 years), but I found the ending unsatisfying. Several questions raised in this book will remain unanswered…

Asimov writes in a very dated style, cumbersome and wordy, which dampens the reader’s anticipation. There is a lot of introspection by the characters, and the narrator is omniscient–knowing every character’s non-spoken emotional response in every scene. I don’t care for that style myself, but he uses multiple POVs most of the time.

The characters are on a galaxy-spanning search for Earth, the ancestral home of humanity, after 20,000 years of expansion into the Milky Way. They get into some tough scrapes and escape thanks to a character with uncanny powers of mental control that span galactic scales. Talk about non-local quantum entanglement! This story is as much about the potential pathways of civilization as their quest for Earth. How many cultures and phenotypes can evolve in twenty millennia? Very imaginative and creative.

In the preface, Asimov says he didn’t want to write any more Foundation novels, but the franchise’s resurgence among SF fans in the 80s put pressure on him (from his editor) to write this book. His reluctance to write it shows in the lackluster response to some questions and the silver bullet represented by one member of the group. However, as in his early days, he ups the ante in the ending, demonstrating one way all galactic roads might lead back to Earth, the cradle of humanity.

This book is fine as a standalone story and, to be honest, I didn’t remember much of the previous three novels. With SF there is always more backstory than the author can include. It’s is a fun book, especially the ongoing debate between the characters about individuality versus group consciousness. Despite the convincing arguments made for shared consciousness across the galaxy, I think something would be lost–maybe the unbridled creativity of “Isolates” like me experiencing reality alone.

Maybe I’m not ready for the future…