Foundation’s Edge is the first novel in the series that started with short stories, then progressed into novellas. This is one of those books where the author relies upon the conclusion. I mean Trevize travels around, a master of intuition, and the thrust of the travels changes over time: go to Trantor, locate the Second Foundation, find Earth, find Gaia. And then, at the end, it’s all revealed to be a ruse as Gaia has been guiding his path all along, towards itself. This is a dangerous tactic—it can easily leave the reader feeling like the story missed the point and started way too late in the book, like the earlier chapters are a waste of time. Yet here, I don’t feel that way. I feel that Asimov knows where the story is going, and guided it there in a meandering but intentional path. Though the destination remains hidden, the amount of foreshadowing taking place makes me think Asimov had a firm grip on the overall tale, if not all of the details.
The foreshadowing mostly pertains to three aspects: Trevize’s gift of intuition, the Second Foundation’s manipulation, and the two mysteries slowly revealing themselves as the same mystery—the Second Foundation’s conundrum and Gaia. These aspects are brought up consistently, with the reader clearly knowing more than the characters, leading the reader to understand that something is going to happen with these foreshadowings. It creates a sense of anticipation, a kind of wondering how Asimov is going to tie all these together—although the flip side is wondering how in the world these three relate at all. Yet, a little trust in the author leads to an interesting, if far-fetched conclusion.
The conclusion clearly lays out three options. The novel already laid out these three options, though the purpose of laying them out is unknown until the decision point comes.
—First, the Foundation and “normal” parts of the Galaxy. Seldon’s Plan is to allow the Foundation to take over the galaxy, to establish a Galactic Empire, to shorten the period of dark age warring between the first and second Empires. Trevize, Pelorat, Gendibal, and Branno start the book off, and they clearly explain the Foundation, its goals, the negatives of its current state, and the early drive of the book—a belief in the existence of the Second Foundation leading two of the four desperately trying to search for it. They then travel off to explore part of the Galaxy outside of, but still related to, the Foundation, which shows the context of the issue at hand.
-—Second, the chapters of the Second Foundation show the complacency, lack of drive, and factional infighting of the Second Foundation. Instead of this almost all-powerful guardian deus ex machina—like they were portrayed in the earlier books—the Second Foundation is revealed to be breaking down. With no real crises to struggle against, their energy turns against themselves. However, their underlying beliefs show them becoming masters of the First Foundation when the time is ripe, a sort of mental aristocracy that can guide the ship of the war-born Empire.
—Third, when Pelorat and Trevize finally reach Gaia, the third option is fully explored. The planet Gaia is a hive-consciousness composed of animate and inanimate beings, all contributing to the sentience of the whole. Two avatars of Gaia drive this exploration through Asimov’s typical explanatory dialogue: Bliss and Dom. Gaia abhors early death. Since everything is a part of Gaia, the necessary death of things provides the necessary sustenance of everything else. In other words, Bliss may die, but her death and burial will feed the micro-organisms that compose the super-organism of Gaia. Her eating the plant life of Gaia is a sort of reincarnation of that plant life because it is already a part of Gaia, as is she, so it’s a transformation more than a death. This hyper-spiritualism, ecological consciousness, and hive-mindedness is the third option. Gaia’s goal is to transform into Galaxia, or a similar super-organism spanning the whole Galaxy.
By the time the decision point comes, I understand that the issue under discussion is the future of humanity. More Empire of force, a new Empire of the mind, or a wholistic embracing of all life, animate or inanimate, as a part of a larger whole wholeness. And that’s a bit farfetched, not only in the equating of the “lifespan” of rocks with rocks having a “life”. What themes can I draw out of this for my day-to-day life? This question still rolls around in my mind. Biographically, this is about the time Asimov was becoming an advocate for ecological issues facing Earth, and the book is a call to ecological action to prevent catastrophe. But the inbred intuitive superpower Trevize has is still slightly weak, and tends to undercut this ecological theme a bit (as well as the simply strange aside about the Eternals?). Trevize himself doesn’t understand why he chooses Gaia as the path forward for humanity (hence the next book in the series, of course). He’s the intuitive master of the Galaxy, which is explained in-world as “he has mysterious mental powers that would have been Second Foundation worthy.” And sure, maybe that works for some people, but it is a little weak to me, and in a book that relies so much on the conclusion, a little dissatisfaction with the conclusion magnifies across the whole novel. The future of humanity is a strong theme, but of the three options given, only one could really come to pass as far as we know—mentalist mind powers and super-organistic hive-minds are unknown at this time, in terms of human experience.
But I don’t want to belittle this book too much. I liked it. That opening is sensationally good. Trevize and Branno facing off over the question of the Second Foundation, the mayor in her moment of triumph, the councilman in his quest to question the nature of reality. Both are conflicted characters who are misunderstanding each other—and this is fairly rare for Asimov, who relies on same-sounding characters whose conflict comes from without. Here the conflict comes from within and it’s even explored a little. This is a better Asimov than anything I’ve read. It still has the conspiracies, the wild logical leaps, the backfilling of information, and the political intrigue, but by trying to work with actual characters, it all works better because I understand them more.
The feeling I have throughout isn’t, “where is Asimov going with this mess?” but, “I wonder what happens next?” And I think this feeling comes from the effective fore-shadowing, and strong chapters that are almost self-reliant. In a way, each chapter is a short story and this novel is a linked series of inter-related short stories telling an overarching story, like a pulp fiction novel. It’s a strong tactic that Asimov uses to its strengths here: he doesn’t even mention what the overall story is until everybody arrives at Gaia to let Trevize choose. That technique of telling three distinct stories that are all coming closer together in each chapter is one that I have enjoyed in Iain M Banks’ works, and Asimov does it well here too. So, I think the two main reasons Asimov’s novel doesn’t fail through a disconnect between the overall story and what’s actually on the page through most of the book are these: each chapter excites—especially that first one—in its own right; the foreshadowing is effective and consistent; and the reader can see the characters growing ever closer together physically and can easily sense that some showdown is coming. I think Asimov mainly avoids the dangers of these types of tales through these three techniques.
In all, this is a good book. Almost great, but the late switch to this far-fetched future of humanity through hyper-spiritualistic environmental consciousness is a bit too jarring because the switch is predicated on Trevize Intuition Man, the superhero. Intuition being an aspect that is mentioned consistently in service of foreshadowing the story, but never really explored. However, after “The Mule” and “Search by the Foundation” were such strong stories, this strong story made me genuinely excited to hit the next book in the series. Asimov has gotten better as a storyteller, and he was already strong to begin with. As a writer, well, he still leaves a lot to be desired. But for pulp fiction, he actually tackles some interesting themes and ideas. So I’m happy I’ve read this novel.
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