Prelude to Foundation

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST ALL-TIME SERIES

The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov’s iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon’s two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one that shaped science fiction as we know it today.

In a time before the Foundations, psychohistory’s creator Hari Seldon is made to stand before the Emperor of the crumbling Galactic Empire to present how his scientific theory of predicting the future might be applied to the real world.

However, Hari refuses to deploy his theory for political gain, setting off instead with reporter Chetter Hummin in quest of a place to safely apply his theory: Earth, the original home of humanity.

All records of Earth have been lost to time. Hari will therefore have to look back into the past, in order to seal the future of humanity for ever.

Reviews

‘One of the most staggering achievements in modern SF’
The Times

‘Isaac Asimov was one of the great explainers of the age…It will never be known how many practicing scientists today, in how many countries, owe their initial inspiration to a book, article, or short story by Isaac Asimov’
Carl Sagan

‘Asimov displayed one of the most dynamic imaginations in science fiction’
Daily Telegraph

‘Asimov’s career was one of the most formidable in science fiction’
The Times

About the author

Isaac Asimov was born in 1920 in Russia and was brought to the USA by his parents three years later. He grew up in Brooklyn and attended Columbia University. After a short spell in the army, he gained a doctorate and worked in academia and chemical research.

Asimov’s career as a science fiction writer began in 1939 with the short story ‘Marooned Off Vesta’. Thereafter he became a regular contributor to the leading SF magazines of the day. Asimov wrote hundreds of short stories and novels, including the iconic I, Robot and Foundation. He won the Hugo Award four times and the Nebula Award once.

Apart from his world-famous science fiction, Asimov also wrote highly successful detective mystery stories, a four-volume History of North America, a two-volume Guide to the Bible, a biographical dictionary, encyclopaedias, and textbooks, as well as two volumes of autobiography.

Asimov died in 1992 at the age of 72.