Book Review: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

The second installment in Asimov’s classic trilogy is Foundation and Empire. The people of the Foundation face their greatest threat yet as Bel Riose, charismatic and brilliant general of the Empire wages a bloody war of conquest. At this time the Foundation’s influence has strengthened in the Periphery while the Empire wanes and decays. Rumors of the Foundation’s ‘magicians’ spread throughout the remnants of the old Empire. General Riose is thirsty for battle and glory. Knowing his prospects for conquest are poor throughout the galaxy, he turns his eyes towards the rumors of the Foundation and seeks to spark a war that will turn him into a legend.
Asimov takes the first half of the novel to build the atmosphere of assurance and invincibility that underlies the people of the Foundation. Hari Seldon’s psychohistoric predictions have gained religious faith and dogmatic certainty. Nothing, they believe, can threaten them now. But as Riose marches from victory to victory, the confidence is slowly chipped away. Individual actions lead nowhere. Time is slipping and it seems as though Seldon’s plans might be thwarted. Asimov establishes the nigh-inevitability of Seldon’s predictions, under normal circumstances, when the psychohistoric trends of the past generations turn against Bel Riose in a way that no heroic undertaking by any mere individual could have.

The first half of this book was enjoyable, pact with intellect and suspense and delightful scenes of action. It was a great way for Asimov to open this chapter in the saga of the Foundation, but it pales in comparison to the second act, where Asimov moves out of our comfort zone into less hospitable territory.

The second story is an inversion of everything we have been taught to expect. The antagonist is a mutant called the Mule who exhibits immense and mysterious powers that he uses in his aims to build his own empire. To accomplish such a feat, he wants, of course, the Foundation. Psychohistory predicts the behaviour and patterns of millions and billions of ordinary humans. The theme underpinning the previous Foundation stories concerns the unbeatable course of history and patterns over the actions of any one man. The rise of the Mule, however, who isn’t an ordinary human, derails Seldon’s plan with alarming swiftness.

Isaac Asimov crafts an intriguing novel and breaks patterns with his previous ventures into the Foundation universe. While I was not as enthralled overall by this episode as I was of Foundation, Asimov sets the stage for a turning point in his narrative, one full of potential and uncertainty. The story of the Mule is easily the most captivating of both the two stories in Foundation and Empire and the first novel.