Magnetic concepts let down by shallow characterisations
Credit: Harper Voyager. Cover design: Mike Topping
After suffering through some Dune fatigue, I recently re-stumbled upon Isaac Asimov’s exceptional novel Foundation. I was really taken with how accessible the story was; Asimov took what sounds like dense subject matter—the political machinations revolving around the predicted collapse of a galactic empire—and turned it into a page-turner.
Each of the five stories in Foundation were political puzzles, and seeing how they played out was tons of fun. Asimov continues the concept with Foundation and Empire, although this novel only features two stories. I was initially excited by this concept—I wanted to see what Asimov could pull off with stories of novella length as opposed to short stories.
Unfortunately, I found the combination of Asimov’s writing style and his choice of subject matter to be a little grating here. There are some shining moments to be sure, but the overall effect of Foundation and Empire didn’t come close to Foundation for me.
The General
The first of the two stories is called ‘The General’ and focuses on the exploits of a military general from the collapsing galactic empire attempting to capture and overthrow the Foundation. The shorter of the two stories, I found this one to be the most effective. I enjoyed getting a glimpse into what was happening beyond the scope of the Foundation—that the Foundation has become something almost mythological to the people of the old empire is a really nice bit of worldbuilding.
Ultimately though, whether you find ‘The General’ to be a satisfying read will depend largely on your personal taste. The story features a lot of tail-chasing, and its ending purposefully undercuts the narrative in way that will either having you lauding the way Asimov undermined your expectations of how a Foundation story ‘should’ play out, or tossing your book at a wall, throwing up your hands, and asking ‘Then what was the point of any of it?’
I think I fall somewhere in middle of the spectrum but would lean towards the former on a re-read. The bulk of the story felt a bit more convoluted than previous entries—keeping names, locations, and political allegiances straight in my head took more brainpower than I’d anticipated—but the story retains the ‘political puzzle’ elements that I came to like so much in Foundation, and for that I say it’s a story worth reading, even with its divisive ending.
The Mule
The second of the two stories is called ‘The Mule’ and this is where the novel kind of fell apart for me. This is longest Foundation story by far, and simply put, I don’t think Asimov’s character writing is good enough to keep a novella-length story interesting.
I haven’t mentioned it in this review yet, but each Foundation story is set decades—if not centuries—apart from the others. In this manner, each story not only gives us new status quos, but entirely new characters and scenarios. This worked really well in Foundation—Asimov told a compelling larger story by constantly pivoting through a series of immaculately set up political puzzles. The stories weren’t great because of their characters—although he did manage to make them feel distinct—but because of the surprisingly satisfying ways they made it through their conundrums.
‘The Mule’, by nature of its length, places a lot more emphasis on the characters than other stories, but they’re simply not interesting. The story follows the rise of an unknown threat to the galaxy known only as ‘The Mule’, who can seemingly overthrow entire planets at will.
Piecing together this latest status quo was fun. There have been some big changes in the galaxy since the era of ‘The General’ and credit to Asimov for keeping his world from feeling stagnant. His ever-changing, ever-evolving galaxy feels real and loaded with consequence. I enjoyed the set-up for this story a lot. The question of whether the Mule is something that has been predicated and prepared for by the Foundation’s creator is brimming with tension, and I enjoyed the overall atmosphere of panic and fear that the Mule created.
Unfortunately, as the story veers towards magical realism and forces me to spend more and more time with a young married couple and their feeble-minded court-jester friend (yes), the more the story started to wear me down. Bayta and Toren—the young couple—are simply too flat to be worth this much story. Magnifico the clown (again, yes) has at least an element of mystery to him that kept me reading, but the whole thing just felt so bizarre at times that it hindered full enjoyment.
Conclusion
This didn’t come close to the revelatory experience I had reading Foundation, which I still maintain is well worth your time. There are elements of Foundation and Empire that are worthwhile too, though. It’s not that this is a drastic step down in quality compared to the first book—it’s really more of the same, just stretched to the point where the cracks in Asimov’s writing have become readily apparent.
Clearly, Foundation and Empire has its fans, and I’ll be continuing the series for sure. If you liked Foundation, I would recommend you continue the series, too. For me, Foundation and Empire was a sometimes-frustrating experience, sometimes-puzzling experience, but even that can’t totally diminish Asimov’s spectacular level of imagination and creativity that has caused the series to endure to this day.
***
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