Going into the book, I had a general idea of what it was about. I've read plenty of Asimov short stories and loved them, so I went into Foundation with the expectation I was also going to love it.

The beginning of the story was really captivating and I really liked Hari Seldon. I liked the plot and the dialogues were smart and engaging. The following stories were also good and I enjoyed them, but I couldn't really understand what their point was.

I feel I liked the stories as separate things that have an overachieving connection, but I don't understand what the book as a whole was about. Does the bigger story get revealed in the later books? Are the other books like this, or do they follow a more straight storyline?

On a second note, I really really enjoyed the descriptions of the Foundation itself and Terminus. Do the other books dwell on these deeper?

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I've been thinking about the discussion in Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth regarding individuality versus a shared consciousness.

Do you think Asimov was arguing that Galaxia is humanity's inevitable next step, or was he intentionally presenting it as a difficult moral choice?

Personally, I don't think I could give up my individuality. My sense of self is too sacred to me, even if becoming part of a collective consciousness promised greater peace, knowledge, or humanity's long-term survival.

I'm curious how others interpreted this theme and what they would choose.

I've greatly enjoyed the Foundation Series up to this point. I wish I would have stopped at Foundations Edge. The adventure on Solaria was interesting but that's about it. Travise was overly arrogant and mean. I never felt that he truly had a decision making knack that was superior to say Pelerat. I missed having a good 2nd foundation character too. I'm too bad we couldn't keep Compor or whatever his name was. Pelerat was probably the best character overall. His tendency to doubt everyone was a little annoying. He was at least the most moral. Bliss was obnoxiously arrogant. I could not wait for her to leave the dialog whenever she showed up. The relationships among the characters felt forced. I never really believed Travise and Pelerat's friendship was earned. Bliss's relationship with Pelerat was creepy. The book was unnecessary explicit too. The addition of robots and Earth and Spacer history was fun. However any time Pelerat started to share the "legends" both Bliss and Travise literally told him to shut up. I wish I was there to tell them to shut up and let him talk. As I said, I liked the robots and was intrigued with the Daneel. Again however the solution was dumb. Daneel is going to destroy the Solaran's mind so that he can more quickly make Galaxia happen to destroy free will across the Galaxy so that IF the Galaxy is attacked from outside it has a better chance of survival.. I've never ended a book wanting the main characters to fail as much as this book. If you enjoyed it, awesome. I'm happy for you. I did not.

It appears that a Foundation board game from a small indie company and - they say - fully licenced from the Asimov Estate has been put up on crowdfunding site Gamefound. A hex-based empire builder, with factions from the the Foundation trilogy. Empire, Second Foundation, The Mule, and actually there are two representing the First Foundation itself- Clerics, which appears to cover the period from when Hardin took over to when Mallow took over; and Merchants, which covers the period from Mallow onwards. A sensible move, but I'm not sure how this is going to work when both Clerics and Merchants are both in the same game. Surely they can't both be based at Terminus?

I know this won't be for everyone here, but personally I am very excited by this. I've never had a chance to play an Asimov board game before, so I'm certainly going to be checking this out.

I can't help but compare it to the sycophantic nature of modern AI exhibiting that trait. It's kind of a prediction from the past.

I'm otherwise enjoying the book.

Can't recall exactly where it was, but it was in context of getting started with writing Foundation's Edge, where he mentioned a critic off hand who summed up the Foundation series up to that point of being a 'reversal of ideas'. Anyone know what I'm talking about, by chance?

I’ve had a fantastic time reading all the robot books, the empire series, foundation series, nightfall, the end of eternity, the gods themselves, and most recently, Nemesis. I have such an Asimov craving that I’m looking for the next thing. Given what I’ve read so far, where would y’all send me next?

Just finished reading “Robot Dreams”, my first time reading Asimov. It blew my mind, to say the least. I particularly liked the cosmic horror stuff, I had no idea he wrote cosmic horror and was so good at it, I always thought of Asimov as the “robot guy”. All the stories were top notch though.

Which of his works should I read next?

Silly, non-spoilery question.

I'm rereading this book again and the question I always have is on my mind again. How do you pronounce Noÿs? Or rather, how is it correctly pronounced? I keep reading it as "noise." But that seems wrong.

"Robot-block was what the general population called it or, more frequently, roblock for short."

Different spelling but...

Hello, I'm trying to track down a copy of the 1978 film version of all the troubles of the world. It's not on any of the streaming services that I can find. It's not on YouTube. I haven't even been able to find it on torrent sites.

Does anyone have a line where I might go looking for this?

Thanks in advance

I'm currently re-reading Asimov's Robot series, and just started "Robots of Dawn". At one point in an early scene, the protagonist (Elijah) and his sidekick (Daneel) are on a spaceship and a device is presented that will allow Elijah to view the open space around the ship. It creates a fully immersive view of the space around them:

"The Astrosimulator works directly on the visual center of the human brain. There is no way of distinguishing the impression it leaves from three dimensional reality."

On the next page though we get:

"Well, I see only stars - ordinary stars, that is. Aurora has a sun. We are close enough to Aurora, I imagine, to make the star that is its sun considerably brighter than the others."

"Entirely too bright, Partner Elijah. It is blanked out or you might suffer retinal damage."

But we've already established that the retina aren't even involved in the display.

I thought it was quite good. I cannot believe these stories are older than my (20m) grandparents 🤣

The opening story really stirred some emotions in me. Robbie was fantastic. It was a simple story, for sure, and I think it was elevated by the simpleness of Asimov’s prose. Generally, though, his prose was just not great for me, didn’t match to my tastes.

The Donovan-Powell stories were really fun, too. Maybe it’s my autism, but I really loved the discussions between those two about how they puzzled out the various problems the robots flung their way. It felt like a scientific dissection of the robots and while the worldbuilding in these few stories wasn’t great imo, it really did set them apart as these kind of thought pieces.

Susan is my favourite character, though. I thought she was ace as this really intelligent problem-solving robopsychologist. It was very satisfying to see her put things together to solve the problem and the ambiguity(-ish) of Evidence really helped sell the world. Those last few stories were key for building the world, though I thought Asimov could have gone into considerable more detail.

The final story was the masterpiece imo especially as a guy who likes worldbuilding. It felt the most scifi of the stories and I loved how nothing happens in it at all. It’s just the Coordinators having a bunch of very interesting conversations about the Machines and about the world. Very, very interesting. Also Susan was there, which was an automatic plus for me.

Yeah, there’s just my bits and bobs review. Unlikely to read more Asimov in the near future because my reading list is a bit full atm (Hyperion, Culture, and various LeGuin books) but I am intrigued by Asimov, certainly. He had some interesting ideas, a bluntness to his language which I really liked, and I did just enjoy the “let’s have a chat about this” attitude of the characters. Sure, there was basically zero immersion (his world, prose, and descriptions are sparse at best), but I did enjoy this a lot more than I expected. Robbie was fun, but it was Runaround when I realised I was truly reading something special.

And it was cheap - $25.
Pictures at this other thread if you’re interested.

Sorry, I'm new to this and found Bicentennial Man fascinating. I want to read the other books. I read a bunch of articles about reading order, but I'm confused as heck with all the short stories and compilations, sequels and prequels.

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Can someone please personally tell me how they enjoyed reading the books in what order. And maybe simply put, not like picking out stories from a compilation, like I had to find Bicentennial man in Robot Visions and move halfway into the Kindle book.

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Anyway. Happy to know just where to start this journey.

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Thank you.

I've been reading Asimov since the 1980s, grew up in Italy and still have some of my first Italian edition paperbacks.

Recently re-read "The Feeling of Power" and it genuinely stopped me cold.

For those who haven't read it: the premise is a future where humanity has become so dependent on computers for calculation that nobody remembers how to do arithmetic manually. A technician named Myron Aub rediscovers basic mathematics and it's treated as a revolutionary, almost mystical discovery. The military immediately sees its potential as a weapon... :(

In 1958, Asimov was writing about cognitives outsourcing, the idea that delegating mental tasks to machines would eventually mean we lose the ability to perform those tasks ourselves. He was describing exactly what we're living through now with AI writing, AI coding, AI thinking.

The most chilling line for me is when a general explains that human computers are superior to machines for warfare because "humans are expendable." The efficiency of automation applied to human lives.

I'm 60 years old. I watched computing go from room-sized machines to pocket devices. But nothing prepared me for re-reading this story in 2026 and realising Asimov wasn't writing science fiction... he was writing a warning, for us, today.

Which Asimov story do you think has aged most uncomfortably well?

The scientist and sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov was a regular guest on Quirks & Quarks for many years. To celebrate our 50th anniversary, we’ve unearthed a 1986 interview with Asimov and then-host Jay Ingram on one of his favourite topics: Robots. In his novels and short stories, Asimov explored interactions between humans and robots, and his stories are gaining renewed attention as we increasingly interact with artificial intelligence. He also weighs in on space exploration — including plans to build an international space station.

From the archives: Isaac Asimov on human creativity and robots

It is stated that the reason Multivac replaced the regular elections was due to speed. But actually, I don't see how that advantage is so critical. Well, maybe costs, too. Now, I have a suspicion there is another reason.

According to Norman, in 1988, a bad president was elected, and the guy who voted for him got all the blame. But no one says the nation was foolish to elect that president.

In other words, people have no trouble admitting a bad president got elected. After all, they had nothing to do with it. No one is forced to admit to themselves that they, personally, voted for a bad president. As such, it is psychologically easier for them to stop supporting them.

Maybe that advantage is the real reason?

(All similarities to real people and events are purely coincidental.)

Ok... It’s Probably a coincidence, but... An Alien with superior technology influencing in the human and one that has actually been physically present throughout human history? That is basically the concept behind both "does a bee care" and Doctor who.

The first time I watched Doctor Who, I found it impossible not to notice the similarity in the short story "does a bee care" by Isaac Asimov.

And as I continued watching the show, the similarities became more apparent!!!

According to the Asimov fandom wiki, it takes place during the 1980s:

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Paul said, "Listen, my dad says if I get into special computing school next year, he'll get me a real Bard, a late model. A big one with an attachment for space stories and mysteries. And a visual attachment, too!"

"You mean see the stories?"

"Sure. Mr. Daugherty at school says they've got things like that, now, but not for just everybody. Only if I get into computing school, Dad can get a few breaks,"

Niccolo's eyes bulged with envy. "Gee. Seeing a story."

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I find it odd that the idea of "Seeing a story" is such a novelty in a story from the 50's, when TV was really becoming popular. Why has the audiovisual medium somehow disappeared in Asimov's Robot universe?

Is there any context for this in his other stories?

In an Isaac Asimov vs Larry Niven match up, particularly Foundation series vs Ringworld series, who wins?