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Foundation's Edge (Foundation #4), by Isaac Asimov Book #4 of the landmark Foundation series.
The fourth installment in Asimov's important Foundation series, this volume was written some 30 years
after the original trilogy. It was interesting to see in the first half how Asimov clearly delighted in
adding modern tech touches to his universe, which he had seen evolve over the intervening time since
the previous entry in the series. Most notably of course being the everyday use computer and accompanying
speculation on interface possibilities. He spends the second half of the book delving more and more
into his 'mentalics' and the mind gymnastics that have become such a huge and pervasive part of his
Foundation universe. He sets up a pretty classic Mexican Standoff and overall the plot resolves in a
fairly satisfactory way. Much debate is given to his somewhat forced inclusion of robots into the Foundation
universe, though I suppose as an author it's nice to have it all hang together in one place.
One of the things I particularly liked about his early novels was the spare prose and lack of flowery description that
many authors lean on to turn a 5 page idea into a 500 page book. One always had the feeling that Asimov was so bursting
with ideas that to get them onto the page in rapid fire was far more important than characters or setting, but I felt
those things were not entirely lost either. With the passage of time, it makes sense that he would have exercised much
of that urgency and with this and other books from the same period has settled into a more traditional style, and into
a more traditional 400+ page length. His story is still large and sweeping, and I found to be enjoyable, so a little
slowness here and there can be excused. Now - on to Earth!
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