Second Foundation (Hardcover)

With the advent of the Mule, the Foundation is set off from the Seldon plan irreversibly. Or is it? The second book ends with a theory that the Second Foundation established by Seldon, is one consisting of the scientists using Seldon's own method of mathematical psychology. As such, it would make it a natural complement to the physical scientists of the First Foundation. However, very little is known about the Second Foundation and they haven't shown their face in all the centuries of the Foundation history. Do they exist? Do they have the power of Seldon's psychology? Are they the true keepers of the Plan or are they the enemy?

This novel details the search for the Second Foundation - whatever that entity happens to be. There are two books: the first detailing the Mule's own search for the Second Foundation (to destroy it and thus establish his supreme dominion of the Galaxy) and the second, detailing the search by some people from the Foundation itself (by which time, it is seen as a hostile force from the Foundation's perspective).

I found the second book to be better, but, while enjoyable, they both suffer from a flaw missing from the previous Foundation novels. The others were concerned largely with physical force and even at that were pretty packed with conspiracies, double-crossing and the like. Because the Second Foundation deals with the mind, these elements escalate to the point where I though it was a bit too arbitrary. The climaxes of both books are a bit like a wild goose chase, where the reader's conception of the situation is shattered and a new one built up in its place several times over within a few pages. It seems a bit over-the-top.

Still, a great finish to the trilogy. It's still a very entertaining novel and other than that flaw, it has the great mega-epic quality of the others: a whole civilisation's essence is epitomised in a few hundred pages. The book ends on a quite unresolved note, hundreds of years away from the projected establishment of the Second Empire, but it's the potential uncertainty that I liked (a good thing for the purists who don't accept the later Foundation novels as being in the spirit!). It certainly wraps up the whole basis of what the Plan was/is and why things happened like they did (although, of course, it doesn't fully satisfy by a longshot). This makes it a worthy ending to the monumental trilogy.

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