First published in serial form beginning in 1942, The Foundation Trilogy is an epic galaxy-encompassing tale of empire and civilisation authored by Isaac Asimov. This 2012 Folio Society edition is presented in three volumes, one for each of the three parts into which the story is now divided: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. They arrive together in a slipcase covered in black paper blocked in foil with a design featuring a planet as well as the title and author’s name. Each volume is three-quarter bound in buckram with paper-covered front boards. The buckram of each volume is of a different shade of grey, presenting a pleasing gradient from metallic space grey through silver to more of a champaign grey. The titles are blocked in black on the spines. Meanwhile, each volume’s front board is printed with a unique design featuring a marble bust integrated with a composite of illustrations from the book’s plot. I find these designs quite stylish and the Roman motif is apt for the books’ theme of imperial decline. My one (minor) complaint is that while the slipcase and books are each tastefully designed, they didn’t quite feel like a perfect stylistic match for each other. I would have preferred if the neo-Roman theme from the books had made it onto the slipcase somehow.
Of course, the binding is sewn, and the books use metallic endpapers in shades of grey to match their respective bindings. Each book is printed on Abbey Wove paper, with a total of 792 pages across all three volumes. The text is set in Garamond and readability is good.
As a side note, the Folio Society also published I, Robot, another book by Isaac Asimov. Although that edition has a red binding, the spine design and physical size of the book mean that it matches well with The Foundation Trilogy on the shelf.
The illustrator for this edition was Alex Wells who has provided quite a generous complement of images. Besides the slipcase and three binding designs, there are seven images per-volume (including a frontispiece in each). That makes 25 images across the set. The style is graphic and evokes modern sci-fi comic books, descendants of those that must have been doing the rounds while Asimov was building his galaxy. I always appreciate it when illustrations successfully identify key points in the plot and bring them to life, and that’s certainly the case here.
The first volume contains an original introduction written by economist Paul Krugman. Krugman was an apt choice, partly because he once wrote an academic paper on interstellar trade, and partly because economics is arguably the closest that social science has come to Harry Seldon’s mathematic psychohistory, which features so prominently in the trilogy. One minor quibble: the introduction contains spoilers. Thanks are due to Krugman for clearly flagging these spoilers with a warning. But I don’t understand why a book would be published with a spoiler-laden introduction. If the material is going to spoil the plot, why didn’t Folio Society print it as an afterword instead? In any event, once you’ve finished reading the trilogy be sure to come back for the intro, which is nicely crafted.
Now regarded as a foundational classic of the science fiction genre, The Foundation Trilogy is an epic telling of the fall and rise of galactic empires. It is impressive for the sheer scope of its ambition, encompassing a galaxy of planets, dozens of characters, and multiple generations across several centuries. Also impressive is the intelligent use of social forces to move the plot forward, whether it is the exploitation of religion or economics as levers of power, or the subtleties of more intimate interpersonal relationships and subterfuge. Asimov clearly understood that a society’s collapse is often due to its own decadence rather than a hostile invader.
All that said, the pacing is often uneven (perhaps a consequence of the three parts of the trilogy having been cobbled together from short stories of differing lengths that were written across the best part of a decade). Many of the characters feel pretty one-dimensional, serving as vehicles for plot advancement rather than living, breathing members of the world. And the resolution of some plot points along the way felt a bit contrived. For this reason, I consider it an entertaining read and an impressive achievement, but one that doesn’t feel like a literary heavy hitter (as did, say, The Book of The New Sun or, perhaps, Dune). ■
Where to buy
At the time of writing, the edition is available for US customers direct from the Folio Society. For licensing reasons, the book is no longer available to purchase in the UK.
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