Foundation
...f humans. Hari Seldon is a citizen of Trantor and a mathematician who has developed the breakthrough field of psychohistory. Psychohistory is the mathematical process of calculating the actions of human beings predicted in the future. These two ideas I briefly explained make me want to keep reading and reading. The genre of science fiction attracts me the most between your other average books, like mysteries or horror. No other genre can take you to the far reaches of the universe only to prove and disprove theories that have perplexed us for centuries. When you read fantasy you acknowledge the fact that there is no limit to the story and where it can take you. Sci-fi intrigues you and astonishes you while limiting itself to our universe making it baffle you. The whole beginning chapter foreshadows what is to come of Trantor which, implied, isn’t very good. I liked how Asimov jumped directly into the story and didn’t drag the beginning on forever. In my opinion Foundation is a believable concept of the future in that the time period it takes place in views the humans as quite barbaric and primitive. Even though the civilization is capable of space travel they still are somewhat primitive through their actions and decisions. One idea Asimov tosses around is the use of atomic power in supporting a society. Asimov demonstrates his atomic power by developing a transmuter that transforms iron into gold. Eskel Gorov developed this device that was only supposed to work for a period of time. Gorov then attempted to sell it to the king of Askone (a planet) in return for the release of a friend from prison. The transmuter seemed a little far fetched for my imagination; you can’t change one material into a completely different material. I have deemed that impossible. At one point in the book, the Foundation is the focal point of an attack that could collapse the Foundation making it impossible for the human race to progress. I became a little scared for what would happen if it did collapse. The whole idea of the Foundation is to save the human race. Although I was relieved when the Foundation was okay, I knew that nothing would happen to it because of it being the title of the book. The middle of the book was disappointingly boring and dragged on. A lot of dialogue and minor conflicts bored me but I knew they all would show up later in the book when all the gaps in my knowledge of the book were filled. When I read, I lose focus very much unless I am caught up in the book. For me to read a lot and focus, I have to not be distracted and be “in the zone,” meaning unstoppable. A lot of the supporting information was in the middle of the book, this is where I put my reading strategies to the test just to get through. I made sure that I was in an environment were nothing could stop or distract me from reading a lot of pages. I usually did my reading at work Thursday and Friday morning. I would stay focused and interested while reading. One interesting strategy that I was not familiar with using was to ask questions as I read. When a new chapter heading would appear I would analyze it and ask myself an important question about the topic of the new section. Foundation was written...