| 6 - Asimov, Isaac - Foundation's Edge - 1982 |
| 1 | Title: Foundation's Edge Author: Isaac Asimov Scanner: Auld Reader (plus others not mentioned for their protection) Date: 2102001 Version: 1.0 Series: Fourth in the Foundation Series ----------------------------------------------------- --- Dustjacket information: ------------------------- Foundation's Edge Isaac Asimov It is 498 years since the establishment of the First Foundation. The threat of the Mule has been rebuffed; on Trantor it is a period of calm and prosperity. |
| 2 | But an unexpected appearance by psychohistorian Hari Seldon raises some interesting questions and the young Councilman who asks them finds himself exiled into space in search of answers: Does the Second Foundation still exist? And does it continue to control human history from a secret Galactic refuge? At issue-the destiny of humankind. FOUNDATION'S EDGE is the most eagerly anticipated science fiction novel of our time. |
| 3 | It is the first science fiction novel from the Master in a decade-a stirring blend of actions and ideas with future technology and hyperspace travel. The sequel to TheFoundation Trilogy has all the wisdom, humor, and intrigue that have made its predecessors the most widely read science fiction series of all time. Asimov has done his classic threesome one better. Book Club Edition --- Isaac Asimov has written 260 books on subjects ranging from the Bible and Shakespeare to math and alien encounters. |
| 4 | His Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation) is an international phenomenon-read by millions throughout the world and awarded a Hugo as "Best AllTime Science Fiction Series." He is the inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics and lives in New York City. ------------------------------------------------------ --- Back Cover information: -------------------------- He was the analog-the mirror image-of the Mayor of Terminus, who ruled over the First Foundation. |
| 5 | But they were different in every respect. The Mayor of Terminus was known to all the Galaxy and the First Foundation was therefore simply "the Foundation" to all the worlds. The First Speaker of the Second Foundation was known only to his associates. And yet it was the Second Foundation which held the real power. The First Foundation was supreme in the realm of physical power, of technology, of weapons. |
| 6 | The Second Foundation was supreme in the realm of mental power, of the mind, of the ability to control. In any conflict between the two, what would it matter how many ships and weapons the First Foundation controlled, if the Second Foundation could control the minds of those who controlled the ships and weapons? But how long could this remain a secret? from Foundation's Edge ------------------------------------------------------ PROLOGUE THE FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE WAS FALLING. |
| 7 | IT HAD BEEN DECAYING and breaking down for centuries and only one man fully realized that fact. He was Hari Seldom the last great scientist of the First Empire, and it was he who perfected psychohistory-the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations. The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be achieved. |
| 8 | And the size of the human masses that Seldon worked with was no less than the population of all the inhabited millions of worlds of the Galaxy. Seldon's equations told him that, left to itself, the Empire would fall and that. thirty thousand years of human misery and agony would elapse before a Second Empire would arise from the ruins. And yet, if one could adjust some of the conditions that existed, that Interregnum could be decreased to a single millennium-just one thousand years. |
| 9 | It was to insure this that Seldon set up two colonies of scientists that he called "Foundations." With deliberate intention, he set them up "at opposite ends of the Galaxy." The First Foundation, which centered on physical science, was set up in the fuel daylight of publicity. The existence of the other, the Second Foundation, a world of psychohistorical and "mentalic" scientists, was drowned in silence. |
| 10 | In The Foundation Trilogy, the story of the first four centuries of the Interregnum is told. The First Foundation (commonly known as simply "The Foundation," since the existence of another was unknown to almost all) began as a small community lost in the emptiness of the Outer Periphery of the Galaxy. Periodically it faced a crisis in which the variables of human intercourse -and of the social and economic currents of the time-constricted about it. |
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