Foundation

I finished reading the book last night, and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I found it quite entertaining that the story of the formation of a “company” during the fall of an empire is told in the form of semi-independent but continuous stories over time. I felt that each arc ended with a cliff-hanger that more or less closed by briefly telling you in the next one what had happened up to that point.
Also, I really liked that the main characters were so smart and always had a plan in case something went wrong for them. It was like Salvor Hardin, Ponyets and Mallow were spiritual heirs to Seldon. I also liked the feeling that often the action was not about wars, shootings, etc, but was described with intentions and the telling of the stratagem of the protagonists. It gave me the feeling that everything was solved with dialogue.
BUT, the protagonists are one-dimensional, their role is to find a crisis, be smart and solve it. There is hardly any personal stuff, they are like simple chess pieces that Seldon once saw how it would move. They have no other concerns.
And, finally, there are NO FEMALE CHARACTERS, not even the already flawed role of the damsel in distress. Well, there is one (1) female character who simply goes about showing her discontent at being married to someone she hates and being the target of a material gift. I can understand that at the time this story was written the female characters were not the main or most relevant, but seriously, IT IS THAT I ONLY INTRODUCED 1 CHARACTER.
Without a doubt what I liked most about this first book is the concept of psychohistory and Seldon himself and the way he develops his vision of science as religion, the danger of the influence of religions on governments, etc.


Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)