Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov


Rating – 9 / 10

The Mule seriously believes, inspite of no incidents, that there is a second Foundation. He strongly believes that if he is able to locate it, he will be able to defeat it. Little does he know the characteristics of the Second Foundation. The Second Foundation is a small group of psychohistorians who have managed to gain mental powers i.e. they, like the Mule, can control minds. The Second Foundation plots to bring the Mule to a secluded planet, and then they just modify the mind of the Mule to stop searching for the Second Foundation. The Mule is unable to reproduce and thus, his dynasty ends in another fifty years.

The last part of the trilogy involves the story of Arkady Darell (a wonderfully intelligent girl, another of my favorite characters) and how she and her father try to find the actual location of the Second Foundation. The Second Foundation is able to fool them by sacrificing fifty of their fellows. The First Foundation thinks that they have eliminated the Second Foundation and start living their normal lives, again according to the Seldon’s plan.

The most important fact is that the Second Foundationers are mental scientists and they believe in making extremely small changes in normal events and make the future head back to the Seldon’s plan. There was only one psychohistorian sent to the First Foundation because they did not want people to know the future beforehand so that people act in their natural manner. Only then will the people stay on the Seldon’s plan. And it is the duty of the Second Foundation to make changes, if there is any deviation from the Seldon’s plan. They are thinking of providing the leaders for the Second Galactic Empire and make the First Foundationers their working class. I did not completely understand this particular revelation of the Seldon’s plan. This actually means that the First Foundationers will be reduced to mental-slaves for the Second Foundation and the Second Foundationers are going to rule the Galaxy with their mental powers. (something that I certainly did not like).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perry Mason Mystery : The Case of the Dangerous Dowager by Erle Stanley Gardner

Image
Rating : 6 / 10 It is difficult for me to get back to murder mysteries again but I guess for the time being I can read a few of them to get a feel of what most people love to read. Another Perry Mason, and this one is much more exciting, with much more action. In trying to save his client, Perry Mason assists in committing a small crime, and is now on the run. He chooses strange places to hide and keeps working on the case even when he is on the run. After reading so many Perry Mason mysteries some of the details now seem to be very odd. Perry Mason is able to ditch out his tail very easily but when he is tailing anyone, the person is just unable to ditch him no matter what he/she does! Also, this was the first book which made me feel how long back these books were written. There seem to be no mobiles. A lot of people can open bank accounts very easily by forging their names (which I certainly believe is not so easy these days). Gardner wrote them sometime in 1920s and even certain law...
Read more

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Image
Jurassic Park, a masterpiece by Michael Crichton, opens with strange incidents taking place close to an island named Isla Nublar (near Costa Rica). Creatures, similar to lizards but walking on their hind legs, are attacking young children and new born babies. One of the doctors, who is treating the patients who have been attacked, is able to obtain the body of this strange animal but is unable to identify its species. He doubts it to be a species of some animal which was believed to be extinct. To confirm his doubts, he sends some photographs of this animal to Dr. Alan Grant, a paleontologist. On the other hand, InGen (a genetic engineering firm) is procuring high technology super computers (used for genetic engineering) and amber from around the globe. The founder of InGen, John Hammond, invites Dr. Grant and his student, Ellie Sattler to visit his ‘amusement park’ in Isla Nublar. Dr. Grant and Ellie Sattler accompany chaos theory mathematician Ian Malcolm to the tour of this amusemen...
Read more

The Hannibal by Thomas Harris

Image
Rating – 7 / 10 Hannibal the Cannibal, the protagonist, is considered to be the one of the most feared villains of all times. His acts of cannibalism on his victims gives you a very nasty feeling (something like “Eww..!!”) and must not be read by anyone with a soft heart. Having seen the movie before reading the novel, I knew all the twist and turns in the story beforehand and that was killing my interest in the book The movie, Hannibal, is very well made/directed and it covers all the important facts in the book. The facts that were not covered were generally the tastes of Hannibal Lector, which are very peculiar of him, but didn’t seem very interesting to me while reading the book. In fact I found it so boring that around the end of the novel, I started skipping such parts in which Harris described in detail Hannibal’s likes/dislikes. Lector had absolutely absurd yet classy tastes in almost everything he bought, which eventually helped the police to locate him. His fearlessness, and ...
Read more