The answers to some of the question may include spoilers to the book...here is your warning.
Salvador Hardin was the first character in the book that we got to spend any significant time with. What are your thoughts on the grande finale of his plotting, scheming and maneuvering to get the Foundation through to the next Seldon crisis?
Now talk about a politician through and through. Hardin continued to manipulate events to his favor throughout this section of the reading. With the Foundation that Hardin built with its technologies. You would think that the Four Kingdoms would want to work with Hardin. Instead being in a war with someone that cut vital technologies that you rely one. Just don’t mess with someone that can make you life miserable. We had Seldom in this section as well so it is always great to hard him to bring us back.
What are your thoughts on the way in which control/manipulation to achieve Foundation ends began to shift with The Traders?
I will admit that the The Trader section was a big yawner compared to Hardin chapters. A short tale, set fifty-five years after “The Mayors,” “The Traders” is a tale of how the application of religion to science has effectively become a stagnant policy. After witnessing the fate of the Four Kingdoms, no nearby star systems are will accept Foundation technology. A new force for expansion is revealed, however, through the use of trade.
From the shift from religion to the trading just give one a interesting perspective on how things do change throughout time. Just that is how it used to be done does mean that it way that it use to be. Thus it can change from year to year.
One of the interesting things about Seldon’s psychohistory is how much one man can actually affect it. In Foundation we see characters like Hardin and Mallow as key figures for positioning things just right to work towards Seldon’s later predictions. Do you see this as a contradiction to what Seldon said about psychohistory at the beginning of our story or part of an overall plan? Discuss.
I will admit some of the information was hard to grasp in an audiobook. As much and Hardin and Mallow want the Seldons plan to go accordingly. I have a feeling that it is not going to happen as smmoth as they think it will go. A monkey wrench somewhere is going to thrown into the mx and askew the smooth sailing.
This has happened throughout history. The interesting part is going to be be how will the Foundation be able to regain after being diverted.
Has your concept/thoughts of what Seldon was trying to do changed at all since the book began?
It has not changed much for me at least. I know he is a genius and I like it when he draws us back in if we get side tracked. One thing that I still waiting for is how his grand plan is going to eventually unfold.
Any final thoughts on the story as a whole, its structure, what it did or did not accomplish, how it worked for you, etc?
I am liking what Asimov did in the second half of the book with character development. It seems more rushed in the first part of this book. I liked how he had elaborated more on who and what Hardin in to the Foundation. I could not stop listening to this book. I was either listening to it in the car or at home. I sure wish I could listen to it at work..:) I am excited to be able to read the next two books. Speaking of which the second book in the series is at the library right now.
So are you going to join the group in the next book Foundation and the Empire..it start tomorrow.
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