Foundation and Empire

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the money, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic, James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, "Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy - virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost invisible - but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas."

Oh, well, if what was needed were "permutations and reversals of ideas," then that I could supply. Panic receded, and on June 10, 1981, I dug out the fourteen pages I had written more than eight years before and reread them. They sounded good to me. I didn't remember where I had been headed back then, but I had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending now, and, starting page 15 on that day, I proceeded to work toward the new ending.

I found, to my infinite relief, that I had no trouble getting back into a "Foundation-mood," and, fresh from my rereading, I had Foundation history at my finger-tips.

There were differences, to be sure:

1) The original stories were written for a science-fiction magazine and were from 7,000 to 50,000 words long, and no more. Consequently, each book in the trilogy had at least two stories and lacked unity. I intended to make the new book a single story.

2) I had a particularly good chance for development since Hugh said, "Let the book find its own length, Isaac. We don't mind a long book." So I planned on 140,000 words, which was nearly three times the length of "The Mule," and this gave me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add all sorts of little touches.

3) The Foundation series had been written at a time when our knowledge of astronomy was primitive compared with what it is today. I could take advantage of that and at least mention black holes, for instance. I could also take advantage of electronic computers, which had not been invented until I was half through with the series.

The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, I began final copy. I brought the manuscript to Hugh O'Neill in batches, and the poor fellow went half-crazy since he insisted on reading it in this broken fashion. On March 25, 1982, I brought in the last bit, and the very next day got the second half of the advance.

I had kept "Lightning Rod" as my working title all the way through, but Hugh finally said, "Is there any way of putting 'Foundation' into the title, Isaac?" I suggested Foundations at Bay, therefore, and that may be the title that will actually be used ¹.

You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the plot of the new Foundation novel. Well, naturally. I would rather you buy and read the book.

And yet there is one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to tie up all the loose ends into one neat little bow-knot at the end of my stories, no matter how complicated the plot might be. In this case, however, I noticed that when I was all done, one glaring little item remained unresolved.

I am hoping no one else notices it because it clearly points the way to the continuation of the series.

It is even possible that I inadvertently gave this away for at the end of the novel, I wrote: "The End (for now)."

I very much fear that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at my throat again, as Campbell used to be in the old days. And yet what can I do but hope that the novel is very successful indeed. What a quandary!

Prologue

The Galactic Empire Was Falling.

It was a colossal Empire, stretching across millions of worlds from arm-end to arm-end of the mighty multi-spiral that was the Milky Way. Its fall was colossal, too - and a long one, for it had a long way to go.

It had been falling for centuries before one man became really aware of that fall. That man was Hari Seldon, the man who represented the one spark of creative effort left among the gathering decay. He developed and brought to its highest pitch the science of psychohistory.

Psychohistory dealt not with man, but with man-masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball. The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again.

Hari Seldon plotted the social and economic trends of the time, sighted along the curves and foresaw the continuing and accelerating fall of civilization and the gap of thirty thousand years that must elapse before a struggling new Empire could emerge from the ruins.