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Hi everyone and welcome to Book 3 of our Foundation series read: Second Foundation. according to my good buddy Wikipedia, Second Foundation consists of two previously published novellas originally published in Astounding Magazine (with different titles) between 1948 and 1950M. the book was written by the Isaac Asimov, a former vice president of Mensa International. with characteristic Asimovian directness, he once described some Mensa members as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs".

Wow! It wasn't easy to find this thread. When you click on "view activity" for the book on the group's homepage, this thread didn't pop up for me like it usually does. I read these books like thirty years ago and only vaguely remember the story elements. I remember them well enough to not want to re-read the series, but not so well I feel qualified to make comments on these books, though I loved them and rated them all five stars, not a rating I give all that often. This series is one of the main reasons I read science fiction at all these days.

I just dropped in to comment that I saw the Foundation series as being listed as belonging to the subgenre of social science fiction. by Wikipedia: I thought that odd because I've always just considered the series as simply science fiction, maybe space opera, though there is too little war for me to be completely comfortable with calling it that.

Is the psychohistory component a dominant enough story element to really make this series social science fiction?

It has been decades since I have read the Foundation series, I have always felt most or what Asimov wrote was Social. I am not re-reading the series either. Isn't the very word "psychohistory" has a social element to it?

In Asimov's world, humans (I could be wrong) are alone in our galaxy. There are no other aliens and other life forms to go to war with. Robots with the three laws helps to keep the peace throughout the human realm. Well one can add the zero law if they wish. Not sure if "Gaia" counts as an intelligent life form.

I never saw the foundation as a space opera. Most of the writing has people and their social groups living on planets solving their social problems.

One of my friends described this as the "peek a boo" part of the Foundation series. The Second Foundation is over here... nope! It's over there!

Mickey wrote: "I never saw the foundation as a space opera. Most of the writing has people and their social groups living on planets solving their social problems."

If you go to the Wikipedia page on space opera and go over to the column on the right that lists examples, the Foundation series is fourth. Apparently, I wasn't alone in considering it that. Maybe there are wars portrayed in the books of the series that I have forgotten about in the years since I read it.

I don't deny that pyschohistory, if it really existed, would be a social science. Psychohistory is just one element of the series though, and it's an internal feature of the series, just one subject of many the series explores. I just wonder if it's an important enough element to the series for the entire series to be considered social SF.

Anyway, it seems like every subgenre except cyberpunk, feminist SF, and hard SF wants to claim Isaac's series as belonging to them!

I am surprised that Wiki listed Foundation as a Space Opera. Foundation does contain space travel. Still I personally view the series more "social" than "Space Opera".

Mickey wrote: "I am surprised that Wiki listed Foundation as a Space Opera. Foundation does contain space travel. Still I personally view the series more "social" than "Space Opera"."

I don't really consider it Space Opera either, though admittedly it has been years since I read the original trilogy. Sometimes I think we are getting too many categories of SF though, The only terms used when I was young were Space Opera, hard SF (the type with rivets), Scientific Romance or a similiar term and Science-Fantasy.

C. John wrote: "The only terms used when I was young were Space Opera, hard SF (the type with rivets), Scientific Romance or a similiar term and Science-Fantasy. "

You must be an octogenarian then, because we have a few more than four SF subgenres now.

It may be confusing to track these subgenres and more trouble to you than it's worth. However, I enjoy classifying books and appreciate it when others classify ones I haven't read. I can search for books by a specified sub-genre to make it easy form me to find similar books to the ones Ilike or I can find new books in different sub-genres that I've not tried before. I can also look for the most classic or prototypical book of each subgenre to determine if I want to explore further.

Here is my working list of science fiction subgenres in alphabetical order:

Afrofuturism
Alien abduction
Alien conspiracy
Alien invasion
Alternate history
Anthropological science fiction
Apocalyptic science fiction
Artificial Intelligence
Big dumb object aka macrostructure sf
Biopunk
Black science fiction
Comic science fiction aka humorous sf
Theological or Christian science fiction�
Colonization
Cthulhu Mythos science fiction
Cyberpunk
Decopunk
Dieselpunk
Dying Earth
Dystopian science fiction
Edisonade
Erotic science fiction
Fanfiction aka scifi fanfic
Science fantasy
Feghoot
Feminist science fiction
First contact
Galactic empire
Generation ship
Golden Age science fiction aka Pulp era sf
Gothic science fiction aka space goth
Grotesquerie
Hard science fiction
Science fiction horror
Human development
Imaginary voyage aka voyages extrordinaires
Immortality
Impact event
LGBT science fiction aka queer or gay sf
Libertarian science fiction
Literary science fiction
LitRPG
Lost worlds
Mathematical science fiction
Military science fiction
Mind uploading aka mind transfer sf
Mundane science fiction
Mutant science fiction
Mythic science fiction
Nanopunk
NASA� inspired sf (e.g. William Forstchen's Pillar to the Sky)
Near future science fiction
New Wave science fiction
Parallel worlds
Post-apocalyptic science fiction
Postcyberpunk
Post-Futurism
Recursive science fiction
Retro futurism
Robot/Android fiction
Science fiction romance
Scientific romance (e.g. H.G. Wells)
Singularity
Slipstream
Social science fiction
Soft science fiction
Space exploration
Space opera
New space opera
Space Western aka science fiction Western
Speculative evolution
Speculative poetry
Star Trek
Star Wars
Steampunk
Superhero fiction
Tech noir
Terraforming
Time Travel
Transrealism
Uplift
Utopia
Virtual reality
Weird science fiction
Weird West
Zombie fiction aka Zombie apocalypse

I'm in my early sixties actually. Back then most of the terms on your list weren't seen as sub-genres but simply a quick way to tell someone what the story was about. As for speculative fiction it was in fact a term used by those with literary pretensions instead of science fiction because that term somehow locked us into a ghetto. And heaven help you if you used the term sci-fi in their presence.

Yeah, I debated on placing the term "speculative fiction" in my list because it's the only one that is actually wider than the entire field of science fiction rather than a subset, as all the others are. Okay, I think it best to remove speculative fiction, but I'm adding literary SF to replace it. It's a better descriptor of what I'm after. Please forgive me for editing my post above yours to reflect this change since it might make your post look a little off.

Oh, and in case you would like to try some literary SF, this site identifies the best 31 books in that particular subgenre:

C. John wrote: "I'm in my early sixties actually. Back then most of the terms on your list weren't seen as sub-genres but simply a quick way to tell someone what the story was about. As for speculative fiction it ..."

As a fellow sexagenarian, I also see the list as description of the story and not a sub genre. Great minds think alike.

I am totally shocked that Venus on the Half-Shell did not make it on the greatest literary science fiction books of all time. Kilgore Trout must be rolling in his grave.

"Skiffy" is a sub genre?

According to Wikipedia, skiffy "featur[es] stories about what might have happened if the lives of various well-known science fiction writers had turned out differently." This subgenre, if it really is one, seems non-fictionally based and too limited in scope. I removed it. Thanks for catching/questioning this.

Ah, Philip Jose Farmer. No mega-20th century author could be more forgotten by this century's sf readers. Fine by me. I never understood his appeal in the first place.

I listed the book "Venus in a Half Shell" as a joke. Kilgore Trout is a fictional character in a few of Kurt Vonnegut's books (Vonnegut is a top ten author in my opinion and on your list of top literary authors).

Kilgore Trout is a fictional author that writes poorly written science fiction trash novels. Philip Jose Farmer an author I also like, stepped up to the plate and intentionally wrote a humorous poorly written piece of trash in the name of Vonnegut's character.

Dan wrote: "C. John wrote: "The only terms used when I was young were Space Opera, hard SF (the type with rivets), Scientific Romance or a similiar term and Science-Fantasy. "

You must be an octogenarian then..."

Big Dumb Object- The subgenre concerned with big stuff floating around in space.

Good one! Thanks. Reminds me of a Star Trek OS episode.

Finished the read. As I've mentioned before this is my first read through the series and I am enjoying it.

The Foundation trilogy is one of the best scifi series ever. Perhaps the concept of second foundation stretches it a bit, but still.

Sergio wrote: "The Foundation trilogy is one of the best scifi series ever. Perhaps the concept of second foundation stretches it a bit, but still."

But still what a great read it has been so far.

Dan wrote: "Is the psychohistory component a dominant enough story element to really make this series social science fiction? ..."

I'm only two books in so far, but from the two I've read, I'd say definitely yes.

I'd agree on the Social SF thing. Many, many lists place the Foundation series in Hard SF but there's very little about it that's hard. A lot of the tech it describes is liberally un-SF (from walnut sized nuclear generators to atomic disintegrator pistols to personal energy shields capable of protecting one from those disintegration ray guns to, yes, non-tech based psychic powers).

I read the trilogy in 2014/2015 and was pretty underwhelmed. This final one to be the best of the lot, but still not a great book. I guess maybe if I had read it when I was 13 it might have impressed me more.

The story had had a turn point unexpected by me. I will to enter in the Fourth Interlude (I hope that the translation was a literal one for this term).

Peter F. Hamilton's first published book was the not-so-widely-known Mindstar Rising, the first in an interesting looking trilogy Hamilton refers to as Greg. Apparently, not everyone is a fan of Asimov's decision to revisit his trilogy some years later. This is an excerpt of an interview of Hamilton () I ran across recently:

Peter F. Hamilton: Greg was a very good start for me and people have enjoyed it and I think; ''leave it at that.'' You see what happened to Asimov when he started going back to the Foundation thirty years later.

Publik Johannes Berg: He couldn't leave well enough alone.

Peter F. Hamilton: I think Greg stands together pretty much as it is.

And the book is getting better.

I don't remember if someone speak about my doubt in the other threads, but, the 1000 years foreseen by Hari Seldon to the Empire to go back to their former glory it's a analogy with the 1000 years between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the Middle Age?

I know that Asimov have the The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as inspiration but his choice of number it's coincidental or it was a deliberate choice?

Rafael wrote: "the 1000 years foreseen by Hari Seldon to the Empire to go back to their former glory it's a analogy with the 1000 years between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the Middle Age?"

I don't think so. Remember, the actual prediction was that the Dark Ages would last 25,000 years. The Foundation was created by Seldon to shorten the Dark Ages from 25,000 to 1,000 years. There is no equivalent solution for our world that causes the Dark Ages, which began (according to Gibbon) in 476 CE with the German invader Odacer's overthrow of the last Roman emperor, Romulus. The Renaissance is regarded to have started in Florence in the fourteenth century, less than 900 years later.

Some of Asimov's characters were directly inspired by the Roman Empire. General Bel Riose is believed to correspond to Flavius Belisarius, the 6th century general who proved to be the last great one of the Roman Empire.

The Middle Age is not marked by the Fall of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453?

Rafael wrote: "The Middle Age is not marked by the Fall of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453?"

Yep. That's the date most seem to be using to mark the end of the Middle Ages, but it's not when the Dark Ages ended. The two are not the same. Not all of the Middle Ages were dark since they encompassed the Renaissance, as I pointed out. Seldon is concerned with avoiding a "dark age", right?

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, which was considered authoritative last century during Asimov's time:

Migration period, also called Dark Ages or Early Middle Ages, the early medieval period of western European history—specifically, the time (476�800 ce) when there was no Roman (or Holy Roman) emperor in the West or, more generally, the period between about 500 and 1000, which was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life. The name of the period refers to the movement of so-called barbarian peoples—including the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Bulgars, Alani, Suebi, and Franks—into what had been the Western Roman Empire. The term “Dark Ages� is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies. Though sometimes taken to derive its meaning from the dearth of information about the period, the term’s more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity.

Surely the Foundation series is space opera with a lick of social sciences as the main plot.

There is no way it is hard SF. Telepathy, as an inherent physiological ability rather than it being achieved by some technology, is by definition un-scientific.

It is bloody entertaining space opera though.

Dan wrote: "Rafael wrote: "The Middle Age is not marked by the Fall of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453?"

Yep. That's the date most seem to be using to mark the end of the Middle Ages, but it's not when th..."

I see. Thank you.

Man! What an ending. Who are still reading it?

I will be! But have to finish Fallen Angel. I should have read the much shorter Second Foundation first.

While everyone here probably knows this, if you stopped with Second Foundation (last book in the famous trilogy), you shouldn't have. The old master returned decades later to extend the series, brilliantly combining the robot novels, Foundation, and The End of Eternity into one long series.
Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, which fit into that long series, established sci-fi mysteries as a subgenre (these are the original robot novels with Daneel Olivaw, the MC who ends the long series).
Ah, the memories!
r/Steve

My library only have the trilogy so in the future I will return to the series.

You can read the prequel books like Prelude to Foundation (my introduction to the whole series) and Forward the Foundation, and the robot books and The End of Eternity are worth reading, too.

However, I would not recommend Foundation's Edge or Foundation and Earth. Neither book is a more satisfying ending than Second Foundation.

I finished the first half of this and thought it was excellent. For some reason I thought there would be a drop-off in quality after the second book, but what I've read so far has been just as strong. The confrontations between Channis & Pritcher and then The Mule & First Speaker were fascinating and surprisingly intense.