"The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

Publisher: Doubleday
Copyright: 1951

The Foundation Trilogy is considered by most readers to be one of the classic science fiction story. It one science fictions most coveted award the Hugo in 1966, and has never been out of publication since it's original release in 1951. Very few other science fiction stories hold this publication record, one of the few being "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein.

The story itself is that many thousands of years in the future, and Earth (And the origin of humans) is a legend at best, but probably closer to a fable. Humans have essentially colonized the vast majority of the Milky Way Galaxy, and are governed by an Emperor who is located towards the centre of the Galaxy. It should be noted that in 1951 when this book was written it was unknown that a black hole is in centre of the Milky Way galaxy.

The empire however is in dire straits, and essentially falling apart. Hari Seldon, a mathematician develops the science of psychohistory-the mathematical formulation of sociology-which can be used to predict with fair accuracy the future based on group dynamics. He is able to predict the future of the empire, and its eventually downfall. His calculations indicate that there will be a gap of 30,000 year before the new Empire is founded. He however predicts that through the establishment of two Foundations that this can be reduced to 1000 years, even though the downfall of the current Empire is unstoppable.

The story tells of the events over a period of approximately 500 years following the collapse of the empire and prior to the predicted establishment of the second empire.

In the early 1980s Asimov wrote four other novels set in the same universe. Two were sequels: "Foundation's Edge" (1982) & "Foundation and Earth" (1986), and two were prequels "Prelude to Foundation" (1988) and "Forward the Foundation" (1993).

Enjoy!