Foundation (Publication Order) Series

This epic saga spans millennia in the distant future as humanity has colonized the galaxy. It follows the fate of a disgraced scientist who foresees the inevitable fall of a galactic empire and establishes a foundation to preserve human knowledge. The series explores themes of history, sociology, and the impact of individuals on vast civilizational processes.

Recommended Reading Order

Foundation
Isaac Asimov
240 pages
9 hours of reading
WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST ALL-TIME SERIES The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov's iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon's two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one that shaped science fiction as we know it today. The Galactic Empire has prospered for twelve thousand years. Nobody suspects that the heart of the thriving Empire is rotten, until psychohistorian Hari Seldon uses his new science to foresee its terrible fate. Exiled to the desolate planet Terminus, Seldon establishes a colony of the greatest minds in the Empire, a Foundation which holds the key to changing the fate of the galaxy. However, the death throes of the Empire breed hostile new enemies, and the young Foundation's fate will be threatened first.
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Foundation and Empire
Isaac Asimov
Although small and seemingly helpless, the Foundation had managed to survive against the greed of its neighboring warlords. But could it stand against the mighty power of the Empire, who had created a mutant man with the strength of a dozen battlefleets...? "From the Paperback edition."
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Second Foundation
Isaac Asimov
304 pages
11 hours of reading
The third novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION The Foundation lies in ruins—destroyed by a mutant mind bent on humanity’s annihilation. But it’s rumored that there’s a Second Foundation hidden somewhere at the end of the Galaxy, established as insurance to preserve the knowledge of mankind. Now a desperate race has begun between the survivors of the First Foundation and an alien entity to find this last flicker of humanity’s shining past—and future hope. Yet the key to it all might be a fourteen-year-old girl burdened with a terrible secret. Is she the Foundation’s savior—or its deadliest enemy? Unforgettable, thought-provoking, and riveting, Second Foundation is a stunning novel of adventure and ideas writ huge across the Galaxy—a powerful tale of humankind’s struggle to preserve the fragile light of wisdom against the threat of its own dark barbarism.
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Foundation's edge
Isaac Asimov
426 pages
15 hours of reading
At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations had come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation had proved victorious; and now they retum to Hari Seldon's long-established plan to build a new Empire that the Second Foundation is not destroyed after all-and that its still-defiant survivors are preparing their revenge. Now the two exiled citizens of the Foundation-a renegade Councilman and the doddering historian-set out in search of the mythical planet Earth. . .and proof that the Second Foundation still exists. Meanwhile someone-or something-outside of both Foundations sees to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose. Soon representatives of both the First and Second Foundations will find themselves racing toward a mysterious world called Gaia and a final shocking destiny at the very end of the universe!
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Foundation & Earth
Isaac Asimov
The epic story of the Foundation is one of the great classics of science fiction by the Grand Master of the genre. Isaac Asimov's legendary saga, winner of the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Novel Series, has enthralled generations of readers - and continues to amaze. All records of Earth have been removed systematically from the libraries of Foundation worlds. Now Councilman Golan Trevize and Professor Janov Pelorat traverse the galaxy in search of humanity's ancestral planet. On worlds beyond the Foundation's influence, superstition and taboo shroud the subject of their quest. To name Earth is to utter an obscenity. Fortunately, the space travellers find allies - and Pelorat finds a lover named Bliss - among the telepaths of the planet Gaia. As they near their destination, Bliss picks up thought waves of intelligent beings. What she cannot tell is whether or not those beings are human.
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Prelude to Foundation
Various authors
464 pages
17 hours of reading
In PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION, what happed in the many centuries before the events made famous in Asimov's other Foundation novels - hitherto only hinted at - is now revealed.
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Forward the Foundation
Isaac Asimov
419 pages
15 hours of reading
For use in schools and libraries only. In the final novel of the "Foundation" series, Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory while the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse.
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Related books

The Foudation Trilogy
Isaac Asimov
It is the story of the Galactic Empire, crumbling after twelve thousand years of rule. And it is the particular story of psycho-historian Hari Seldon, the only man who can see the horrors the future has in store: a dark age of ignorance, barbarism and violence that will last for thirty thousand years. Gathering together a band of courageous men and women, Seldon leads them to a hidden location at the edge of the galaxy where he hopes they can preserve human knowledge and wisdom against all who would destroy them. Asimov went on to add numerous sequels and prequels to the trilogy, building up what has become known as the Foundation series, but it is the original three books, first published in the Forties and Fifties, which remain the most powerful, imaginative and breathtaking.
4.3
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation: Introduction by Michael Dirda
Isaac Asimov
664 pages
24 hours of reading
This hardcover edition compiles Isaac Asimov's influential Foundation trilogy, a landmark series in speculative fiction that explores themes of psychohistory, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the interplay between science and society. The trilogy delves into the efforts of a group of scientists to preserve knowledge and culture in the face of impending societal collapse, making it a profound exploration of human behavior and the future.
4.3
Foundation ; Foundation and empire ; Second foundation
Isaac Asimov
The Foundation trilogy is a saga of humaity's struggle against darkness played on the the grandest possible scale - is one of the corner-stones of modern science fiction. It is the story of the Galactic empire, crumbling after 12,000 years of rule, and the story of psycho-historian Hari Seldon, the only man who can see the horrors the future has in store..
4.2
Die Psycho-Historiker. Die berühmte Foundation-Trilogie. Übertr. v. Barbara Heidkamp
Isaac Asimov
887 pages
32 hours of reading
4.5
Foundation Trilogie
Isaak Judovič Asimov
472 pages
17 hours of reading
A THOUSAND-YEAR EPIC, A GALACTIC STRUGGLE, A MONUMENTAL WORK IN THE ANNALS OF SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION begins a new chapter in the story of man's future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation-dedicated to art, science, and technology-as the beginning of a new empire. FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism. SECOND FOUNDATION follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire's defeat and describes its greatest threat-a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men's wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.
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