Foundation and Earth
Doubleday. 365 pages. $16.95.
Foundation and Earth begins just after its predecessor, Foundation's Edge ended, in the five-hundredth year of the Foundation. Golan Trevize has just made a choice that will alter the direction of Human history; now, in the course of second-thoughts, he finds that he must locate the legendary planet Earth. Along with his companion Janov Pelorat and Bliss, a woman of the collective intelligence known as "Gaia," he sets out to locate the lost home planet of the Human Race.
On the way, Trevize and his friends visit five strange and different worlds. On each they find menace, and finally they face the greatest danger...and the end of their search...when they find Old Earth at last.
In a way, this should be the greatest of the "Foundation" books. Certainly the ending is mind-boggling enough. And yet, somehow the book seems to just miss its mark. The unexplained events are too unexplained; the subtle mind-tampering is too obvious; the odd characters are a little too odd for comfort. Again and again the reader mutters to himself: "There's no reason for thus-and-so to happen that way -- therefore it must be part of someone's unrevealed plan."
This does worse than spoiling the reader's enjoyment at the slow unfolding of an intricate plot; it blunts the impact of the final scene, so that when we reach the last chapter and find out just who has been manipulating Human history for twenty thousand years, it is a letdown. What could have been the most stunning revelation in science fiction hits the reader like the slap of a wet dishrag.
Judged in comparison with other novels of the year, Foundation's Edge is superb. As a continuation of the "Foundation" series, however, or in comparison to Asimov's other recent science fiction, it falls short. This is a good book, yes...but it is not a great book.