Foundation as an analysis of the predictability of humans is fascinating: the idea that, at the limit, societal behaviour is just statistics. I like the first book’s political machinations, and I remember it has a very easily read writing style.
Second Foundation really takes that idea to its extremes and becomes very interesting. It’s my favourite. The concept is lovely: if you keep pushing on predicting human behaviour, and keep making the science better and better, you end up with the Second Foundation. I liked it best as manipulating behaviour, like in the confrontation between the First Speaker and the Mule. I didn’t read the Mule as psychic, just as a really talented manipulator: influencing someone’s mind through tiny gestures, visual or auditory trickery, inputs into the brain. Later books make it explicit with “mentalics”, which is just psychics, and I don’t like that.
The trilogy:
- Foundation
- Foundation and Empire
- Second Foundation