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Psychohistorical Crisis
A loving homage to Asimov, and dialogue with him--a triumph of galactic-scaled SF that is destined to be recognized as a classic in its own right
Eron Osa had faced the ultimate penalty. Not death, but the removal of his fam. Without the augmentation of his brain by his electronic familiar, he can barely function amidst the bewildering complexities of everyday life on Splendid Wisdom. Here, on the capital world of the galaxy's Second Empire, everyone from the meanest citizen to the ruling Pscholars has depended upon a fam since childhood. Without one, simply navigating the streets and levels of the planetary megalopolis is a paralyzing challenge. Lost along with such everyday survival skills were many of Eron's memories and his professional knowledge. The crime he committed must have been terrible to warrant such a dreadful punishment. If only he could remember what it was!
Eron Osa had faced the ultimate penalty. Not death, but the removal of his fam. Without the augmentation of his brain by his electronic familiar, he can barely function amidst the bewildering complexities of everyday life on Splendid Wisdom. Here, on the capital world of the galaxy's Second Empire, everyone from the meanest citizen to the ruling Pscholars has depended upon a fam since childhood. Without one, simply navigating the streets and levels of the planetary megalopolis is a paralyzing challenge. Lost along with such everyday survival skills were many of Eron's memories and his professional knowledge. The crime he committed must have been terrible to warrant such a dreadful punishment. If only he could remember what it was!
587 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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June 20, 2014
As a child, I enjoyed Asimov's science fiction; as an adult, I became aware of his limitations as an author. Kingsbury's interpretation of the Empire/Foundation universe is masterful and a wonderful read.
[REREAD: June 2014]
Ever since I read Donald Kingsbury’s Psychohistorical Crisis I have been recommending it every chance I get. At a little over 700 pages (in my edition), this book has not been high on my list of rereads, but as I’m waiting for R. Scott Bakker’s Unholy Consult to come out in July (2014) and I’m not in the mood to start anything new at the moment, I decided to pull it out of storage and see if it holds up.
The book is a quasi-sequel to Asimov’s classic Foundation series. Kingsbury (as I understand it) had difficulties securing the rights to use Asimov’s work so he approached things indirectly. For example, “Terminus” becomes “Faraway” and “Trantor” is now “Splendid Wisdom.” The Mule, the psychic mutant from Foundation and Empire, is “Cloun-the-Stubborn,” his mutation morphing into a technological device (the ancestor of the quantronic familiar, about which more below), and the world from which he defeats the Foundation is “Lakgan” (sted “Kalgan”). Hari Seldon is never mentioned; instead, the man who invented psychohistory is always referred to simply as “The Founder.”
The story is set about a thousand years after the Pscholars of the Second Foundation have united the galaxy under the second Galactic Empire. Using the mathematics of psychohistory, these men (and I’ll elaborate upon that deliberate use of the gendered word below) have maintained peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy, and seem poised to continue to do so indefinitely. However, a young, brilliant Pscholar – Eron Osa – believes he has discovered evidence that, despite appearances, the empire is in the midst of a Seldon Crisis. Jars Hanis, the Rector of the Lyceum and the highest ranked Pscholar, panics and has Eron’s fam destroyed, effectively executing him. Fams – quantronic familiars – are the descendants of Cloun-the-Stubborn’s mind-control device. They are symbiotic machines that greatly expand the human mind’s (the wetware) capacity to think and process information. Every citizen of the empire – nearly every citizen – gets one when he or she is three. Human brain and fam develop and mature together. To destroy one, is to effectively destroy the other.
Those parts of the book set in the present deal with the suddenly merely human Eron’s efforts to survive without a fam and to try and discover what he had done to be punished so severely. The majority of the book, however, deals with the years leading up to Eron’s fall, when he was subtly manipulated by a cabal of renegade psychohistorians (the Oversee) into wanting to be a Pscholar; his entrée into the Lyceum; and being taken under the wing of the second-ranked Pscholar, Hahukum Konn, Hanis’ bête noire.
The novel’s finale pits the established psychohistorical model of the empire against Eron’s predictions.
Having digested Psychohistorical Crisis again, I can still recommend it, though not as enthusiastically as before. If you have any interest or liking for Asimov’s original novels (the first three, at least), seeing what Kingsbury does with the universe is fun, and he does his best to make the “science” of psychohistory plausible. Of course, the romance has faded and I can see flaws in the story telling. The author’s primary sin? Too much of the book is taken up with back story. The ending feels rushed and incomplete.
The second flaw is that there are no serious female characters. At all. This may be a nod to the era in which the original books were written, when fully realized females were few and far between in most SF novels. If so – it’s not readily apparent. For example, apparently there are no female psychohistorians. All of the ones we meet are men; and even in references to past Pscholars none appear to have been women. It’s as if Barbie’s famous comment, “Math is hard,” has been taken seriously. And of the women who do appear, they’re either housemaids (e.g., Magda) or mostly interested in sex with our hero or some other male character (e.g., the nameless captain of a starship).
There is one woman, Nemia, an agent of the Oversee, who exhibits talents outside of the bedroom. She’s a master technician, and a genius at fiddling with fams. But even in the Oversee, “math is still hard,” as it’s her grandfather who’s the psychohistorian.
The third flaw is also gender related. Most of the women in this book are underage girls, and there’s a strong flavor of paedophilia throughout the novel. This I can’t forgive as a sideways homage to ‘50s SF, and is my strongest reservation about recommending this to anyone. It reflects a trend I’ve noticed in a lot of the hard SF I’ve read, esp. from older authors – a fixation on certain things, including extended lifespans and having sex with young women (e.g., Peter Hamilton in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, though he doesn’t go quite so far as to descend to paedophilia. Larry Niven in Lucifer’s Hammer and Glen Cook in The Silver Spike and most recently in A Path to Coldness of Heart, both of whom have paedophile characters who are not “bad guys.” Perhaps I don’t read widely enough in this particular part of the field. And there are authors in this genre I really like – Alastair Reynolds or Michael Flynn, to name two, but these others are big-name authors, not minor talents or self-published.
Having written the above, should I continue to recommend this book? With some trepidation, I would say, “yes,” but I would now add the caveat that there are some distressing flaws in the novel that may ruin the reader’s enjoyment of what is good.
[REREAD: June 2014]
Ever since I read Donald Kingsbury’s Psychohistorical Crisis I have been recommending it every chance I get. At a little over 700 pages (in my edition), this book has not been high on my list of rereads, but as I’m waiting for R. Scott Bakker’s Unholy Consult to come out in July (2014) and I’m not in the mood to start anything new at the moment, I decided to pull it out of storage and see if it holds up.
The book is a quasi-sequel to Asimov’s classic Foundation series. Kingsbury (as I understand it) had difficulties securing the rights to use Asimov’s work so he approached things indirectly. For example, “Terminus” becomes “Faraway” and “Trantor” is now “Splendid Wisdom.” The Mule, the psychic mutant from Foundation and Empire, is “Cloun-the-Stubborn,” his mutation morphing into a technological device (the ancestor of the quantronic familiar, about which more below), and the world from which he defeats the Foundation is “Lakgan” (sted “Kalgan”). Hari Seldon is never mentioned; instead, the man who invented psychohistory is always referred to simply as “The Founder.”
The story is set about a thousand years after the Pscholars of the Second Foundation have united the galaxy under the second Galactic Empire. Using the mathematics of psychohistory, these men (and I’ll elaborate upon that deliberate use of the gendered word below) have maintained peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy, and seem poised to continue to do so indefinitely. However, a young, brilliant Pscholar – Eron Osa – believes he has discovered evidence that, despite appearances, the empire is in the midst of a Seldon Crisis. Jars Hanis, the Rector of the Lyceum and the highest ranked Pscholar, panics and has Eron’s fam destroyed, effectively executing him. Fams – quantronic familiars – are the descendants of Cloun-the-Stubborn’s mind-control device. They are symbiotic machines that greatly expand the human mind’s (the wetware) capacity to think and process information. Every citizen of the empire – nearly every citizen – gets one when he or she is three. Human brain and fam develop and mature together. To destroy one, is to effectively destroy the other.
Those parts of the book set in the present deal with the suddenly merely human Eron’s efforts to survive without a fam and to try and discover what he had done to be punished so severely. The majority of the book, however, deals with the years leading up to Eron’s fall, when he was subtly manipulated by a cabal of renegade psychohistorians (the Oversee) into wanting to be a Pscholar; his entrée into the Lyceum; and being taken under the wing of the second-ranked Pscholar, Hahukum Konn, Hanis’ bête noire.
The novel’s finale pits the established psychohistorical model of the empire against Eron’s predictions.
Having digested Psychohistorical Crisis again, I can still recommend it, though not as enthusiastically as before. If you have any interest or liking for Asimov’s original novels (the first three, at least), seeing what Kingsbury does with the universe is fun, and he does his best to make the “science” of psychohistory plausible. Of course, the romance has faded and I can see flaws in the story telling. The author’s primary sin? Too much of the book is taken up with back story. The ending feels rushed and incomplete.
The second flaw is that there are no serious female characters. At all. This may be a nod to the era in which the original books were written, when fully realized females were few and far between in most SF novels. If so – it’s not readily apparent. For example, apparently there are no female psychohistorians. All of the ones we meet are men; and even in references to past Pscholars none appear to have been women. It’s as if Barbie’s famous comment, “Math is hard,” has been taken seriously. And of the women who do appear, they’re either housemaids (e.g., Magda) or mostly interested in sex with our hero or some other male character (e.g., the nameless captain of a starship).
There is one woman, Nemia, an agent of the Oversee, who exhibits talents outside of the bedroom. She’s a master technician, and a genius at fiddling with fams. But even in the Oversee, “math is still hard,” as it’s her grandfather who’s the psychohistorian.
The third flaw is also gender related. Most of the women in this book are underage girls, and there’s a strong flavor of paedophilia throughout the novel. This I can’t forgive as a sideways homage to ‘50s SF, and is my strongest reservation about recommending this to anyone. It reflects a trend I’ve noticed in a lot of the hard SF I’ve read, esp. from older authors – a fixation on certain things, including extended lifespans and having sex with young women (e.g., Peter Hamilton in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, though he doesn’t go quite so far as to descend to paedophilia. Larry Niven in Lucifer’s Hammer and Glen Cook in The Silver Spike and most recently in A Path to Coldness of Heart, both of whom have paedophile characters who are not “bad guys.” Perhaps I don’t read widely enough in this particular part of the field. And there are authors in this genre I really like – Alastair Reynolds or Michael Flynn, to name two, but these others are big-name authors, not minor talents or self-published.
Having written the above, should I continue to recommend this book? With some trepidation, I would say, “yes,” but I would now add the caveat that there are some distressing flaws in the novel that may ruin the reader’s enjoyment of what is good.
May 9, 2013
Out of all of the bad sequels to the Foundation trilogy, namely the Bear/Benford/Brin ones and Asimov's own attempts, this one probably comes nearest to standing on its own, in part because it wisely ignores the existence of all the rest of those terrible books, and it tries to give its own take on the concept of psychohistory instead of thinking up stupid new gimmicks like chaos plagues or living planets.
It opens several thousand years after the Foundation reunified the Galaxy, where psychohistorian Eron Osa has been sentenced to have his brain augmentation implant destroyed for an unknown crime. The action follows him and a few others as he tries to figure out what he did to have such a drastic punishment applied to him, and what's become of psychohistory after it "won" and the Interregnum is only a brief and distant memory behind the new Second Empire.
The book is largely decent. Kingsbury has renamed a bunch of stuff (e.g. Trantor is now Splendid Wisdon, Hari Seldon is the Founder, the Mule is Cloun-the-Stubborn, Kalgan is Lakgan, etc) presumably for copyright reasons, but it's not too hard to figure out what's going on. Eron Osa is an okay protagonist, somewhat in the mold of Golan Trevize from Foundation's Edge/Foundation and Earth, though luckily this book avoids mentioning anything that happened in those. As far as concepts go, there's some interesting stuff about the relationship between psychohistory and the determinism/free will debate, and also good investigation into if the dynamic of having Second Foundationers continuously pulling puppet strings from the shadows is actually stable or not. Kingsbury is probably right that they aren't in a stable equilibrium, and that an economist Illuminati whose efforts only work if no one knows they exist probably wouldn't be in business for very long.
Unfortunately the good bits are lost in a story that takes forever to go anywhere, and you miss Asimov's ability to say what he wanted to say in about 80 pages per time period and then move on. Easily the most irritating parts of the book are whenever Kingsbury gets cute with the state of historical knowledge in the year one zillion. Get ready to read lots of "funny" passages that the reader is supposed to chuckle at like "Democracy was invented by the slave Lincoln, who led a great revolt against his Virginian masters, forcing them to come down from Mount Ararat to grant his people the Magna Carta." And yet somehow the Second Empire has complete copies of works by people like Cicero, Max Planck, and Edward Gibbon (in a nod to the origin of the original Foundation trilogy), and they've figured out that Earth is the original planet of mankind, leading to some pointless scenes where Eron has to re-engineer a WW2-era bomber. What's the point of this stuff? Even worse, the cutesy history references are often placed in irritating sub-Dune-quality chapter epigraphs, which are never insightful and frequently long enough to noticeably slow down the book.
The original Foundation trilogy had a number of good features:
- Quick pacing
- Memorable characters
- A willingness to leave those characters behind as the story required
- Action and different scenery
- A then-clever concept of macroeconomists trying to prevent the fall of the Space Roman Empire
- Social commentary that was both apt and concise
- A sense of excitement and intellectual thrill
This book has some good extensions of Asimov's original ideas about civilizational dynamics, but like a number of other books, including some by Asimov himself, it's run into the problem that the original trilogy said so much with so few words that further works in this vein are basically pointless unless you happen to be both as smart as Asimov and without a trace of that fanfiction-y vibe that infests so many sci-fi sequels. Nice try though.
It opens several thousand years after the Foundation reunified the Galaxy, where psychohistorian Eron Osa has been sentenced to have his brain augmentation implant destroyed for an unknown crime. The action follows him and a few others as he tries to figure out what he did to have such a drastic punishment applied to him, and what's become of psychohistory after it "won" and the Interregnum is only a brief and distant memory behind the new Second Empire.
The book is largely decent. Kingsbury has renamed a bunch of stuff (e.g. Trantor is now Splendid Wisdon, Hari Seldon is the Founder, the Mule is Cloun-the-Stubborn, Kalgan is Lakgan, etc) presumably for copyright reasons, but it's not too hard to figure out what's going on. Eron Osa is an okay protagonist, somewhat in the mold of Golan Trevize from Foundation's Edge/Foundation and Earth, though luckily this book avoids mentioning anything that happened in those. As far as concepts go, there's some interesting stuff about the relationship between psychohistory and the determinism/free will debate, and also good investigation into if the dynamic of having Second Foundationers continuously pulling puppet strings from the shadows is actually stable or not. Kingsbury is probably right that they aren't in a stable equilibrium, and that an economist Illuminati whose efforts only work if no one knows they exist probably wouldn't be in business for very long.
Unfortunately the good bits are lost in a story that takes forever to go anywhere, and you miss Asimov's ability to say what he wanted to say in about 80 pages per time period and then move on. Easily the most irritating parts of the book are whenever Kingsbury gets cute with the state of historical knowledge in the year one zillion. Get ready to read lots of "funny" passages that the reader is supposed to chuckle at like "Democracy was invented by the slave Lincoln, who led a great revolt against his Virginian masters, forcing them to come down from Mount Ararat to grant his people the Magna Carta." And yet somehow the Second Empire has complete copies of works by people like Cicero, Max Planck, and Edward Gibbon (in a nod to the origin of the original Foundation trilogy), and they've figured out that Earth is the original planet of mankind, leading to some pointless scenes where Eron has to re-engineer a WW2-era bomber. What's the point of this stuff? Even worse, the cutesy history references are often placed in irritating sub-Dune-quality chapter epigraphs, which are never insightful and frequently long enough to noticeably slow down the book.
The original Foundation trilogy had a number of good features:
- Quick pacing
- Memorable characters
- A willingness to leave those characters behind as the story required
- Action and different scenery
- A then-clever concept of macroeconomists trying to prevent the fall of the Space Roman Empire
- Social commentary that was both apt and concise
- A sense of excitement and intellectual thrill
This book has some good extensions of Asimov's original ideas about civilizational dynamics, but like a number of other books, including some by Asimov himself, it's run into the problem that the original trilogy said so much with so few words that further works in this vein are basically pointless unless you happen to be both as smart as Asimov and without a trace of that fanfiction-y vibe that infests so many sci-fi sequels. Nice try though.
July 7, 2017
Psychohistorical Crisis does a wonderful thing, playing with the core conceit of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, asking the questions that presumably everyone who has read those books has eventually asked: what would the rule of the Second Empire actually be like? How would the psychohistorians goverrn?
This book is a rare beast: not a pastiche, not a licensed continuation, but a work that is genuinely engaged with Asimov's ideas as well as his setting. Since Kingsbury didn't apparently have permission to use Asimov's universe or characters, the book creates 1:1 analogues for Asimov's major figures, who are in the distant past of Kingsbury's tale. The backstories are (nearly) the same. One of the ongoing pleasures of the book is the puzzle of figuring out what references (people, places, events) stands for which in Asimov's original universe. But the greater pleasure lies in the way Kingsbury envisions conflict among the psychohistorians and those attempting to shake loose their grip.
For better or worse, this book is long, and includes pages and pages of exposition and rumination on the relationship between psychohistory, quantum mechanics, and entropy. In that sense, the book also indirectly highlights Asimov's skill as a writer - presumably he liked his own ideas, but Asimov usually kept his plots tight and the action moving, even when his characters were mostly props. But few authors who have been given (or have taken for themselves, as Kingsbury has) the chance to play in Asimov's world have echoed his self-discipline, instead yielding to the temptation to let their ideas run away with the story. In those sections of Psychohistorical Crisis, it feels as though the story dims, and the author himself appears (albeit not in a holographic wheelchair) to give a lecture.
Kingsbury also throws in a few themes of his own: the main characters of the story are all, in some ways, more than human, although that's not obvious until they actually start meeting (and looking down on) actual homo sapiens. Less attractively, Kingsbury repeatedly depicts sexual customs that may be appropriate to his characters or their setting, but would be deeply wrong if practiced by people today. Overall, it's not a perfect book, but it is fascinating and unique.
This book is a rare beast: not a pastiche, not a licensed continuation, but a work that is genuinely engaged with Asimov's ideas as well as his setting. Since Kingsbury didn't apparently have permission to use Asimov's universe or characters, the book creates 1:1 analogues for Asimov's major figures, who are in the distant past of Kingsbury's tale. The backstories are (nearly) the same. One of the ongoing pleasures of the book is the puzzle of figuring out what references (people, places, events) stands for which in Asimov's original universe. But the greater pleasure lies in the way Kingsbury envisions conflict among the psychohistorians and those attempting to shake loose their grip.
For better or worse, this book is long, and includes pages and pages of exposition and rumination on the relationship between psychohistory, quantum mechanics, and entropy. In that sense, the book also indirectly highlights Asimov's skill as a writer - presumably he liked his own ideas, but Asimov usually kept his plots tight and the action moving, even when his characters were mostly props. But few authors who have been given (or have taken for themselves, as Kingsbury has) the chance to play in Asimov's world have echoed his self-discipline, instead yielding to the temptation to let their ideas run away with the story. In those sections of Psychohistorical Crisis, it feels as though the story dims, and the author himself appears (albeit not in a holographic wheelchair) to give a lecture.
Kingsbury also throws in a few themes of his own: the main characters of the story are all, in some ways, more than human, although that's not obvious until they actually start meeting (and looking down on) actual homo sapiens. Less attractively, Kingsbury repeatedly depicts sexual customs that may be appropriate to his characters or their setting, but would be deeply wrong if practiced by people today. Overall, it's not a perfect book, but it is fascinating and unique.
June 6, 2010
Donald Kingsury's Psychohistorical Crisis could be considered a loose sequel to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The storyline is predicated on Asmiov's theme of "psychohistory," a predictive mathematical science that can anticipate future events when dealing with large numbers of people. At a time when the galaxy is populated with quintillions of humans, that tool is quite useful to psychohistorians, an elite group of individuals who use the knowledge to their advantage in keeping the galaxy a peaceful place.
This iteration of the story takes place thousands of years after the Foundation series ends. It begins with the conviction of Eron Osa. His penalty is the loss and destruction of his "fam," a hardware augmentation that connects to the brain which accelerates learning, processes vast amounts of data at remarkable speeds, and holds more information than a human's "wetware" (brain). The only problem is Eron doesn't remember what his crime was.
The story then fluctuates between Eron's past and his present as one begins to fill in the story of Eron's rise, downfall, and attempted redemption.
Kingsbury does an excellent job in creating characters with stark cultural differences. After all, as the saying goes, "The galaxy is a big place," and these differences fit well in that realm.
Some of the unique, creative verbiage was fun, such as time nomenclatures including "inamins" ("in a minute"), and "jiffs" (in a jiffy). Even the name "Old Rith" for "Earth" was creative.
Unfortunately, Kingsbury is a retired professor of mathematics and although that qualification was most certainly useful when writing about mathematical sciences, he had a propensity of writing prolonged expositories that become technical to the point of tedium and frustration. At points like that the reading lost its appeal.
The storyline drags at times but the ending wraps things up nicely even though it felt like drudgery at times getting there.
If one enjoys deep, descriptive science fiction as well as Asimov's Foundation series then I would recommend the book. Otherwise I'd recommend something a little less pedantic.
This iteration of the story takes place thousands of years after the Foundation series ends. It begins with the conviction of Eron Osa. His penalty is the loss and destruction of his "fam," a hardware augmentation that connects to the brain which accelerates learning, processes vast amounts of data at remarkable speeds, and holds more information than a human's "wetware" (brain). The only problem is Eron doesn't remember what his crime was.
The story then fluctuates between Eron's past and his present as one begins to fill in the story of Eron's rise, downfall, and attempted redemption.
Kingsbury does an excellent job in creating characters with stark cultural differences. After all, as the saying goes, "The galaxy is a big place," and these differences fit well in that realm.
Some of the unique, creative verbiage was fun, such as time nomenclatures including "inamins" ("in a minute"), and "jiffs" (in a jiffy). Even the name "Old Rith" for "Earth" was creative.
Unfortunately, Kingsbury is a retired professor of mathematics and although that qualification was most certainly useful when writing about mathematical sciences, he had a propensity of writing prolonged expositories that become technical to the point of tedium and frustration. At points like that the reading lost its appeal.
The storyline drags at times but the ending wraps things up nicely even though it felt like drudgery at times getting there.
If one enjoys deep, descriptive science fiction as well as Asimov's Foundation series then I would recommend the book. Otherwise I'd recommend something a little less pedantic.
December 31, 2010
While _Psychohistorical Crisis_ can be read on its own, it's far more impressive if you're familiar with Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. This book is essentially a sequel to a better version of the Foundation series, set ~2,000 years after _Foundation's Edge_ in a world where the Psychohistorians are the benevolent hand guiding a Galactic empire, and where everyone relies on a personal organic computer (called a fam, for familiar) used since their youth as a memory and intelligence augmentor (and as a protection against mental manipulation, developed as a defense against this universe's version of the Mule).
(It should be noted that this surreptitious sequel is orders of magnitude superior to any of the officially-licensed sequels by Brin, Bedford or Bear.)
The protagonist is a young psychohistorian who, as the book opens, has been effectively executed--his fam destroyed--for the crime of mathematical heresy. The book then flashbacks to his youth, as we follow his history and what led him to that point.
My only quibble with the book was a minor one, and one common to most far-future books--an over-abundance of references to names and history of our own past, despite the unlikelihood of such being commonly known in *90,000* AD. Only a minor quibble, because the references are largely confined to his specific field (and I'm willing to buy that Aristotle or Galileo will still be known to mathematicians that far in the future) or confined to historians (and even there, he doesn't make it completely accurate--the traditional Girmani dance of the SS superman clad in black except for their yellow stars signifying allegiance to the Norse God David wouldn't be half as funny if we were talking about mistakes made about 10,000 AD, since he'd have to explain the joke).
Kingsbury is an ex-mathematics professor, which enables him to give a plausible gloss on psychohistory, without going too far into details. An excellent book.
(It should be noted that this surreptitious sequel is orders of magnitude superior to any of the officially-licensed sequels by Brin, Bedford or Bear.)
The protagonist is a young psychohistorian who, as the book opens, has been effectively executed--his fam destroyed--for the crime of mathematical heresy. The book then flashbacks to his youth, as we follow his history and what led him to that point.
My only quibble with the book was a minor one, and one common to most far-future books--an over-abundance of references to names and history of our own past, despite the unlikelihood of such being commonly known in *90,000* AD. Only a minor quibble, because the references are largely confined to his specific field (and I'm willing to buy that Aristotle or Galileo will still be known to mathematicians that far in the future) or confined to historians (and even there, he doesn't make it completely accurate--the traditional Girmani dance of the SS superman clad in black except for their yellow stars signifying allegiance to the Norse God David wouldn't be half as funny if we were talking about mistakes made about 10,000 AD, since he'd have to explain the joke).
Kingsbury is an ex-mathematics professor, which enables him to give a plausible gloss on psychohistory, without going too far into details. An excellent book.
January 10, 2012
Psychohistorical Crisis, written by Donald Kingsbury, is indeed, as you probably guessed by the title, set in Asimov’s Foundation universe. It is another piece of a magnificent puzzle of Foundation, in this case the Second Foundation, where we explore all those great Psychohistorical ideas.
Most of the action of this book takes place on Splendid Wisdom, (aka - Trantor), where everybody from birth has a "fam" installed to work in tandem with their brain. Sounds horrid, but actually it is a powerful computer which is accessed directly from the mind with almost unlimited information, unique to each individual and installed at birth. The protagonist of the book, Eron Osa, has had his removed, but he doesn’t know why. You must do something very very bad to have that happen.
The book deals with greater ideas, but mostly how Eron finds out why it was done and what he can do about it and how to survive without one - not as easy as you might think. A vast picture is painted in an already vast universe created by Asimov, and the combination leaves you satisfied, if you are into the Foundation saga in the first place.
Even if you have never read Asimov’s Foundation books, (where have you been the last five decades?), it is still a good read with enough action and mystery and science to keep you going.
And worth reading if you have already invested the time in Asimov’s Foundation universe.
Donald Kingsbury, with Psychohistorical Crisis, creates a nice fitting piece in a larger work.
Most of the action of this book takes place on Splendid Wisdom, (aka - Trantor), where everybody from birth has a "fam" installed to work in tandem with their brain. Sounds horrid, but actually it is a powerful computer which is accessed directly from the mind with almost unlimited information, unique to each individual and installed at birth. The protagonist of the book, Eron Osa, has had his removed, but he doesn’t know why. You must do something very very bad to have that happen.
The book deals with greater ideas, but mostly how Eron finds out why it was done and what he can do about it and how to survive without one - not as easy as you might think. A vast picture is painted in an already vast universe created by Asimov, and the combination leaves you satisfied, if you are into the Foundation saga in the first place.
Even if you have never read Asimov’s Foundation books, (where have you been the last five decades?), it is still a good read with enough action and mystery and science to keep you going.
And worth reading if you have already invested the time in Asimov’s Foundation universe.
Donald Kingsbury, with Psychohistorical Crisis, creates a nice fitting piece in a larger work.
April 6, 2021
If you read Asimov's Foundation and others in the Series-- this offering is a homage to that universe.
Kingsbury gives us a long deep dive into the future Society of a Foundation-like derived Galaxy thru the eyes of a few 'ordinary' denizens of this far-flung empire who get caught between the ruling Pscholars and a secretive rebel group of psycho-historians.
I give it 3 stars-- however it isn't a total downer...it flows with the same languid energy of the original Foundation. Very descriptive. Very intellectual. The main sin of the author is how he gives in to the desire to drown the reader in theoretical Psuedo-Science detail.
But if you are thinking of Battles filled with lightspeed dreadnoughts destroying entire star systems...uhm...no.
This Galaxy is utterly civilized. It's about Espionage spanning centuries using the tools of Psyho-Historical Analysis and warring Mathematics.
A Tome for Deep-thinking Sci-Fi readers who will be tickled by the notion of imagined social manipulation via esoteric formulae.
Let's just say, the story isn't very Flashy...but the characters are urbanely fascinating. You won't be impelled to finish this book in one reading...but it is very easy to put down--and then to pick it up again at a later time and continue where you left off...
Kingsbury gives us a long deep dive into the future Society of a Foundation-like derived Galaxy thru the eyes of a few 'ordinary' denizens of this far-flung empire who get caught between the ruling Pscholars and a secretive rebel group of psycho-historians.
I give it 3 stars-- however it isn't a total downer...it flows with the same languid energy of the original Foundation. Very descriptive. Very intellectual. The main sin of the author is how he gives in to the desire to drown the reader in theoretical Psuedo-Science detail.
But if you are thinking of Battles filled with lightspeed dreadnoughts destroying entire star systems...uhm...no.
This Galaxy is utterly civilized. It's about Espionage spanning centuries using the tools of Psyho-Historical Analysis and warring Mathematics.
A Tome for Deep-thinking Sci-Fi readers who will be tickled by the notion of imagined social manipulation via esoteric formulae.
Let's just say, the story isn't very Flashy...but the characters are urbanely fascinating. You won't be impelled to finish this book in one reading...but it is very easy to put down--and then to pick it up again at a later time and continue where you left off...
May 10, 2012
The author of the Hugo-nominated Courtship Rite has dared to create a fascinating sequel to the Asimov Foundation trilogy, one of the greatest SF yarns of all time.
At first it was difficult to keep pace with the name changes: Trantor was named Splendid Wisdom, Terminus was named Faraway, etc. But the story was an astounding SF journey through time and the mathematical treatment of psychohistory, the statistical science of predicting the future for mankind.
Kingsbury took on the daunting task of pursuing the Pscholars' plan as it unfolds against itself and the galaxy that rises up to stop it. As with all good things, the Founder's plan is not without opposition!
The story was well worth the 736 page read, but it is not for weak SF fans. The concepts were crisp, the plot was well conceived and executed, and the treatment of measurements was delicious. And if you know about the appendices in the back, it will help you to keep the galactic history clear in your mind.
This was my second read of this novel and I enjoyed it even more than the first. It's only too bad that it wasn't written by Isaac himself. I think even Hari Seldon would have loved it.
At first it was difficult to keep pace with the name changes: Trantor was named Splendid Wisdom, Terminus was named Faraway, etc. But the story was an astounding SF journey through time and the mathematical treatment of psychohistory, the statistical science of predicting the future for mankind.
Kingsbury took on the daunting task of pursuing the Pscholars' plan as it unfolds against itself and the galaxy that rises up to stop it. As with all good things, the Founder's plan is not without opposition!
The story was well worth the 736 page read, but it is not for weak SF fans. The concepts were crisp, the plot was well conceived and executed, and the treatment of measurements was delicious. And if you know about the appendices in the back, it will help you to keep the galactic history clear in your mind.
This was my second read of this novel and I enjoyed it even more than the first. It's only too bad that it wasn't written by Isaac himself. I think even Hari Seldon would have loved it.
May 3, 2018
John C. Wright mentioned this book as one of his own influences while writing the "Count to Infinity" series, and I was inspired to seek it out. It was worth reading. The style was honestly neither like Asimov (it is a clear homage to his Foundation series), nor at all like Wrights, and I cannot claim to have really loved any of the characters, but the twin ideas of throwing enough research and computing power at human behavior to predict the future on a grand scale, and of a Mule-like device to augment the human brain now common on the scale of smart-phones were intriguing.
The plot was sometimes a bit difficult to follow as it jumped back and forth into flash-backs and current action, but it held together.
The plot was sometimes a bit difficult to follow as it jumped back and forth into flash-backs and current action, but it held together.
August 26, 2019
There is a lot wrong with this novel. First, there's not enough plot for a 500 page book. It could have been a 3 star at 350 pages or 4 stars at 250 pages. For example, there's chapters dedicated to the process of re-creating a World War II era B-17 Flying Fortress and how they figured out how long a foot was. This added nothing to the evolution of the characters or the plot.
The details of the crisis and how it gets resolved is covered in the last 8 pages. I came very close to not finishing this novel several times and found myself counting down the pages to the end of the book - never a good sign. I wish I had given in to my gut instincts and spent my time on a more rewarding work.
The details of the crisis and how it gets resolved is covered in the last 8 pages. I came very close to not finishing this novel several times and found myself counting down the pages to the end of the book - never a good sign. I wish I had given in to my gut instincts and spent my time on a more rewarding work.
August 5, 2008
This book is in my top three and is by far the best science fiction book I've ever read. It's an homage to Asimov galactic empire series and is, as far as I'm concerned, far better than anything Asimov ever did. It is set well after the establishment of the second galactic empire and the universe is ruled by the mathematics of "psychohistory." Of course, since this is "only" an homage to Asimov the book isn't actually set in the Asimov universe - there are differences, especially with the later books of Asimov's series (which were all rather cheesy and silly in my opinion anyway.)
There is just something about the prose that I loved, it was both humorous and concise. For example, some of the names have changed, The Mule becomes the much more colorful Clown the Stubborn. Likewise Trantor becomes Splendid Wisdom. One has to look out for these alterations and not be to upset by them. There are a wide rage of human societies, all part of the second galactic empire, that are described, and each society had its own (amusing and enjoyable) quarks. Also, mathematics played a central role in the book and a few parts got rather involved, which is probably one of the main reasons this book doesn't usually get better reviews. Of course, I'm a mathematician (as is the author) and the role mathematics plays is a major reason I love the book. But the really mathy parts are only a couple dozen pages in a very long book so shouldn't frighten anyone away!
There is just something about the prose that I loved, it was both humorous and concise. For example, some of the names have changed, The Mule becomes the much more colorful Clown the Stubborn. Likewise Trantor becomes Splendid Wisdom. One has to look out for these alterations and not be to upset by them. There are a wide rage of human societies, all part of the second galactic empire, that are described, and each society had its own (amusing and enjoyable) quarks. Also, mathematics played a central role in the book and a few parts got rather involved, which is probably one of the main reasons this book doesn't usually get better reviews. Of course, I'm a mathematician (as is the author) and the role mathematics plays is a major reason I love the book. But the really mathy parts are only a couple dozen pages in a very long book so shouldn't frighten anyone away!
September 5, 2010
This novel is based on the novella "Historical Crisis" (c) 1995 by the same author that appeared in the anthology Far Futures (c) 1995 edited by Gregory Benford and published by Tor. It is the compelling story set in a universe very similar to Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series. As a loving tribute to Asimov's best known science fiction work, the author has created a novel that reads like a Asimov "Foundation" novel while while still being up to date with the developments in science and technology since the "Foundation" novels were published. Kingsbury manages to comment upon and even challenge the assumptions of the "Foundation" universe while still remaining respectful of it. The reader could even see Psychological Crisis as part of the "Foundation" canon, a possibility no doubt assisted by the author setting his novel millennia after that of any of Asimov's books in the "Foundation" timeline. As such, Kingbury takes some surprising turns with the technology and sociology of the "Foundation" universe. Finally, the novel Psychological Crisis is every bit as readable and interesting as its very fine novella counterpart, "Historical Crisis."
December 8, 2011
A sequel, of sorts, to the ideas if not the exact material of Isaac Asimov's foundation series. The book is at its best when advancing Asimov's ideas: what happens, for example, a few centuries down the road, after the pyschohistorians win? and there's also the idea of a fam--an electronic cognitive augmenting device that each person of this galactic future has, that acts as processor and permanent search engine. Given the current popularity of mobile devices, it seems like a very prescient thing to add. The downside of the book is its pacing; there's a flashback structure where we see the late part of the main character's career first, then slowly, painfully slowly, build up to that point from his childhood onward, at a pace so glacial that it made me impatient for the past stuff to finish, but too uninterested in the current stuff to see it progress at all. The last 75 pages or so feel particularly long. A good idea, but the execution, for me, leaves something to be desired.
July 10, 2014
With one reservation* I loved this book. It was grand in scale, and approached the story from a very interesting timeline perspective, with multiple view points at very different times in the story eventually colliding and providing a very complete story.
I loved Kingsbury's treatment of the implications of Azimov's "Phycohistorical" mechanisms from the Foundation works, and he coupled it with a really interesting exploration of what would happen to society/individuals if we augmented our brains heavily with hardware "Fams"
It is however, quite the brick.
*as to my reservation, Kingsbury does some odd things to show a hyper-urban society decadence. One creeped me out as it was rather pedophilic.
I loved Kingsbury's treatment of the implications of Azimov's "Phycohistorical" mechanisms from the Foundation works, and he coupled it with a really interesting exploration of what would happen to society/individuals if we augmented our brains heavily with hardware "Fams"
It is however, quite the brick.
*as to my reservation, Kingsbury does some odd things to show a hyper-urban society decadence. One creeped me out as it was rather pedophilic.
July 15, 2019
I struggle with this book. I really enjoyed the beginning. The entire setup hooked me immediately and I couldn't put the book down for about a hundred pages. Then I struggled to pick the book up again. I think the book was just...over-written? I don't know. Maybe more reflection on it will reveal why I lost interest in the book until the last hundred when I couldn't put it down again.
August 31, 2013
De lo mejor inspirado en la saga de Asimov.
March 24, 2022
Anyone who has read Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy knows that the science of psychohistory—the ability to predict the actions of large groups of humans, on a planetary or galactic scale—is the centerpiece of the plot. The discipline's discoverer, Hari Seldon, is able to use psychohistory not to prevent the fall of the Galactic Empire from internal decay, but to shorten the Interregnum and all its attendant suffering from 10,000 years to a mere 1,000. The result is trillions of lives saved, and untold misery prevented or mitigated; a hopeful story indeed.
Kingsbury's book, on the other hand, shows the dark side of letting psychohistory and its secretive practitioners, the Pscholars, rule over events in the reborn galaxy. By using their predictive powers to tamp down or stamp out rebellions and unrest, the Pscholars also prevent bursts of creativity and renaissances of art, culture, or technology. When a young prodigy named Eron Osa points out, with mathematical proof, that this approach will lead to a massive collapse that no one else sees coming, rather than heed his warning the highest-ranking Pscholars erase his memory and identity by disconnecting him from his "fam." In the time in which this book is set, the quantronic familar or "fam" is a brain augmentation computer worn by virtually everyone in the galaxy from the age of three, and people have become so dependent on its abilities that a fam's removal makes them revert back to a sort of primitive childhood. Unwilling to hear Eron's message, the Pscholars think (hope) that separating him from his fam will eliminate the danger of his prediction.
The concept of the story is clever and intriguing, so that even at ~550 pages this is an engaging story. I really enjoyed the descriptions of how people interface with their fams and what they can accomplish with them (hell, I'll admit that I now want one), and some of the devices Kingsbury devised for this tale, like the Coron's Eggs, are wondrous. I think my favorite passage in the book is in chapter 28 when Eron's tutor, Hiranimus Scogil, has his astrology chart read by an old woman rice farmer using an Egg. I would pay good money to see that scene in a film.
I have a problem, though, with setting this story so far in the future of Asimov's mythos. It takes place in about 14,800 Galactic Era, which is 80,384 AD. And yet there are still artifacts and stories from Earth's past that are more or less intact, like a relic B-17 Flying Fortress that is restored to flying status, and myths which even in the year 2022 are vague and conflicting. This really seemed implausible to me and every reference to them—who is going to know the name Johannes Kepler, or of the Thirty Years' War, 78,000 years from now?—took me out of the story because my skepticism was so great. I also struggled to relate the history of this story to Asimov's original tale, since Kingsbury changed most of the names of worlds and people from the Foundation trilogy—Earth is now Rith, Seldon is known only as "the Founder," Terminus (home of the first Foundation) is called Faraway, and Trantor is now called Splendid Wisdom for some reason. Reading the chronology he puts in the back of the book helped a lot; I just wish I had known it was there so I could read it before I read the actual story.
It also seems like Kingsbury has ignored some of the history of Earth and humans' expansion into space as envisioned by Asimov in the Robot series, with Earth, the Spacers, and the later Settlers being the three factions. He talks about three great periods in pre-First Empire history called the Die-off, Rejuvenation, and Ramp-up. These all apparently happened on Earth before hyperdrive was discovered, and I can't make them align with the timeline laid out by Asimov in the Lije Baley and Daneel Olivaw books. It also doesn't seem like the events of Robots and Empire ever happened, since Earth is not a mostly-radioactive wasteland with small pockets of habitability (and it also never seems to have dropped into utter obscurity and legend, as told in Foundation and Earth—which, by the way, indicates that only 20,000 years passed between the events of I, Robot and the establishment of a galactic Gaia). This apparent ignoring of Asimov's timeline makes me take a star off my rating and prompts me to warn anybody wanting to read all the books in Asimov's future history series (see http://neilrieck.net/links/cool_sci_f...) to think about leaving this one out.
Kingsbury's book, on the other hand, shows the dark side of letting psychohistory and its secretive practitioners, the Pscholars, rule over events in the reborn galaxy. By using their predictive powers to tamp down or stamp out rebellions and unrest, the Pscholars also prevent bursts of creativity and renaissances of art, culture, or technology. When a young prodigy named Eron Osa points out, with mathematical proof, that this approach will lead to a massive collapse that no one else sees coming, rather than heed his warning the highest-ranking Pscholars erase his memory and identity by disconnecting him from his "fam." In the time in which this book is set, the quantronic familar or "fam" is a brain augmentation computer worn by virtually everyone in the galaxy from the age of three, and people have become so dependent on its abilities that a fam's removal makes them revert back to a sort of primitive childhood. Unwilling to hear Eron's message, the Pscholars think (hope) that separating him from his fam will eliminate the danger of his prediction.
The concept of the story is clever and intriguing, so that even at ~550 pages this is an engaging story. I really enjoyed the descriptions of how people interface with their fams and what they can accomplish with them (hell, I'll admit that I now want one), and some of the devices Kingsbury devised for this tale, like the Coron's Eggs, are wondrous. I think my favorite passage in the book is in chapter 28 when Eron's tutor, Hiranimus Scogil, has his astrology chart read by an old woman rice farmer using an Egg. I would pay good money to see that scene in a film.
I have a problem, though, with setting this story so far in the future of Asimov's mythos. It takes place in about 14,800 Galactic Era, which is 80,384 AD. And yet there are still artifacts and stories from Earth's past that are more or less intact, like a relic B-17 Flying Fortress that is restored to flying status, and myths which even in the year 2022 are vague and conflicting. This really seemed implausible to me and every reference to them—who is going to know the name Johannes Kepler, or of the Thirty Years' War, 78,000 years from now?—took me out of the story because my skepticism was so great. I also struggled to relate the history of this story to Asimov's original tale, since Kingsbury changed most of the names of worlds and people from the Foundation trilogy—Earth is now Rith, Seldon is known only as "the Founder," Terminus (home of the first Foundation) is called Faraway, and Trantor is now called Splendid Wisdom for some reason. Reading the chronology he puts in the back of the book helped a lot; I just wish I had known it was there so I could read it before I read the actual story.
It also seems like Kingsbury has ignored some of the history of Earth and humans' expansion into space as envisioned by Asimov in the Robot series, with Earth, the Spacers, and the later Settlers being the three factions. He talks about three great periods in pre-First Empire history called the Die-off, Rejuvenation, and Ramp-up. These all apparently happened on Earth before hyperdrive was discovered, and I can't make them align with the timeline laid out by Asimov in the Lije Baley and Daneel Olivaw books. It also doesn't seem like the events of Robots and Empire ever happened, since Earth is not a mostly-radioactive wasteland with small pockets of habitability (and it also never seems to have dropped into utter obscurity and legend, as told in Foundation and Earth—which, by the way, indicates that only 20,000 years passed between the events of I, Robot and the establishment of a galactic Gaia). This apparent ignoring of Asimov's timeline makes me take a star off my rating and prompts me to warn anybody wanting to read all the books in Asimov's future history series (see http://neilrieck.net/links/cool_sci_f...) to think about leaving this one out.
October 5, 2017
One of the pillars upon which the giant reputation of Isaac Asimov still rests is the sweeping Foundation Trilogy.
The Trilogy's three novels detail how mathematician and historian Hari Seldon foresaw a 30-millennium-long Galaxy-wide collapse of civilization, and devised a plan to shorten those coming dark ages to a single millennium. Seldon planned an openly-acknowledged path of historical development for the newly-created Encyclopedia Foundation located on a world at the fringe of the Empire whose collapse Seldon predicted.
Periodically, this Foundation would face a Seldon Event, a psychohistorical crisis, in which a threat to its existence which would constrain the nascent second empire to follow a single, pre-determined, path. To keep the Seldon Plan on track, a second, hidden foundation consisting of heirs to Seldon’s science of psychohistory would act as “wizards behind the screen” to ensure the coming of the Second Empire.
In Psychohistorical Crisis, Donald Kingsbury looks at the re-established Second Empire, over 2700 years after the crafting of the Seldon Plan. In this far-distant future, Seldon’s name is lost in the mists of history, and psychohistory is a occult practice, whose “Psycholars” maintain their Galactic rule by keeping the tenets of their science a deep secret. Citizens of the second empire exist in their complex society only with the aid of a mind-enhancing outgrowth of Asimov’s mind-probe, the quantum-mechanical familiar, or “fam”. On the surface, all is pleasant and peaceful.
Beneath that calm, however, are roiling currents of revolution. And bobbing along, pulled this way and that by these currents, is Eron Osa, a mathematical genius with a modified fam. We meet Osa as he is stripped of his fam for an unspecified crime. Condemned to live without his memories (but warned by the rebel Psycholar Hahukum Konn not to use the “prosthetic” fam supplied by the ruling council), Osa is forced to live by his native wit—even to the extent of actually reading with his eyes (gasp!) a purloined book of the Founder’s lessons as he attempts to recover the science he has lost.
We then flash back to Eron’s childhood, where we meet Hiranimus Scogil, another rebel, who is seeking a brilliant student to place as a sleeper in the Psycholar’s Lyceum on “Splendid Wisdom,” the seat of the Second Empire. Scogil places his student in the hands of Nemia of l’Armontag, who modifies his fam, ostensibly to give him faster access times, but with a longer-term plan to allow the mysterious Oversee organization to activate their sleeper when desired.
We meet Kikaju Jama, yet another schemer bent on manipulating events by training and releasing agents, the tattooed barkeep Rigone of Splendid Wisdom, and Frightfulperson Otaria of the Calmer Seas, all of whom have designs upon the mind and future of Eron Osa. In deliciously complex inter-woven character histories, Kingsbury examines the human desire to manipulate others, on the personal as well as the Galactic scale.
Wrapped in layers of philosophy, history, metrical science and astrology, Kingsbury has also given us a closer look at the central premise of Asimov’s trilogy: that what men can predict, men can control. He then challenges this premise, exploring themes of free will vs. prediction; the scalability of government styles, knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention; and the quantum-cat nature of both prediction and history.
This is a demanding read, with sly references to a wide range of science-fictional works in addition to its densely-woven core story. You can enjoy the novel as a mystery (why does Eron Osa merit the execution of his fam?), as science fiction (will the various rebels succeed in overthrowing the Psycholars’ rule, and what is the mechanism by which knowledge slides into myth?), or as skillful homage to Asimov.
However you read it, the book is thoroughly enjoyable.
The Trilogy's three novels detail how mathematician and historian Hari Seldon foresaw a 30-millennium-long Galaxy-wide collapse of civilization, and devised a plan to shorten those coming dark ages to a single millennium. Seldon planned an openly-acknowledged path of historical development for the newly-created Encyclopedia Foundation located on a world at the fringe of the Empire whose collapse Seldon predicted.
Periodically, this Foundation would face a Seldon Event, a psychohistorical crisis, in which a threat to its existence which would constrain the nascent second empire to follow a single, pre-determined, path. To keep the Seldon Plan on track, a second, hidden foundation consisting of heirs to Seldon’s science of psychohistory would act as “wizards behind the screen” to ensure the coming of the Second Empire.
In Psychohistorical Crisis, Donald Kingsbury looks at the re-established Second Empire, over 2700 years after the crafting of the Seldon Plan. In this far-distant future, Seldon’s name is lost in the mists of history, and psychohistory is a occult practice, whose “Psycholars” maintain their Galactic rule by keeping the tenets of their science a deep secret. Citizens of the second empire exist in their complex society only with the aid of a mind-enhancing outgrowth of Asimov’s mind-probe, the quantum-mechanical familiar, or “fam”. On the surface, all is pleasant and peaceful.
Beneath that calm, however, are roiling currents of revolution. And bobbing along, pulled this way and that by these currents, is Eron Osa, a mathematical genius with a modified fam. We meet Osa as he is stripped of his fam for an unspecified crime. Condemned to live without his memories (but warned by the rebel Psycholar Hahukum Konn not to use the “prosthetic” fam supplied by the ruling council), Osa is forced to live by his native wit—even to the extent of actually reading with his eyes (gasp!) a purloined book of the Founder’s lessons as he attempts to recover the science he has lost.
We then flash back to Eron’s childhood, where we meet Hiranimus Scogil, another rebel, who is seeking a brilliant student to place as a sleeper in the Psycholar’s Lyceum on “Splendid Wisdom,” the seat of the Second Empire. Scogil places his student in the hands of Nemia of l’Armontag, who modifies his fam, ostensibly to give him faster access times, but with a longer-term plan to allow the mysterious Oversee organization to activate their sleeper when desired.
We meet Kikaju Jama, yet another schemer bent on manipulating events by training and releasing agents, the tattooed barkeep Rigone of Splendid Wisdom, and Frightfulperson Otaria of the Calmer Seas, all of whom have designs upon the mind and future of Eron Osa. In deliciously complex inter-woven character histories, Kingsbury examines the human desire to manipulate others, on the personal as well as the Galactic scale.
Wrapped in layers of philosophy, history, metrical science and astrology, Kingsbury has also given us a closer look at the central premise of Asimov’s trilogy: that what men can predict, men can control. He then challenges this premise, exploring themes of free will vs. prediction; the scalability of government styles, knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention; and the quantum-cat nature of both prediction and history.
This is a demanding read, with sly references to a wide range of science-fictional works in addition to its densely-woven core story. You can enjoy the novel as a mystery (why does Eron Osa merit the execution of his fam?), as science fiction (will the various rebels succeed in overthrowing the Psycholars’ rule, and what is the mechanism by which knowledge slides into myth?), or as skillful homage to Asimov.
However you read it, the book is thoroughly enjoyable.
June 19, 2024
De entre todas las secuelas a la trilogía de la Fundación (incluidas las que escribió el propio Asimov) es la única que me he encontrado que respeta y continúa el tono, la temática y el alcance de la trilogía original, probablemente porque ignora completamente las adiciones citadas al canon.
De este modo y, a pesar de los problemas de derechos que le obligan a trasliterar los nombres y sucesos originales (de una forma bastante transparente) tenemos una respetuosa y digna continuación de la historia a partir de los sucesos de Segunda Fundación.
Por desgracia, el libro no está exento de problemas, desde los asimovianos como puede ser la ausencia de mujeres con agencia a los más graves como su extensión. Esta novela ha crecido a partir de una historia más corta y se nota (MUCHO). Una selva de injertos en el tronco principal de la crisis psicohistórica que complica la lectura y casi anima a abandonarla. Si hubiese sido capaz de localizar la historia original, sin duda lo hubiera hecho.
Un buen homenaje que hubiese merecido un mejor editor y unas tijeras de podar.
De este modo y, a pesar de los problemas de derechos que le obligan a trasliterar los nombres y sucesos originales (de una forma bastante transparente) tenemos una respetuosa y digna continuación de la historia a partir de los sucesos de Segunda Fundación.
Por desgracia, el libro no está exento de problemas, desde los asimovianos como puede ser la ausencia de mujeres con agencia a los más graves como su extensión. Esta novela ha crecido a partir de una historia más corta y se nota (MUCHO). Una selva de injertos en el tronco principal de la crisis psicohistórica que complica la lectura y casi anima a abandonarla. Si hubiese sido capaz de localizar la historia original, sin duda lo hubiera hecho.
Un buen homenaje que hubiese merecido un mejor editor y unas tijeras de podar.
January 15, 2023
Interesting yet flawed "sequel" to Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy (all the stuff after the first three books seems to have been ignored), set about 2000 years after the establishment of the second Empire.
The interesting-to-me parts of the book are somewhat spoilery: suffice to say that the author does a good job extrapolating from Asimov in interesting ways.
The flaws are more general:
- the book is too long by 15-20%
- it is quite convoluted between the various plots and time shifts and viewpoint shifts
- the ending just kind of peters out
Decent enough science fiction but hard to recommend.
The interesting-to-me parts of the book are somewhat spoilery: suffice to say that the author does a good job extrapolating from Asimov in interesting ways.
The flaws are more general:
- the book is too long by 15-20%
- it is quite convoluted between the various plots and time shifts and viewpoint shifts
- the ending just kind of peters out
Decent enough science fiction but hard to recommend.
January 2, 2019
I REALLY wanted to like this book...
The story intrigues me and I can see how it is an attempt to continue on the mythos of the Foundation series by Asimov...
But something about the writing style just makes reading it intolerable.
I have been unable to finish it after YEARS of trying (off and on) to get through it.
The story intrigues me and I can see how it is an attempt to continue on the mythos of the Foundation series by Asimov...
But something about the writing style just makes reading it intolerable.
I have been unable to finish it after YEARS of trying (off and on) to get through it.
July 2, 2024
A good homage to Isaac and Janet Asimov (and Hari Seldon). Not a high-action thriller, as most of the "action" takes place in the real worlds of the minds of the participants. The projection of Second Foundation into the far, far future is an effective reminder that "plus "ça change, plus ça měme chose".
January 8, 2018
Didn't really enjoy it, though there were some interesting ideas. I didn't learn until the second try to read it that Kingsbury tried to write this as a sequel to Asimov's Foundation series. That made the whole thing make much more sense.
August 20, 2024
Es entretenido pero no entra en la psicohistoria y supongo que por asuntos de derechos de autor no se anida en la saga de Fundación. Trata de plantear un concepto mas allá de la psicohistoria pero se queda entre la trama y el concepto y finalmente ni desarrolla una buena trama ni un concepto
November 14, 2018
Great homage to Asimov's "Foundation" with complex plot and amazing insights both in sociology and history.
December 30, 2022
Another book that starts slowly then tapers off. Zzzzzzzz
December 9, 2024
Very dense with math theory, and psychohistory philosophy.
December 6, 2025
Takes almost half the book to pick up the pace and then earns ,5 stars for the rest of the story. Otherwise it goes all around the galaxy for a long time..
November 26, 2025
Wayyy too long, although the world building and ending are very cool. It easily could have been 400 instead of 700 pages without losing anything. Also, pedophilia being normalized (because it's their "culture") was completely unnecessary, adding nothing to the plot or characters.
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