Station Zero

Foundation is one of those famous science fiction classics I’ve never got round to reading. I did try, back in my Star Wars addled early teens, but I gave up after a chapter or two. Having watched the Apple TV adaptation, I picked up a copy to see how it compared, and I can see why I was put off. Published in the ‘50s, but made from short stories written for the pulp magazines of the ‘40s, Foundation is an odd beast. In a vast galactic empire of the far future, a scientist named Hari Seldon predicts imminent collapse, and sets up a foundation intended to preserve human knowledge through the coming dark age and help build a new society. The book hops through the centuries, giving us little vignettes to show how his descendants are getting on. There is very little description of people or places. It’s curiously male-dominated even by the standards of ‘40s sci-fi - often in those old pulp stories the hero’s missus or the Professor’s Beautiful Daughter get a look in, but in Foundation ...