Foundation and Earth (Foundation #5)

Author: Isaac Asimov

Rating: 2/5

Golan Trevize is unsure about Gaia. What if it’s not the right destiny for humanity? He needs answers and, apparently, Earth has those answers. Therefore, he is determined to find Earth if it’s the last thing he does.

Spoilers ahead.

Detailed Summary

Oh, gosh, where to begin? Golan Trevize isn’t confident in his decision to choose Gaia as the universe’s plan. So, he takes it upon himself to find Earth with his buddies Janov Pelorat and Bliss (well, she becomes a buddy afterwards). They pretty much go planet hopping, looking for Earth and it’s like an elaborately designed treasure hunt, most of which I didn’t understand. (There were lots of explanations of how the science-y stuff works and I guess I’m just too dumb to understand that.) They land on Comporellon for some clues. The mayor wants Trevize’s cool spaceship and she’s got a thing for the man too. So, Bliss uses her Gaia powers to make the mayor want Trevize, um, more and they both share a bed. Yuck. And then Trevize and friends leave (even though technically, they weren’t allowed to). They land on this planet with wild cannibalistic dogs. Then another planet called Solaria where they meet a hermaphrodite named Bander. Bander’s got this huge estate which he powers with special lobes on his head. Then Bander wants to kill Trevize and company so Bliss kills him. Accidentally. Well, kind of on purpose. The power goes out and the trio tries to find their way around. They stumble upon a young Solarian whose robot nanny got powered off. They take the child with them because otherwise, it would have been killed.

The child is named Fallom and everyone agrees that it’s a she. Fallom is really smart and picks up Galactic (the language). Then they go to a bunch of other planets. Then there’s one planet called New Earth where it’s mostly water and there’s this tiny patch of land. The people there welcome Trevize and friends. There’s even a music festival where the woman Trevize shared a bed with (yep, he did it again) plays the flute. Then Fallom plays the flute and the woman gives it to Fallom because the Solarian is so much better at playing. Then they get out of there because the woman tells Trevize that the people are going to kill them. Apparently, a virus is passed on through bed-sharing. Then the four go to the moon. Earth is radioactive but on the moon, there’s a robot named R. Daneel Olivaw. He’s been manipulating the group this whole time to get them here. He explains how he created psychohistory and Gaia. Gaia was the plan but Seldon’s plan was like the backup. There may be external threats to humanity (so outside the galaxy) and the galaxy is easier to protect if everyone becomes one entity–Gaia. The robot is close to death and needed someone to merge with or something. Trevize went all, “Nope, I’m an individual,” and it turns out, Fallom is meant to be the merger. So it’s all good and Trevize finally has justification for his choice.

Plot and Pacing; Here’s the thing about Asimov’s writing. The endings are always INSANELY good. I think he probably writes a short novel and then pads the beginning with useless, random details and dialogue to reach his word count of 150K. I wish I had read the Robot series first but the library didn’t have the first book and I hate reading stuff in the wrong order (I mean, who doesn’t?). I think this book must have been the ending of the Robot series as well. I had goosebumps when R. Daneel Olivaw appeared and I got the impression that he had a HUGE role in everything that happened before.

The rest of the book was not that great. As usual. I think it was too dense and if it had been shorter, the book would have easily been a 4/5. I really liked the main idea of the text which is the whole individualism vs collectivism debate. I have to take Trevize’s side on this one because I think a collectivist society (Gaia) would be the most beneficial because there’d be so much empathy in the world and, well, Gaia can do all sorts of fabulous things. She (or it?) gives equality and there were throwbacks to the circle of life (gotta love Lion King). BUT, I would not want to be a part of it. I’d much rather be my own person. Despite Bliss’ argument that she is an individual, I don’t think she is. I was disappointed when Trevize refused to merge. I would totally want to have been a part of establishing the Gaia plan but I wouldn’t want to be a part of the population. I hope that makes sense.

Initially, I was very annoyed that all of them got away with everything. It seemed to easy. Too much good luck. Yeah, Trevize is supposed to be a really intuitive person but no one can be that intuitive! That’s why I liked the robot tie-in. It all made sense.

I was disappointed by the society of New Earth. They were going to kill our trio (or quartet because of Fallom) simply because they wanted to keep their existence a secret. I guess they served as further justification for Gaia.

Characters: I didn’t like any of the characters except R. Daneel Olivaw and I really want to read the rest of the books now. (Which is bad because they’re really boring.) Anyway, I thought Trevize was a jerk and I get that he’s really good looking and he’s 1.85m tall but can’t we, for once, have an ugly protagonist? (And yes, Asimov specified that Trevize was 1.85 when he said the mayor of Comporellon was 1.96m tall. I just find that so funny.) Look at him!

How does one NOT fall for that? And he was so narcissistic, talking about all the women he shared a bed with.

Speaking of women, I was glad that Asimov included Bliss in the journey and turns out, she’s not a robot like how I thought. BUT something about Bliss put me off. Not just that, I hate how everyone in the books assumes that Bliss is just this object to be used for bed-sharing. You would think that by then, that sort of gender discrimination would be eliminated.

Pelorat was cool. I liked when he said “old chap.” It was very British. Fallom was annoying but I wish I had her brain. I’d be able to learn so much. And that’s pretty much all the main characters.

Writing Style: Okay, something really annoying here. Pelorat asks WAY too many questions. I don’t have anything against questions. Questions are fun! I love questions! But Asimov just used them as opportunities to dump a whole bunch of random, scientific jargon (and I can’t tell fact from fiction because even though I want to study medicine,  I’m terrible at science-y stuff). I wanted the story to move forward, not halt in space so that Trevize could explain for the millionth time why his spaceship is so awesome.