Foundation and Chaos

The second book in the post-Asimov foundation series is by one of my favorite SF authors--Greg Bear. This book picks up after Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear, but does not come chronologically right after the end of that book. Rather, what has been done in this new series is that spots not filled out by Asimov are now filled in, so Benford's work takes place just as the main character, Hari Seldon, takes the post of First Ministership, while Bear's book takes place after that time and what we were left to think was the decline and death of Seldon (that impression made in Asimov's Forward Foundation. Bear is really great at picking up a genre that is not his own (as I liked in his Star Trek and Star Wars novels). Foundation and Chaos is more like Asimov's style than Benford's, but Bear still manages to fill out some details not covered before, especially about political strive among the robots. The idea that the robots have differing opinions and political groups working against each other is really amazing. Loved it all.

Greg Bear was able to catch all of the style and story told by Asimov in his books. It is very well written and reads like Forward the Foundation. Sometimes it feels as if you reading yet another Asimov's book.Other two books produce no significant impact on your imagination and sometimes wander off from the idea set by Asimov. Despite that, Bear was able to connect both quite seamlessly.While I really do recommend reading Foundation and Chaos, I do not recommend even to try reading Foundation's Fear as it doesn't make sense and it is hard to understand what is going on. As for Foundation's Triumph - not necessary to be read for completion of Foundation and Chaos.

If you've read my review of Foundation's Fear, you know I was disappointed in the type of story that it was. It wasn't really a Foundation book. Enter Greg Bear, who NAILS it. The only problem I have with this book is the plot ties that it has with the "meme" stuff from the first book...but it seems that that's just a requirement of the overall storyline of the trilogy (though I think that this story on its own could have survived without it).I enjoyed this book immensely. I can't wait to see where David Brin takes it from here.

I was impressed beyond my wildest expectations (which were quite low after having read Foundation's Fear)! Greg Bear's creative imagination has added a powerful, page-turning interpretation of the Grand Master's universe. What a fantastic idea R. Lodovic presented! Bear's climactic recreation of Seldon's trial also had me fully engrossed. I finished the book in 3 hours without pause. Asimov would have been proud to see his Foundation series added to with this wild tale.

One of my favorite Foundation books is "Forward the Foundation". I did not think that Benford's novel added anything to the story between "Eto Demerzel" and "Cleon I" (I HATED the sims, memes, tiktoks, pans, and the characters did not seem right). "Foundation and Chaos" expanded on "Epilogue" and "The Psychohistorians". It has great characters and a great plot. I wish that Bear and Brin would have never mentioned the sims, and wormholes. I do not think that Brin's novel added much to the Foundation Universe. The plot was not as solid as Bear's and he tried to tie up the loose ends in a way that I do not think Asimov would have done. It seemed like it's main purpose was to tie up loose ends.