by James Gunn
Similar deviousness lies behind her actions with Compor. Deviousness, however, is common to all the characters. It comes naturally to the Speakers of the Second Foundation, who are revealed in Foundation's Edge as intriguing for power as relentlessly as any non-mentalist. Most important, it is characteristic of Trevise, who is the critical character in the novel, if not, indeed, its hero. Trevise is continually re-evaluating the actions of the other characters, particularly in his conversations with Pelorat, whose major function in the novel is to act as confidante for Trevise (the business about Earth, though it provides substance for a sequel, here seems more like an excuse for Pelorat's presence, and the possible existence of Earth is presented too dramatically to lead only to Gaia, and Trevise does not need Pelorat to lead him there). Pelorat, though he is better characterized and plays a more substantial role, is Trevise's "Bigman" Jones.
The motivation-behind-motivation method is appropriate to the subject of the novel. When psychological control of people's actions and even of people's thoughts occurs, the hiding and questioning of motivation is natural. Moreover, Foundation's Edge operates both as a novel of intrigue and as a mystery. The various political intrigues that are at work in the First Foundation's councils on Terminus and that are found on Sayshell and, by implication, on every other planet in the Galaxy, thrive on actions taken ostensibly for one reason but actually for another.
More significantly, the novel functions, in typical Asimovian fashion, as a mystery that begins with the apparent goal of locating the Second Foundation (the mystery that sustained the last half of the Trilogy) and then is diverted to locating the power that has kept galactic events impossibly close to Seldon's Plan, with subsidiary mysteries along the way, such as why information about Earth has disappeared from the Second Foundation's (computer) library, why Gaia is feared on Sayshell and why it is not recorded in Foundation files, etc. As a mystery the major question of the novel is who (or what) done it? Various characters are presented as suspects: Pelorat, Compor, Kodell, Branno, and Sura Novi, the peasant woman from Trantor who aspires to be a Scowler (scholar) and, having attached herself to Gendibal, is taken along to the confrontation with Trevise, near Gaia. And, indeed, more than one turns out to be something other than what he or she seems.
Some reviews noted the increased role given to women, but the women of Foundation's Edge are not significantly female. The leader of the First Foundation, Mayor Branno, is a woman, but she is cast in the same mold as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow. Though she makes a critical error in judgment, it would be a mistake to categorize this as a feminine mistake; it is motivated by ambition, and the other characters, mostly male, make similar mistakes. Novi, though more complex than she appears, has a public persona much like that of Valona March of The Currents of Space. Bliss, the Gaian young woman with the fast quip and the erotic outlook, is a bit different from most Asimov characters, but she may or may not be a robot. Bayta of "The Mule" and Arkady Darell of "Second Foundation," though they are not feminists, are at least as sympathetically drawn.
Reviews pointed out that Asimov in his new novel updated his Foundation universe scientifically (as well as socially). Just as, in later editions of Asimov's "Lucky Starr" juveniles, he pointed out the scientific inaccuracies that later discoveries had revealed, so in Foundation's Edge Asimov made his Foundation Galaxy more scientifically plausible without going back to revise the earlier stories.
In his later novels, however, Asimov was tidying up. It was not so much that the Trilogy universe was scientifically inaccurate as that scientific accuracy was not that important; the speculation about future history and the prediction of events through psychohistory was what mattered, and the absence of computers (which Asimov was contemplating in his robot stories, which he wanted to keep separate so that he could continue with one if he, or his readers, grew tired of the other) seemed more irrelevant than a failure of the imagination. But at the age of 62 Asimov was another man with a different sense of values. After Sputnik he had turned to the writing of science popularizations with a sense of urgency and dedication to increasing the general store of scientific knowledge. In 1982 he could not be as casual about separating the fiction writer from the scientist who knew better. In Foundation's Edge the computer plays a significant part and one that promised to grow more significant in sequels. In his memoir he said that "I just put very advanced computers in the new Foundation novel and hoped that nobody would notice the inconsistency. Nobody did." More accurately, people noticed but didn't care.
Asimov also neatened up the Foundation Galaxy with recent knowledge about galactic evolution and black holes, indicating in one place that the center of the galaxy is uninhabitable because of the huge black hole there, and in several other places that most of the planets in the Galaxy are inimical to human life. Neither appeared in the Trilogy.
Asimov also included in Foundation's Edge references not only to the earlier Foundation stories but to other Asimov works: the robot stories; the Robot Novels, with their future history of space colonization and robotic civilization, that differed in significant respects from the other novels that fit more neatly into the Foundation future history; Pebble in the Sky; and The End of Eternity. In an afterword, Asimov noted the references to the other works as well as to the fact that the references to The End of Eternity are not quite consistent with the events described in that novel.
So Asimov returned the reader to the Foundation universe of the 1940s, but he returned with a greater conviction about the importance of accurate science and of public understanding of science, and of the importance of ecology. Gaia, for instance, is ecology carried to the ultimate degree of self-awareness; it is ecology personified.
More important, Foundation's Edge altered the message of the Trilogy the message that rationality is the only human trait that can be trusted and that it will, if permitted to do so, come up with the correct solution. That message is embodied not only in Seldon's psychohistory but in the actions of the men and women who work to preserve the First and Second Foundations and Seldon's Plan, and even those who try to destroy them. In the new novel, however, Asimov allowed to creep in (or pushed in) a significant element of mysticism. Mysticism is present in Gaia, the planet that acts as a gigantic mind made up of variously sentient parts (although an explanation is proposed that the robots perhaps going back to the unfortunate Herbie of "Liar!" have perfected telepathy and are continuing their guardianship of humanity, as in "The Evitable Conflict"), and mysticism is evident in Trevise's grasp on correctness when he is "sure" he is always right, like Paul in D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner."
Hari Seldon and his rational psychohistory are accordingly de-emphasized. Even though Seldon's thousand-year Plan is preserved as Trevise chooses the status quo and even though Gaia (which is the mysterious force both Trevise and Gendibal have suspected) has acted to restore Seldon's Plan after the disturbances caused by the Mule (who is revealed, a bit unconvincingly, as a Gaian renegade), the Plan seems inconsequential when compared to the Gaian vision of "Galaxia! Every inhabited planet participating. Every star. Every scrap of interstellar gas. Perhaps even the great central black hole. A living galaxy and one that can be made favorable for all life in ways that we cannot foresee. . . ." It is a concept to rival that of Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, but it is transcendence reached by faith rather than by reason.
What could have led Asimov to what seems like a change of heart after a life dedicated to the rational pursuit of the right thing to do? Perhaps it is pushing the facts beyond a reasonable doubt to suggest that Asimov may have seen himself as Trevise, the man who has always been right, but Asimov was popularly perceived as a repository of not only facts but wisdom, and his opinions and recommendations were sought after and paid for. He dedicated himself to the education of the masses through numerable (he numbered them himself) books and innumerable articles. Nevertheless, as he looked around him, he must have seen the world as ignorant as it was when he began, and perhaps mor
e dangerously ignorant. Could he help but have wished for an opportunity such as that offered Trevise the chance to make the right decision for the whole galaxy?
One might speculate that, as successful as his career in teaching science and communicating a rational approach to human problems had been, his failure to make an impression on the invincible ignorance of the American public might have led him to write more science fiction rather than the science popularizations to which he had mostly dedicated himself after 1958. Whether he should do so was a question he asked his readers in the February 1983 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine under the title "More Asimov?" He could have had little doubt about the answer, because he had already accepted a contract to write the third volume in his Robot novel series.
Although Foundation's Edge is like The Foundation Trilogy in many ways, it also departs significantly from its predecessors; what may be surprising is its similarities. Asimov, forty years older, had changed in other ways. He was no longer a student, no longer concerned about money, no longer anxious to please John Campbell. At that point in his life, the only worry about writing SF (the worry that kept him from writing SF for so long before The Gods Themselves) was that his work would not seem worthy by current standards. He could write relaxed except for the need not to disgrace himself or to reduce the significance of his earlier work. In Foundation's Edge, the reader could see Asimov enjoying himself.
Not that the novel is without flaws. On the plot level, for instance, the First Foundation's development of the "mental shield" catches the Second Foundation by surprise. Though it is described as the most secret of projects, it is the very thing following Toran Darell's invention of the Mental Static machine in "Search by the Foundation" that the Second Foundation psychologists would have kept closest watch on and would have sabotaged.
The Mule's origin on Gaia seems inconsistent both with what we know about the Mule and what we know about Gaia. His sterility, for instance, which was revealed so dramatically at the conclusion of "The Mule," is a logical outgrowth of his origin as a natural mutation. But there is nothing about origin on Gaia that would make sterility anything more than accidental, unless it was the reason for the Mule's becoming a renegade. But surely in a planetary gestalt dissident feelings and thought are impossible to conceal, and why would sterility disturb a member of the gestalt, who is survived by the entire planet? An elderly Gaian points out that "there is no more desire to live past one's time than to die before it."
Finally, on the level of ideas, Foundation's Edge features a significant and unhealthy emphasis on the control of others. Perhaps this was an inevitable outgrowth of the abilities of Second Foundation psychologists. Perhaps it is implicit in Hari Seldon's manipulations and even in his psychohistorical predictions. But, as pointed out in Chapter Three, Seldon's manipulations are resistible, and rational and determined people must act independently to carry out Seldon's Plan. The logical persuasion practiced by Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow, and even the subterfuges resorted to by Harla Branno, are not fearsome or repellent in the way the reader (and Asimov) views the Mule's powers, and the similar powers exercised by Second Foundation psychologists seem little more benign. That is why the earlier edition of this book expected the First Foundation to restore the balance overthrown by the success of the Second Foundation plot in "Search by the Foundation." I thought Asimov dreaded the Second Foundation's "benevolent dictatorship of the mentally best" as much as I did.
In a way he did. The analysis performed near Gaia points out that the Second Foundation, if successful, would create "a paternalistic Empire, established by calculation, maintained by calculation, and in perpetual living death by calculation." On the other hand, Asimov seemed to have lost his confidence in the First Foundation's rational men and women: the First Foundation would create "a military Empire, established by strife, maintained by strife, and eventually destroyed by strife." So we are left with Gaia's solution of "Galaxia."
Even before Foundation's Edge was published, Doubleday, confident of its financial success on the basis of advance sales and foreign rights, offered Asimov a contract for a new novel at a substantially larger advance. The date was May 18, 1982, and on September 22, Asimov started writing a sequel to The Robot Novels. His working title was The World of the Dawn, because it would take place on Aurora, where R. Daneel Olivaw had been created, but Doubleday insisted that a robot novel had to have "robot" in the title. Asimov completed The Robots of Dawn on March 28, 1983, and the novel was published the same year, with almost as much success as Foundation's Edge. Asimov thought it should have done better, since it was a better book, and he was right.
The most remarkable aspect of The Robots of Dawn is that without apparent effort he was able to recapture the spirit and style that he displayed when he wrote its predecessors, The Caves of Steel in 1954 and The Naked Sun in 1957. He had already demonstrated this unusual ability to restore himself to the writer he was decades before with Foundation's Edge. What makes this feat even more remarkable is the fact that the Foundation's Edge and The Robots of Dawn are written in different styles.
I had expected a sequel to the Foundation series, God and Asimov willing, because: the series as it existed in print covered only about 400 years of the 1,000 years of barbarism predicted by Hari Seldon; the Trilogy was not only open-ended and the promised new Galactic civilization had not been achieved, but the end of "Search by the Foundation" (the second half of Second Foundation) with the victory of the Second Foundation suggested to me a future in which an elite group of psychologists would exercise mental control over everybody else, and I felt that this outcome was inconsistent with Asimov's personal beliefs.
My reasons for not expecting a sequel to The Robot Novels seemed just as valid:
the first two novels lead to a third only if one considers them to be about C/Fe the blend of humanity and robots into a better-working culture. Even on these terms, a novel placed on Aurora would have been the most difficult of dramatic forms to bring off successfully, and out of keeping with the forms of the two earlier novels, a Utopia. And C/Fe is only a small part of what The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun are about. More engrossing and more vital, it seems to me, are Earth and Solaria as cultural mirror-images; in this sense a third novel would seem at best only a middle-ground and at worst unnecessary. Finally, if one reads the novels as I have tried to argue they should be read, as Baley's education an example of the plot that Heinlein has called "the-man-who-learned-better" then that education has been completed. Anything more is simple elaboration.
From this one might assume that I am going to defend my predictions by praising Foundation's Edge and criticizing The Robots of Dawn, but that is not my intention. I think The Robots of Dawn is a better novel than Foundation's Edge. But what I have to say about the novel can best be understood when it is related to the reasons why I thought such a book would not be written.
The fact is that Asimov did not make Aurora (the "Dawn" of the title) a Utopia. Although it may represent a more appropriate blend of man and robot into a civilization, it is not C/Fe at its most ideal (whatever that is). Indeed, in the final analysis, one of the novel's purposes is to find a rationale for destroying C/Fe, to exclude robots from the Asimovian future of the Galactic Empire that rises and lasts for 12,000 years, only to fall and then a possible 30,000 years of barbarism is reduced to only 1,000 years by Hari Seldon's psychohistory and the Foundations.
Asimov used Foundation's Edge to bring the Foundation universe into the beginnings of a consistency with the rest of his stories, in particular the robot stories, and he used The Robots of Dawn to bring The Robot Novels into the same consistency. There are no robots in the Foundation universe at least until Foundation's Edge. Asimov had discussed with his paperback editors (and friends), the del Reys, Judy-Lynn and Lester, his plans to bring his novels into a self-consistent body of work, and they thought it was a terrible idea. Asimov was worried that the del Reys might not buy the paperback rights, particularly to th
e sequel, Robots and Empire, but his editor, now Kate Medina, said that was Doubleday's worry. When The Robots of Dawn appeared, Brian Stableford called Asimov's attempts to bring his various novels into one consistent future history misguided (as a foolish consistency, that is). I suspect that Asimov would have replied that it was his creation and, like God, he could do what he liked with it. I look upon Asimov's concern with this side issue as a kind of playfulness that I find amusing if not altogether artistically rewarding (not, as Stableford would have it, comforting in its claustrophiliac enclosure). We should be willing to concede to Asimov the same kind of freedom we grant to writers of more traditional narrative.