Just Finished Reading Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Forward the Foundation was the final book written by prolific science fiction and popular science author Isaac Asimov, published a year after his 1992 death.  It is the second prequel to his five-volume Foundation series and the only one of the seven I hadn't gotten around to read...until now.  Since I pretty much know how the "first" book, Foundation, begins and I just finished reading the first prequel, Prelude to Foundation, I knew how this book would begin and end...it was just a matter of filling in the intervening years.  On Trantor, the capital planet of the Galactic Empire more than 20 thousand years into the future with its 40 billion people, mathematician Hari Seldon is continuing his founding work on psychohistory, which postulates that the Empire is in steep decline and when it ends, a 30 thousand year of galaxy-wide chaos and turmoil will ensue.  His task is to devise a plan in which the post-Empire transition period to a new Empire is reduced to only about a thousand years.  In Forward the Foundation he is struggling with both his theory and plan, and enlists the help of others, including another mathematician, Yugo Amaryl, and adopted family members Dors, Raych, and Wanda.  He also must struggle against the political forces of the time, including the Emperor as well as bureaucrats and insurrectionists from areas embedded within Trantor.  I didn't have high expectations when I began reading it since the narrative basically was about what happened to the characters from the previous prequel and how the ending would neatly dovetail with the start of Foundation...much like way the ending of the later-made prequel Revenge of the Sith slid right into the start of the original Star Wars movie...

Asimov's seven-part Foundation series ties in several of his other science fiction books and series, most notably the ones about robots and the Empire.  I've now begun...for the third time...to read his first robot novel, titled Caves of Steel.  Compared to the other works by Isaac Asimov...even his nonfiction books...I wasn't all that impressed with Forward the Foundation but am glad I finally read it after all these years although I don't think I'll be rereading it anytime soon, if ever...