I’ve saved this book for over twenty years
And only read it now
And since it is only nominally science fiction
But really a sort of lyrical musing on aging
I’m glad I waited
It makes so much more sense to me at 52
Than it would of at 31

Asimov: one of my favorite writers
Although I loved him for his science essays
Long before I ever read his fiction

The original Foundation trilogy was a great favorite
That I read first in the 1980’s
And when the new Foundation books came out
I read the first two of those
And had been saving the last two
(The prequels)
Until a couple of weeks ago

The second of the two prequels
Was a kind of throwback
Written in the style of the original Trilogy
That had been penned 40 years prior
Connected short stories
With longish discontinuities in time

But this book had a special feel
The glow of a man approaching death
And meditating on the meaning of a life’s work
And how doing it to the best of one’s abilities
Can cost so much in relationships

I would recommend this book to anyone, but
Only after reading the other six Foundation books
In the order they were written
(Not following the internal chronology)

And when you get to the end
And you think back over all that has come before
In a series of books written over an almost 50 year period
The scope of imagination involved
Is truly
Astronomical