Foundation and Chaos
by Greg Bear

Of the various Science Fiction series around, one of my favourite has to be Isaac Asimov's 'Foundation' series. The series is based on the idea of Psychohistory: the ability to predict, via mathematical models, the reactions of a large group of humans (in Asimov's case, the reactions of a galaxy full of humans). In his later Foundation books, Asimov concentrated more on the man who originated Psychohistory, Hari Seldon (which came to be based on Asimov).

Foundation and Chaos is the second book in the 'new' 'Foundation' series, authorised by the last Asimov's estate. The first book, Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford was, in my opinion, an interesting book. But Benford added in details and characters that complemented but did not fit into Asimov's story-lines.

In this second book, Greg Bear continues where Benford left off. Trantor, the capitol planet of the Galactic Empire has now decayed severely with various public systems constantly breaking down. Seldon, now an old man, is to be charged with sedition by the Commission of Public Safety. The time is near when the fate of Seldon's Foundation (the nucleus of a new empire) will be decided.

In this comes a mix of potential crisis points that could threaten him; robots and the rise of people with strong mentalic (or persuasive) powers. Robots (based on Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics) are a relatively late introduction by Asimov into the 'Foundation' series but in this book, the robots share centre stage with Seldon. The mentalics, among them Seldon's granddaughter, are to become a core part of the Seldon Plan to bring about a new empire.

While attempting to save a small number of people from an exploding nova, a rescue ship is thrown into its path. On board the ship is a robot who, after being rescued, discovers that he is no longer bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. From this new perspective, the robot finds himself unable to support Seldon's ideas for a new empire based on Psychohistory.

Back on Trantor, a girl (with mentalic powers) finds herself being pursued by the Emperor's security forces, lead by a renegade from Seldon's group of mentalics. This forces her to seek shelter from an underground group which will lead her to a possible confrontation with Seldon.

This book is a mix of light philosophical and 'restricted' speculation; restricted in the sense that Asimov, in his first 'Foundation' book, had already written what will happen to Seldon. Constrained by this and by what Benford had already written in the previous book. Thus, Bear has the difficult task of introducing elements that would make this book an interesting read, while still keeping to the known parts from other books. In this respect, Bear does reasonably well. Unlike Benford, who introduced wormholes and virtual beings (not mentioned at all by Asimov), Bear choose to keep more to what Asimov originally wrote, while weaving into it elements that Benford had introduced. It is a tightrope maneuver that occasionally fails.

Bear does give the robots an impressive amount of free will (to the point of having many conflicting groups of robots) while still keeping to Asimov's Three Laws. Somehow, I feel this keeps to the 'spirit' of Asimov's writing, who prefers to have groups conflict over different viewpoints in his books.

Foundation and Chaos is a reasonable "Foundation" novel with some odd jarring moments, especially in sections featuring the mentalics. It helps if you're familiar with Asimov's 'Foundation' stories as it is definitely not a stand-alone book.

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Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear

Foundation and Chaos
by Greg Bear