You should read this book once. And when you finish it you can play a substitution game.

Here are the main elemnts of the substituion game : the boy, the treasure, the Alchemist, the journey. If you substitute correct words then this small able turns into a guide.

In his search, he finds himself in a mystical world, guided by the newspaper articles written by his brother-in-law Jelal. In this magical trip his road crosses many times with gansters, executioners, dictators, photographers, retired soldiers, grocers, Jelalettin Rumi and other strange bunch of people you cannot even dream of in such a book. It is amazing diversity of characters collected in one volume. The only other books I know which can do this are encyclopedias.

This is the most complex book I have ever read. First time I have read this book was four years ago. Then I read some books about mystisizim, philosophy and literature and then re-read this book last summer. I realised how much I have missed in the first reading. Then I read a whole book consisting essays about this book and then I saw that I missed more than half of the hidden connections in the second pass as well.

If you are planning to go for this book : BEWARE. YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH IT. It is a very famous book in Turkey and only one out of ten readers finish it. (My own statistics from my own friends. I know nine other guys who skipped the book after reading one or two chapters.)

P.S. My review is based on the Turkish version but I have bought and examined the English version as well. Good translation.

In this book, the First Foundation is back on track and moving on to be the greatest power in Galaxy. However, science and technology alone do not bring power.

They encounter a planet, called Gaia, where the mind and soul of everything on the planet comes together to form a bigger mind and soul.

This idea is a reflection of Mysticism to science-fiction but Asimov makes a great job in integrating it to a science-fiction story.

This book can be read as a continuation of the saga or as a stand alone book. However reading the first three book of the saga first is better.