"Foundation": The Most Boring Novel in the History of Science Fiction Becomes Heteronormative TV

Every three or four years since I was around 15, I've picked up Isaac Asimov's Foundation (1951), lured by assurances that it's a magnificent accomplishment, a classic, essential reading, the book that propelled science fiction from Buck Rogers-style space operas to college literature classrooms.

So I start.  And it's just so darn bo--rrrr--ing that I give up after 10 or 20 pages.  Asimov is obsessed with politics, economics, and business, three of the dullest topics imaginable.  

We've seen the premise 100 times before, but I suppose that in 1951, it was brand new:  12,000 years after the beginning of the Galactic Empire, it is in decline.  Just like...um...er...the Roman Empire?   Asimov is not good at cultural changes, so people 20,000 or so years from now act exactly the way they did in 1951, smoking cigars, wearing neckties, and filling their offices with men only.  They don't even have automatic elevators.

There are five or six parts, each with different characters.  I've only read the first:  A  young man named Gael travels from the provinces to the galactic hub planet of Trantor.  En route, he explains in detail how the spaceship works, which seems ridiculous.  Do you usually spend your flight thinking about how airplanes work?

In the city, Gael befriends a man named Jalen or something (naturally -- there are only male characters).  I'm thinking  "Gay subtext!"  But Jalen turns out to be a spy of the Imperium, trying to get the dirt on his new boss, Hari Seldom or something.

Hari Seldom has invented the field of psychohistory, which can predict societal change.  Asimov obviously doesn't know anything about the social sciences -- societal change is a matter for sociology, not psychology.  He has determined that the Galactic Empire is falling apart, leading to 30,000 years of Dark Ages. 

This doesn't sit well with the Galactic Big Wigs, who think that Hari is trying to bring about the downfall.  So after a trial and inquisition, they exile Hari, Gael, and their workers (plus wives and children) to the planet of Terminus, on the far edge of the galaxy (20,000 years, and they still revere Latin?).

But it turns out that Hari has been manipulating the Galactic Big Wigs beind the scenes.  He wanted to go to Terminus, but he didn't think that his workers would go unless they were forced.  He needs a safe space to work on the vast Encyclopedia Galactica, which will preserve human knowledge and reduce the Dark Ages from 30,000 years to 1,000 years.  

Except it's all a trick.  A distraction.  The narrative switches to many years later, and a man named Salvor Hardin, who I thought was Hari Seldom's great-great grandson, but turns out to be just someone with an equally forgettable four-syllable name.  He discovers that the real goal of the Encyclopedists to start a revolt against...well, I don't know who.  By this point, I'm thinking "Life is too short.  I could be reading The Hobbit."

There's a new Foundation series on Apple TV.  I don't get Apple TV, but I don't think I would watch, anyway.  They add some hetero-romantic plotlines to the narrative.  And it's all economics, politics, and business. Let's just check out the hunks.

1. Jared Harris  as Hari Seldon, the guy who invented sociology...um, I mean psychohistory.

2. There are no women in the original novel, so no hetero-romances (no gay subtexts, either).  Here Gael has become a woman, to add some gender diversity and "love interests." Her boyfriend is Raych (Alfred Enoch, top photo), Hari Seldon's adopted son. 

3. Leo Pace (left) as the middle-aged clone of the doddering, decadent Emperor.

4. Cassion Bilton as the teenage clone of the Emperor.

5.  Salvor Hardin has become a woman too, so she can fall in love with a Han Solo-type named Hugo Cranst (Daniel MacPherson).

6. Reece Shearsmith (second photo) as an Imperial Agent who's always snooping around.

7. Elliot Cohen as Lewis Pirenne, the protagonist in one of the sections.  I never read that far.  

8. Mido Hamada as yet another Imperial spy.

9. Pravessh Rana as Rowan, an Anacreon soldier who leads an attack on Terminus.  I think Anacreon is one of the planets that split away from the Empire (20,000 years, and they still reference ancient Greece?)

10. Nikhil Parmar as another Anacreon solder.  

You're probably wondering, with all the gender and racial diversity added to the cast, is anyone portrayed as LGBTQ?  

Answer: No.