Book · 1951
Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
A mathematician predicts the empire's collapse centuries out and plants a colony at the galaxy's edge to shrink the coming dark age from thirty thousand years to one.
What does Reddit think of Foundation?
r/printSF is where the real argument lives, and it runs both ways in the same subreddit. One heavily upvoted comment calls the characters "disappointingly unalive and unrelatable," arguing Asimov uses people without caring whether they feel like people. Another, right there with it, keeps the book on a genre-essentials list anyway, for one reason only: "if only because it inspired so much else." That's the whole tension. r/Fantasy's mentions skew toward what happens in it rather than how it reads, quoting the premise where Earth has been forgotten so thoroughly that even believers in humanity's single origin are looking in the wrong places. r/suggestmeabook keeps reaching for it as shorthand, a known quantity to compare new asks against, which is a different kind of endorsement than actually liking the prose. Influence and readability, on this evidence, are not the same claim.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Historical prediction and the psychohistory premise
- · Characters used as vehicles rather than people
- · Earth forgotten as myth inside its own future
- · Influence on the genre versus enjoyment of the book
- · Later novels stitching Foundation to the Robot and Empire series
Common praise
- + A r/printSF commenter keeps it on their essentials list for one stated reason: it inspired so much of what came after.
- + r/Fantasy quotes the forgotten-Earth premise directly, treating the galaxy-wide loss of humanity's origin story as the book's strongest idea.
- + r/suggestmeabook reaches for it as the default comparison point when someone asks for something in a similar shape.
Common criticism
- − A top r/printSF comment says the characters are unalive and unrelatable, and extends that complaint to most of Asimov's writing.
- − The praise on r/printSF leans almost entirely on historical influence, not on how the book reads scene to scene.
Who it's for
Come for the premise, not the prose, if r/printSF's own split is any guide. You want to see where a lot of galaxy-spanning science fiction actually got its ideas? Start here, since one r/printSF regular keeps it around for exactly that reason. Want characters who feel like they have private lives off the page? The same subreddit's top comment says look elsewhere, and means Asimov's catalogue generally, not just this book. Already tracking the wider Robot and Empire series? r/Fantasy notes Asimov stitched all three together with later novels, so this isn't a self-contained read if you go looking for the connections.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
- r/suggestmeabook 1,602
- r/printSF 1,271
- r/booksuggestions 668
- r/Fantasy 270
- r/TrueLit 13
- r/horrorlit 4
- r/YAlit 4
- r/RomanceBooks 3
Which Reddit comments matter for Foundation?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“Hmm. * The **Malazan** mega-cycle created by Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont consists of the 10-book **Malazan Book of the Fallen**, the **Kharkanas Trilogy**, the **Witness Trilogy**, the 6-book **Novels of the Malazan Empire** and the 4-book (so far) **Path to Ascendancy** series, not to mention…
“Sequels/prequels written by people other than the original author. So things like Brian Herbert's Dune books and the non-Asimov Foundation books.
“Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I feel this way about most of his writing: the characters are just so disappointingly unalive and unrelatable. He _uses_ characters but he doesn't care about making them feel real or human. No one ever seems to have private universes, they're all just slinging around ins…
“The Foundation series by Asimov? Obviously that starts with a futuristic society and ends with an even more futuristic society, rather than starting from an ancient one, but its still a similiar concept
“I think you issue is perspective. When Neuromancer we written, there was nothing like it, there was no WWW, there was barely an internet at all, and what there was was 2 military computers and 3 big colleges. A lot of the concepts used had never been used before in any way. At the time it was truly …
“OK no one is doing scifi yet! Beginner: - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Intermediate: - Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov - Manta's Gift by Timothy Zahn - illuminae: The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman…
“Asimov's Foundation. They don't know of earth anymore. Most don't even believe humans came from a single world. And those who belive in earth look at all the wrong places.
“The Dispossessed and/or The Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula K. LeGuin. Foundation- Isaac Asimov. If only because it inspired so much else.
“The first "foundation" novel by asimov might scratch your itch. It's basically smart people analyzing all of history and finding clever ways of winning the war by losing the battle. The first couple books by django wrexler might do it in a more military sense. An out of left field …
“On the scifi side, Asimov connected his 3 main series (Robot, Empire, and Foundation) via "new" novels years after the originals.
“Asimov's Foundation series
“I feel like a heretic just saying this, but most of the Foundation series. I love Asimov - the Robot series, the short stories, the standalone novels (The End of Eternity is IMO underrated), just about everything I've read by him. But the Foundation series, except for the first novel, just doesn't w…
“Here's some classic SF and fantasy. Isaac Asimov's original {{Foundation}} trilogy covers the Milky Way Galaxy. It's inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire, and it's considered by many (including me) to be one of the greatest trilogies in science fiction. I wouldn't recommend any of the later boo…
“The Foundation trilogy is boring and dated. The early books are a series of short stories with a framing device that doesn't do a great job merging them together. Each story has far too much dialog and little actual action (show, don't tell). Each story ends too soon, it was very jarring. The Mule…
“Chinese reader here. The bad writing is not a translation problem: it is generally agreed in China’s sf circles too that Liu is not a good writer in terms of prose. But I do want to give credit for him that some of his sentences do at times hit surprisingly deep, and I think these little things are …
Convinced? Pick up Foundation
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Foundation — counted from the comments, not curated.
Foundation — frequently asked
Does Reddit think Foundation has good characters?+
No, per the strongest displayed r/printSF opinion on it.
Why does Reddit still recommend Foundation if the characters get criticized?+
Influence, mainly. The same r/printSF thread that criticizes the characters keeps the book on an essentials list "if only because it inspired so much else." r/suggestmeabook separately treats it as a default reference point whenever someone asks for something in a similar vein, which rewards its ideas and its reach far more than its prose or characters.
Is Foundation part of a larger Asimov series I need to read in order?+
It connects to more than most first-time readers expect. r/Fantasy notes Asimov later linked his Robot, Empire, and Foundation series together through additional novels written years after the originals came out, so the original trilogy is a starting point rather than the full picture if you're chasing every connection between the three.
What is Foundation's core premise, according to Reddit's own quotes?+
A displayed r/Fantasy excerpt frames it precisely: in Foundation's world, most people no longer know Earth ever existed, don't believe humanity came from one single planet, and the few who do believe it are searching in all the wrong places for proof. That forgotten-origin premise is what gets quoted here, more often than any one character or plot turn.