Farewell Foundation!!!

This post is a post of remembrance of the ten months in which I finished the Foundation series by Asimov; a ten months which I enjoyed immensely and in which i became a lifelong advocate of science-fiction stories.

My flirtation with the foundation series began five years ago when foundation series was a part of G's course. There was no Wikipedia but Google was enough to whet my appetite. But being perpetually broke, and each book costing upwards of 300/-, the foundation series were out of reach.

But before foundation series, I read the short stories of Asimov. This is when I simply fell in love with the genre. Having been a fan of Star Trek, i guess i was very susceptible anyway.

In my first year of MBA, i discovered the magic of e-books. Having got hold of the whole collection of Asimov a few months ago, i finally took the plunge and read the first book of the series i.e. "Prelude to Foundation" in my second semester of MBA. And boy was i hooked!!!

There are these books in which you just immerse yourself - not only in the storyline but also in the characters. By the time i was through with the first book, Hari Seldon, Dors Venabili, Raych etc were familiar people. The combination of a rollicking adventure, the science aspect, the creation of a whole new universe in itself was seductive.

Over the next ten months, i wolfed down the rest of the series one by one, whenever i had time; of which i did not have much, considering the pressure of MBA and the work of the council team on top of that...but as they say, you always find a way if you really want it bad enough; and reading this series was something i did want badly. The galaxy of people who became an enjoyable fixture expanded to include people like Savor Hardin, Huber Mallow, the Mule etc. The more i progressed in the series, the more i got immersed in the twists and turns of the story - from the mentalics to intergalactic wars - the series, for me, becoming nothing short of a visually entertaining play of words

The hallmark of a successful series, in books or movies, is that you simply cant stand still until you have finished the whole collection. The Foundation series was one such for me.

Of course, later on, i found out that the Foundation series won the Hugo prize for the "Best science fiction series of all times", beating the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In any case, i enjoyed the Lord of the Rings more so because of the magic that the Foundation series was weaving on me at that time.

I am through with the whole series and as it happens with the best of books, i feel a certain void that is bittersweet - of having something that you really loved for a long time and knowing that you enjoyed every bit of it; and then realizing that the best of things always must come to an end.

I have a 2 GB collection of e-books of science fiction books. But probably having started with the best of them, the rest of the same may not be the same. But who knows - the foundation series has opened a door for me.

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