Foundation and Empire
Isaac Asimov
172 pages
published in 1952

Foundation and Empire is the middle book in the Foundationtrilogy, to which no sequels were ever written and suffers a bit from being a transitional book. The trilogy had originally been written as a series of short stories, published in Astounding before being fixed-up into novel form for publication by Gnome Press in the early fifties to prove that there was a market for science fiction novels. This fixup worked well in Foundation, but Foundation and Empire could just as well been split up between the other two books. The first half follows on naturally from Foundation, while the second half is continued in Second Foundation.

As seen in the first book, Hari Seldon was a psychohistorian who predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire and set up the Foundation to help limit the period of barbarism that would follow to a mere 1,000 years, rahter thann the 30,000 it would take otherwise for a new empire to rise. Through various crisises, predicted by Seldon and manipulated by him so that there was always only one choice for the Foundation to whether the crisis, it became a regional power in the periphery of the Galaxy, second only to the old empire. Now the Foundation faces its first direct confrontation with the empire, in the last crisis Seldon predicted correctly, while the second half of Foundation and Empire tells the story of the crisis Seldon didn't predict: the rise of the Mule.

In part I, "The General" Asimov cribs even more from Roman history than he already did with the whole premise of the series, by introducing imperial general Bel Riose and emperor Cleon II aka Belisarius and Justinian I of Byzantium. Asimov would be far from the last science fiction or fantasy author to loosely translate their story into a genre setting... Bel Riose learns from the existence of the Foundation, throught he contacts Foundation traders had made in the outer provinces of the still existing empire, quietly starts doing research on them before going on a full scale offensive. On the verge of victory however he's recalled and executed by Cleon II. All this is as Seldon forsaw. A weak general would never have dared to attack the Foundation, a strong general serving a weak emperor would turn his guns on him, while a strong general serving under a strong emperor would always rouse suspicion when too military succesful and be recalled...

Part II introduces two novelties: a crisis unforeseen by Hari Seldon and an actual female character! So far nwomen had largely stayed offstage, with only the occasional warlord's wife having a few lines. Not exactly an uncommon situation in golden age science fiction, this disappearance of half of humanity... Toran and Bayta Darell are a husband and wife Independent Trader team, who are investigating the recent takeover of one of the Foundation's neighbours by a new and powerful warlord. A series of coincidences (or are they) ends with them fleeing the planet with the Mule's court jester, going to Terminus, the Foundation's capital while the long awaited war between it and the Mule finally breaks out. as the Mule wins victory after victory the Foundation desperately awaits Hari Seldon's scheduled message.

Toran and Bayta, together with Foundation psychologist Ebling Mis and the Mule's clown travel the galaxy to find a trace of the "second foundation" mentioned once by Seldon way back when he first predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire and never mentioned or seen first. The existing Foundation is built on the physical sciences and Ebling Mis suspects the other foundation is built on the psychological and psychohistorian sciences and might hold the key to defeating the Mule... They travel to Trantor, once the seat of the emperor, a world city , but now fallen and plundered and reduced to subsistence farming. There Mis discovers the shocking secret of the Second Foundation, as the book ends...

As with Foundation you need to suspend your disbelief and get over the anachronisms -- this is after all a novel almost sixty years old created out of stories even older -- to be able to enjoy it. Taken on its own terms though it is easy to understand why this made such a great impression back then.