Foundation’s Edge cover art

Foundation’s Edge

Foundation, Book 6

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Foundation’s Edge

By: Isaac Asimov
Narrated by: William Hope
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST ALL-TIME SERIES

The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov’s iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon’s two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one that shaped science fiction as we know it today.

After a long war which saw the First Foundation emerge victorious, the Second Foundation is now believed to be extinct, and all records of planet Earth’s existence have been erased.

No one suspects that the Second Foundation could still exist. None, except Council member Golan Trevize, who finds himself ordered to leave Terminus, accompanied by historian Janov Pelorat, in order to find it.

Yet this quest will lead an unsuspecting Golan further than he could have possibly imagined – closer than ever to Earth, where the fate of the whole galaxy awaits him.

©2021 Isaac Asimov (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Space Opera Fiction Interstellar Robotics Star Wars

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue cover art
Doctor Who and the Web of Fear cover art
Birthright cover art
Dune cover art
Lancaster cover art
Caspian's Gambit cover art
The Foundation cover art
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) cover art
Star Trek, The Next Generation: Reunion (Adapted) cover art
Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours cover art
Hyperion cover art
The Antares Maelstrom cover art
Tower of Somnus Omnibus, Books 1-3 cover art
The Second Ship cover art
Gateway cover art
The Last Best Hope cover art

Critic reviews

‘One of the most staggering achievements in modern SF’
The Times

‘Isaac Asimov was one of the great explainers of the age…It will never be known how many practicing scientists today, in how many countries, owe their initial inspiration to a book, article, or short story by Isaac Asimov’
Carl Sagan

‘Asimov displayed one of the most dynamic imaginations in science fiction’
Daily Telegraph

‘Asimov’s career was one of the most formidable in science fiction’
The Times
All stars
Most relevant  
the narrator was excellent at characterisation. easy to identify which character was speaking.
I love this book as it's Asimov's attempt at linking his works into his Asimoverse as we might say today.

excellent story well narrated.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Bring back memories and also makes connections with othe Asimov books.
Now onto the last book in this series 😁

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great pace with many unexpected elements , right until the end. Will definitely be revisiting in the near future … and great to have advice on others in series , more to be done

Wonderful and interesting … a great continuation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Having listened to the somewhat disappointing prequels this was a return to the high standards of the Foundation Series proper. Conversationally driven narratives by interesting characters voiced to perfection as always by William Hope. Straight into the last book I go.

Usual Brilliance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fantastic addition to the original trilogy, expanding and fleshing out the foundation universe. Good performance from the narrator. I enjoyed this audiobook.

Great sequel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The previous foundation trilogy expressed the first and second foundations largely are positive forces, physical science and innovation are champions, and benevolent psychohistorical manipulation is great. Though the scale is vast, the focus is on crossing the 1000 years of choas and getting to the other side, everything that helps toward this end is shown positively.

The focus is more a detective focus on how - how will it be revealed that macro sociopoliticoeconomic forces made the solution to a crisis inevitable, and the actions of individuals trivial. The mule introduces an interruption to the plan and the reveal of the nature of the second foundation.

I like that this book looks expands to the bigger picture and makes clear that 1000 years isn't the end, the long term future of humanity is at stake. It critically examines the long term direction each seperate strategy represents for the long term future of humanity:

******minor spoilers below******

The first foundation as physical power without an ability to escape inevitable sociological cycles, they do not have control over their own fate.

The second foundation bearing flaws sharply expressed in 'The end of eternity', though they have the power to escape the wheel and direct macro sociopoliticaleconomic forces, are still humans, and having power over your own fate does not mean it can be used wisely and beneficially. They would choose the safest path lowest risk path for humanity always, with implicit values in their prestine mathematical modelling, generating endless stagnation, and prevent humanity from facing real problems that necessitate real solution requiring fundamental change.

I thought in this and the next novel, the third path was not sufficiently investigated for flaws. Asimov likely felt the same way since I think he wrote himself into a corner and didn't finish the series (though these two books do come to a conclusion, it is a conclusion similar to that of the first trilogy, satisfying in its own right but indicating that a large development is on the horizon) - which is understandable since he was a sceptical man and would be unwilling to come to a definitive conclusion on the ideal future path for humanity. So in a way, these novels (this and the next one) are as conclusive as they could be - leaving us in a state of scientific experimentation where new emergent information may redirect events and change conclusions, with minds being open to change as new evidence emerges.

A conjunction and challenging of ideas expressed in the series and in other Isaac Asimiv works.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The each book in the foundation series has been unique while maintaining the fundamental theme and thoroughly entertaining. I look forward to the next

Brilliant and enthralling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Story teller very good. The story leaves you wondering what might be or happen in the future.

The connections to some thing greater

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A very exciting and interesting sequel to The Foundation, which, together with Foundation and Earth, expand the story and give it even greater depth!

Masterful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This tale is a worthy sequel to the Foundation series, even though it was published thirty years after the original 1950s trilogy. It is a stand-alone novel, but will be enjoyed—and understood—far more if the earlier books have been read first. Once more it does not disappoint with its twists and turns, and has some excellent set-piece stand-offs, when it is the strength of the rhetoric of the characters rather than their military might or fancy gadgets that generally win the day.

Asimov reveals that the leaders of both of the Foundations that are supposed to save the Galaxy from 30,000 years of chaos have feet of clay. In spite of their exalted positions they are, after all, just human. He also manages to combine in this book elements of his robot stories and novels as well as his book on time travel, ‘The End of Eternity’. And yet again he succeeds in getting more mileage from his famous three laws of robotics.

Having said all of that, the book does suffer somewhat from Asimov’s failure in his later books to avoid padding the narrative with endless dialogue as well as the exposition of some of his pet theories. There are also aspects of the dialogue and plot line that reveal the book to belong to the permissive 1980s rather than the prim and proper 1950s, and personally I could have done without these. Nevertheless, in general it ‘feels’ like classic Asimov. Once more William Hope does sterling service as the narrator.

A worthy sequel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.