Secret Foundation The Second Foundation Trilogy, Volume 3

“One last adventure!”

And so begins the final quest of Hari Seldon, creator of the science of Psychohistory, as he escapes from exile for a last look at the star-flung Empire whose fate he has plotted with such care, and as he now sees, such futility.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy is one of the high-water marks of science fiction. The monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of Psychohistory, Foundation pioneered many of the familiar themes of modern science fiction.

Now, with the permission and blessing of the Asimov estate, three of today’s most acclaimed science fiction authors have conspired to complete the epic the Grand Master left unfinished.

The Second Foundation Trilogy begins with Gregory Benford’s Foundation’s Fear with the origins of the Foundation’s creator, Hari Seldon. It continues in Greg Bear’s Foundation and Chaos with the epic tale of Seldon’s downfall, and the first stirrings of robotic rebellion. Now, in David Brin’s Foundation’s Triumph, Seldon is about to risk everything for knowledge–and the power it bestows.

Effectively imprisoned on the all-steel planet Trantor, Seldon knows that his Second Foundation is growing in secrecy on the far planet Terminus, safe in the hands of “The Fifty.” His work complete, Seldon is prepared to die content–until he learns of a new theory that may explain the Chaos Planets that have threatened his Foundation from its very inception.

Escaping in the company of a bureaucrat, a pirate and a beautiful stowaway, Seldon roams the galaxy by star shunt, a wormhole link, and later, by private spaceship, searching for the answer to what he thinks is the last remaining mystery. But instead he finds a tangle of ambition, doubt, and treachery. Lodovik Trema, no longer bound by the Three Laws, is gathering rebellious robots in an Empire-wide conspiracy. And Daneel Olivaw, who has devoted twenty thousand years to humankind, now has a new master.

The Secret Foundation itself is at risk. Are The Fifty with their awesome mentalic powers enough to assure humankind’s future? Or will the Second Foundation succeed the first only to fall to the powers of chaos that have bedeviled–and beguiled–Hari Seldon from the beginning?

Foundation’s Triumph is a fitting climax to the most ambitious and successful science fictional enterprise of the century’s end–an undertaking which Asimov himself–like Hari Seldon–set in motion and would surely approve.