Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.
The title "Stranger in a Strange Land" is a direct quotation from the King James Bible (taken from Exodus 2:22).
The working title for the book was "A Martian Named Smith", which was
also the name of the screenplay started by a character at the end of the
novel.
Heinlein's widow Virginia arranged to have the original unedited manuscript published in 1991, three years after Heinlein's death. Critics disagree about which version is superior, but Heinlein preferred the original manuscript and described the heavily edited version as "telegraphese".
In 2012, the Library of Congress named it one of 88 "Books that Shaped America".
Plot
The
story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and
understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post-Third World War United States, where organized religions are politically powerful. There is a World Federation of Free Nations, including the demilitarized US, with a world government supported by Special Service troops.
Prior to WWIII the manned spacecraft Envoy is launched toward Mars, but all contact is lost shortly before landing. Twenty-five years later, the spacecraft Champion makes contact with the inhabitants of Mars and finds a single survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Born on the Envoy, he was raised entirely by the Martians. He is ordered by them to accompany the returning expedition.
Because Smith is unaccustomed to the conditions on Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital,
where, having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff
only. Seeing that restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman
eludes the guards and goes in to see Smith. By sharing a glass of water
with him, she inadvertently becomes his first "water brother", which is
considered to be a profound relationship by the Martians as water on
Mars is extremely scarce.
Gillian tells her lover, reporter Ben Caxton, about her
experience with Smith. Ben explains that as heir to the entire
exploration party, Smith is extremely wealthy, and following a legal
precedent set during the colonisation of the Moon, he could be
considered owner of Mars itself. His arrival on Earth has prompted a
political power struggle that puts his life in danger. Ben persuades her
to bug
Smith's room and publishes stories to bait the government into
releasing him. Ben is seized by the government, and Gillian persuades
Smith to leave the hospital with her. When government agents catch up
with them, Smith makes the agents vanish and then is so shocked by
Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's earlier suggestion, conveys Smith to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer.
Smith continues to demonstrate psychic
abilities and superhuman intelligence, coupled with a childlike
naïveté. When Harshaw tries to explain religion to him, Smith
understands the concept of God only as "one who groks",
which includes every extant organism. That leads him to express the
Martian concept of life as the phrase "Thou art God" although he knows
that to be a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war,
clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, and the idea of an afterlife
is a fact that he takes for granted because Martian society is directed
by "Old Ones", the spirits of Martians who have "discorporated". It is
also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead in a rite similar to Holy Communion.
Eventually, Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that
human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no
applicability to a planet that is already inhabited by intelligent life.
Still inexhaustibly wealthy and now free to travel, Smith becomes
a celebrity and is feted by the Earth's elite. He investigates many
religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a
populist megachurch in which sexuality, gambling,
alcohol consumption, and similar activities are allowed and even
encouraged and considered "sinning" only when they are not under church
auspices. The Church of the New Revelation is organized in a complexity
of initiatory levels: an outer circle, open to the public; a middle
circle of ordinary members, who support the church financially; and an
inner circle of the "eternally saved", attractive, highly sexed men and
women, who serve as clergy and recruit new members. The Church owns many
politicians and uses violence against those who oppose it. Smith also
has a brief career as a magician in a carnival
(performing actual miracles), in which he and Gillian befriend the
show's tattooed lady, an "eternally saved" Fosterite named Patricia
Paiwonski.
Eventually, Smith starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All
Worlds", combining elements of the Fosterite cult (especially the sexual
aspects) with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and thus acquire the ability to truly "grok" the nature of reality, granting them psychokinesis. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy", and the church building is destroyed, but unknown to the public, Smith's followers teleport
to safety. Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to
his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has
been bequeathed to the Church. With that wealth and their new abilities,
Church members will be able to reorganize human societies and cultures.
Eventually, those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die
out, leaving Homo Superior. That incidentally may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who were responsible for the destruction of the fifth planet eons ago (resulting in the asteroid belt).
Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites.
From the afterlife, he speaks briefly to grief-stricken Jubal to
dissuade him from suicide. Having consumed a small portion of Smith's
remains in keeping with Martian custom, Jubal and some of the Church
members return to Jubal's home to regroup and prepare for their new evangelical
role founding congregations. Meanwhile, Smith reappears in the
afterlife to replace the Fosterites' eponymous founder, amid hints that
Smith was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael.
Characters
Heinlein
named his main character "Smith" because of a speech he made at a
science fiction convention regarding the unpronounceable names assigned
to extraterrestrials. After describing the importance of establishing a
dramatic difference between humans and aliens, Heinlein concluded,
"Besides, whoever heard of a Martian named Smith?" The title Stranger In a Strange Land is taken from the King James Version of Exodus 2:22, "And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land".
In the preface to the uncut, original version of the book
re-issued in 1991, Heinlein's widow, Virginia, wrote: "The given names
of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were
carefully selected: Jubal means 'the father of all,' Michael stands for 'Who is like God?'".
Valentine Michael Smith
Known as Michael Smith or "Mike", the "Man from Mars" is born on Mars in the interval between the landing of the Envoy and the arrival of the Champion. He is 20 years old when the Champion arrives and brings him to Earth.
Gillian (Jill) Boardman
A nurse at Bethesda Hospital who sneaks Mike out of government
custody. She plays a key role in introducing him to human culture and
becomes one of his closest confidantes and a central figure in the
Church of All Worlds, which Mike develops.
Ben Caxton
An early love interest of Jill and an investigative journalist (Jill sees him as of the "lippmann", political, rather than the "winchell",
or celebrity gossip inclination), who masterminds Mike's initial
freedom from custody. He joins Mike's inner circle but remains somewhat
skeptical at first of the social order that it develops.
A popular writer, lawyer, and doctor, now semi-retired to a house in the Pocono Mountains,
an influential but reclusive public figure who provides pivotal support
for Mike's independence and a safe haven for him. Elderly but in good
health, he serves as a father figure for the inner circle while keeping a
suspicious distance from it. The character's name was chosen by
Heinlein to have unusual overtones, like Jonathan Hoag. Mike enshrines him (much to Harshaw's initial chagrin) as the patron saint of the church he founds.
Anne, Miriam, Dorcas
Harshaw's three personal/professional secretaries, who live with him
and take turns as his "front", responding to his instructions. Anne is
certified as a Fair Witness, empowered to provide objective legal
testimony about events that she witnesses. All three become early acolytes of Michael's church.
Duke, Larry
Handymen who work for Harshaw and live in his estate; they also become central members of the church.
Dr. "Stinky" Mahmoud
A semanticist, crew member of the Champion and the second
human (after Mike) to gain a working knowledge of the Martian
language but does not "grok" the language. He becomes a member of the
church while retaining his Muslim faith.
Patty Paiwonski
A "tattooed lady" and snake handler at the circus Mike and Jill join
for a time. She has ties to the Fosterite church, which she retains as a
member of Mike's inner circle.
Joseph Douglas
Secretary-General of the Federation of Free States, which has evolved indirectly from the United Nations into a true world government.
Alice Douglas
Sometimes called "Agnes", Joe Douglas' wife. As the First Lady, she manipulates her husband, making major economic, political, and staffing decisions and frequently consults astrologer Becky Vesant for major decisions.
Foster
The founder of the Church of the New Revelation (Fosterite), who now exists as an archangel.
Digby
Foster's successor as head of the Fosterite Church; he becomes an archangel under Foster after Mike "discorporates" him.
Reception
Heinlein's deliberately provocative book generated considerable controversy. The free love and commune
living aspects of the Church of All Worlds led to the book's exclusion
from school reading lists. After it was rumored to be associated with Charles Manson, it was removed from school libraries as well.
Writing in The New York Times, Orville Prescott
received the novel caustically, describing it as a "disastrous mishmash
of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap
eroticism"; he characterized Stranger in a Strange Land as
"puerile and ludicrous", saying "when a non-stop orgy is combined with a
lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the
patience and intelligence of readers". Galaxy
reviewer Floyd C. Gale rated the novel 3.5 stars out of five, saying
"the book's shortcomings lie not so much in its emancipation as in the
fact that Heinlein has bitten off too large a chewing portion".
Despite such reviews, Stranger in a Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review's best-seller list. In 2012, it was included in a Library of Congress exhibition of "Books That Shaped America".
Critics have also suggested that Jubal Harshaw is actually a
stand-in for Robert Heinlein himself, based on similarities in career
choice and general disposition, though Harshaw is much older than Heinlein was at the time of writing. Literary critic Dan Schneider wrote that Harshaw's belief in his own free will, was one "which Mike, Jill, and the Fosterites misinterpret as a pandeistic urge, 'Thou art God!'"
Development
Heinlein got the idea for the novel when he and his wife Virginia were brainstorming one evening in 1948. She suggested a new version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
(1894), but with a child raised by Martians instead of wolves. He
decided to go further with the idea and worked on the story on and off
for more than a decade, believing that contemporary society was not yet ready for it. His editors at Putnam then required him to cut its 220,000-word length down to 160,000 words before publication.
Originally titled The Heretic, the book was written in
part as a deliberate attempt to challenge social mores. In the course of
the story, Heinlein uses Smith's open-mindedness to reevaluate such
institutions as religion, money, monogamy,
and the fear of death. Heinlein completed writing it ten years after he
had plotted it out in detail. He later wrote, "I had been in no hurry
to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until
the public mores changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right."
The book was dedicated in part to science fiction author Philip José Farmer, who had explored sexual themes in works such as The Lovers (1952). It was also influenced by the satiric fantasies of James Branch Cabell.
Heinlein was surprised that some readers thought the book
described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: "I
was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose
from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new
and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different
out of that book because he himself supplies the answers ... It is an
invitation to think – not to believe."
Influence
The book significantly influenced modern culture in a variety of ways.
Church of All Worlds
A
central element of the second half of the novel is the religious
movement founded by Smith, the "Church of All Worlds", an initiatory mystery religion blending elements of paganism and revivalism, with psychic training and instruction in the Martian language. In 1968, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan
religious organization modeled in many ways after the fictional
organization in the novel. The spiritual path included several ideas
from the book, including polyamory,
non-mainstream family structures, social libertarianism, water-sharing
rituals, an acceptance of all religious paths by a single tradition, and
the use of several terms such as "grok", "Thou art God", and "Never
Thirst".
Heinlein objected to Zell's lumping him with other writers such as Ayn Rand and Robert Rimmer;
Heinlein felt that those writers used their art for propaganda
purposes, while he simply asked questions of the reader, expecting each
reader to answer for him- or herself. He wrote to Zell in a letter: "...
each reader gets something different out of the book because he himself
supplies the answers. If I managed to shake him loose from some
prejudice, preconception or unexamined assumption, that was all I
intended to do."
Though Heinlein was neither a member nor a promoter of the
Church, it was formed including frequent correspondence between Zell and
Heinlein, and Heinlein was a paid subscriber to the Church's magazine Green Egg. This Church still exists as a 501(c)(3)
recognized religious organization incorporated in California, with
membership worldwide, and it remains an active part of the neopagan
community.
Grok
The word "grok",
coined in the novel, made its way into the English language. In
Heinlein's invented Martian language, "grok" literally means "to drink"
and figuratively means "to comprehend", "to love", and "to be one with".
The word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans,
hippies, and later computer programmers and hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary.
Fair Witness
The profession of Fair Witness, invented for the novel, has been cited in such varied contexts as environmentalism, psychology, technology, digital signatures, and science, as well as in books on leadership and Sufism.
A Fair Witness is an individual trained to observe events and report
exactly what is seen and heard, making no extrapolations or assumptions.
While wearing the Fair Witness uniform of a white robe, they are
presumed to be observing and opining in their professional capacity. Works that refer to the Fair Witness emphasize the profession's impartiality, integrity, objectivity, and reliability.
An example from the book illustrates the role of Fair Witness
when Anne is asked what color a house is. She answers, "It's white on
this side." The character Jubal then explains, "You see? It doesn’t
occur to Anne to infer that the other side is white, too. All the King’s
horses couldn’t force her to commit herself... unless she went there
and looked – and even then she wouldn’t assume that it stayed white
after she left.”
Waterbed
Stranger in a Strange Land contains an early description of the waterbed, an invention that made its real-world debut in 1968. Charles Hall, who brought a waterbed design to the United States Patent Office, was refused a patent on the grounds that Heinlein's descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land and another novel, Double Star (1956), constituted prior art.
In popular culture
Leon Russell and the Shelter People
features a song titled "Stranger in a Strange Land" with lyrics that
describe ideas from the novel, sometimes narrated by Valentine's
perspective, other times in a 3rd person.
Heinlein's novella Lost Legacy (1941) lends its theme, and possibly some characters, to Stranger in a Strange Land. In a relevant part of the story, Joan Freeman is described as feeling like "a stranger in a strange land".
The Police released an Andy Summers-penned song titled "Friends", as the B-side to their hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me" (1980), that referenced the novel. Summers claimed that it "was about eating your friends, or 'grocking' them as [Stranger in a Strange Land] put it".
The 1961 version which, at the publisher's request, Heinlein cut
by 25% in length. Approximately 60,000 words were removed from the
original manuscript, including some sharp criticism of American
attitudes toward sex and religion. The book was marketed to a mainstream readership, and was the first science fiction novel to be listed on The New York Times Best Seller list
for fiction. By 1997, over 100,000 copies of the hardback edition had
been sold along with nearly five million copies of the paperback. None of his later novels would match this level of success.
The 1991 version, retrieved from Heinlein's archives in the University of California, Santa Cruz,
Special Collections Department by Heinlein's widow, Virginia, and
published posthumously, which reproduces the original manuscript and
restores all cuts. It came about because in 1989, Virginia renewed the
copyright to Stranger and cancelled the existing publication contracts in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976.
Both Heinlein's agent and his publisher (which had new senior editors)
agreed that the uncut version was better: readers are used to longer
books, and what was seen as objectionable in 1961 was no longer so 30
years later.
Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart
in 1972 that he thought his shorter, edited version was better. He
wrote, "SISL was never censored by anyone in any fashion. The first
draft was nearly twice as long as the published version. I cut it myself
to bring it down to a commercial length. But I did not leave out
anything of any importance; I simply trimmed all possible excess
verbiage. Perhaps you have noticed that it reads "fast" despite its
length; that is why. ... The original, longest version of SISL ... is
really not worth your trouble, as it is the same story throughout—simply
not as well told. With it is the brushpenned version which shows
exactly what was cut out—nothing worth reading, that is. I learned to
write for pulp magazines, in which one was paid by the yard rather than
by the package; it was not until I started writing for the Saturday
Evening Post that I learned the virtue of brevity."
Additionally, since Heinlein added material while he was editing
the manuscript for the commercial release, the 1991 publication of the
original manuscript is missing some material that was in the novel when
it was first published.
The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a future Galactic Empire, the mathematician Hari Seldon spends his life developing a theory of psychohistory, a new and effective mathematical sociology. Using statistical laws of mass action, it can predict the future of large populations. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a Dark Age
lasting 30,000 years before a second empire arises. Although the
inertia of the Empire's fall is too great to stop, Seldon devises a plan
by which "the onrushing mass of events must be deflected just a little"
to eventually limit this interregnum
to just one thousand years. To implement his plan, Seldon creates the
Foundations—two groups of scientists and engineers settled at opposite
ends of the galaxy—to preserve the spirit of science and civilization,
and thus become the cornerstones of the new galactic empire.
One key feature of Seldon's theory, which has proved influential in real-world social science,
is the uncertainty principle of sociology: if a population gains
knowledge of its predicted behavior, its self-aware collective actions
become unpredictable.
The first four stories were collected, along with a new introductory story, and published by Gnome Press in 1951 as Foundation. The later stories were published in pairs by Gnome as Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953), resulting in the "Foundation Trilogy", as the series is still known.
Later sequels and prequels
In 1981, Asimov was persuaded by his publishers to write a fourth book, which became Foundation's Edge (1982).
Four years later, Asimov followed up with yet another sequel, Foundation and Earth (1986), which was followed by the prequels Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation
(1993), published after his death in 1992. During the two-year lapse
between writing the sequels and prequels, Asimov had tied in his Foundation series with his various other series, creating a single unified universe. The basic link is mentioned in Foundation's Edge:
an obscure myth about a first wave of space settlements with robots and
then a second without. The idea is the one developed in Robots of Dawn,
which, in addition to showing the way that the second wave of
settlements was to be allowed, illustrates the benefits and shortcomings
of the first wave of settlements and their so-called C/Fe (carbon/iron, signifying humans and robots together) culture. In this same book, the word psychohistory is used to describe the nascent idea of Seldon's work. Some of the drawbacks to this style of colonization, also called Spacer culture, are also exemplified by the events described all the way back in 1957's The Naked Sun.
The link between the Robot and Foundation universes was tightened by letting the robot R. Daneel Olivaw - originally introduced in The Caves of Steel
- live on for tens of thousands of years and play a major role behind
the scenes in both the Galactic Empire in its heyday and in the rise of
the two Foundations to take its place.
Asimov's Foundation series novels
Note:
This plot outline for the seven novels follows the series' in-universe
chronology, which is not the order of publication. After many years as a
trilogy comprising Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, the series was expanded by two prequels and two sequels.
Prelude to Foundation opens on the planet Trantor, the empire's capital planet, the day after Hari Seldon
has given a speech at a mathematics conference. Several parties become
aware of the content of his speech (that using mathematical formulas, it
may be possible to predict the future course of human history). Seldon
is hounded by the Emperor and various employed thugs who are working
surreptitiously, which forces him into exile. Over the course of the
book, Seldon and Dors Venabili, a female companion and professor of history, are taken from location to location by Chetter Hummin
who, under the guise of a reporter, introduces them to various
Trantorian walks of life in his attempts to keep Seldon hidden from the
Emperor.
Throughout their adventures all over Trantor, Seldon continuously denies
that psychohistory is a realistic science. Even if feasible, it may
take several decades to develop. Hummin, however, is convinced that
Seldon knows something, so he continuously presses him to work out a
starting point to develop psychohistory.
Eventually, after much traveling and introductions to various, diverse
cultures on Trantor, Seldon realizes that using the entire known galaxy
as a starting point is too overwhelming; he then decides to use Trantor
as a model to work out the science, with a goal of later using the
applied knowledge on the rest of the galaxy.
Eight years after the events of Prelude, Seldon has worked out
the science of psychohistory and has applied it on a galactic scale.
His notability and fame increase and he is eventually promoted to First
Minister to the Emperor. As the book progresses, Seldon loses those
closest to him, including his wife, Dors Venabili, as his own health
deteriorates into old age. Having worked his entire adult life to
understand psychohistory, Seldon instructs his granddaughter, Wanda, to
set up the Second Foundation.
Called forth to stand trial on Trantor for allegations of treason
(for foreshadowing the decline of the Galactic Empire), Seldon explains
that his science of psychohistory foresees many alternatives, all of
which result in the Galactic Empire eventually falling. If humanity
follows its current path, the Empire will fall and 30,000 years of
turmoil will overcome humanity before a second Empire arises. However,
an alternative path allows for the intervening years to be only one
thousand, if Seldon is allowed to collect the most intelligent minds and
create a compendium of all human knowledge, entitled Encyclopedia Galactica.
The board is still wary but allows Seldon to assemble whomever he
needs, provided he and the "Encyclopedists" be exiled to a remote
planet, Terminus. Seldon agrees to these terms – and also secretly
establishes a second Foundation of which almost nothing is known, which
he says is at the "opposite end" of the galaxy.
After fifty years on Terminus, and with Seldon now dead, the
inhabitants find themselves in a crisis. With four powerful planets
surrounding their own, the Encyclopedists have no defenses but their own
intelligence. At the same time, a vault left by Seldon is due to
automatically open. The vault reveals a pre-recorded hologram
of Seldon, who informs the Encyclopedists that their entire reason for
being on Terminus is a fraud, insofar as Seldon did not actually care
whether or not an encyclopedia was created, only that the population was
placed on Terminus and the events needed by his calculations were set
in motion. In reality, the recording discloses, Terminus was set up to
reduce the Dark Ages from 30,000 years to just one millennium, based on
following his calculations. It will develop by facing intermittent and
extreme "crises" – known as "Seldon Crises" – which the laws governing
psychohistory show will inevitably be overcome, simply because human
nature will cause events to fall in particular ways which lead to the
intended goal. The recording reveals that the present events are the
first such crisis, reminds them that a second foundation was also formed
at the "opposite end" of the galaxy, and then falls silent.
The Mayor of Terminus City, Salvor Hardin,
proposes to play the planets against each other. His plan is a success;
the Foundation remains untouched, and he becomes the effective ruler.
Meanwhile, the minds of the Foundation continue to develop newer and
greater technologies which are smaller and more powerful than the
Empire's equivalents. Using its scientific advantage, Terminus develops
trade routes with nearby planets, eventually taking them over when its
technology becomes a much-needed commodity. The interplanetary traders
effectively become the new diplomats to other planets. One such trader, Hober Mallow,
becomes powerful enough to challenge and win the office of Mayor and,
by cutting off supplies to a nearby region, also succeeds in adding more
planets to the Foundation's control.
An ambitious general of the current Emperor of the Galaxy perceives
the Foundation as a growing threat and orders an attack on it, using the
Empire's still-mighty fleet of war vessels. The Emperor, initially
supportive, becomes suspicious of his general's long-term motive for the
attack, and recalls the fleet despite being close to victory. In spite
of its undoubted inferiority in purely military terms, the Foundation
emerges as the victor and the Empire itself is defeated. Seldon's
hologram reappears in the vault on Terminus, and explains to the
Foundation that this opening of the vault follows a conflict whose
result was inevitable whatever might have been done – a weak Imperial
navy could not have attacked them, while a strong navy would have shown
itself by its successes to be a direct threat to the Emperor himself and
been recalled.
A century later, an unknown outsider called the Mule has begun
taking over planets at a rapid pace. The Foundation comes to realize,
too late, that the Mule is unforeseen in Seldon's plan, and that the
plan cannot have predicted any certainty of defeating him. Toran and Bayta Darell, accompanied by Ebling Mis
– the Foundations's greatest psychologist – and a court jester named
Magnifico familiar with the Mule, set out to Trantor to find the Second
Foundation, hoping to bring an end to the Mule's reign. Mis studies
furiously in the Great Library of Trantor to decipher the Second
Foundation's location in order to visit it and seek their help. He is
successful and also deduces that the Mule's success stems from his being
a mutant who is able to change the emotions of others, a power he used
to first instill fear in the inhabitants of his conquered planets, then
to make his enemies devoutly loyal to him. Mis is murdered by Bayta
Darell before he can reveal the location, she having realised that
Magnifico is in fact the Mule and has been using his gifts to drive Mis
forward in his research, so that he can learn the location himself and
subjugate the Second Foundation. Dismayed at having made a mistake which
allowed Bayta to see through his disguise, the Mule leaves Trantor to
rule over his conquered planets while continuing his search.
As the Mule comes closer to finding it, the mysterious Second
Foundation comes briefly out of hiding to face the threat directly. It
consists of the descendants of Seldon's psychohistorians. While the
first Foundation has developed the physical sciences, the Second
Foundation has been developing Seldon's mathematics and the Seldon Plan,
along with their own use of mental sciences. The Second Foundation
ultimately wears down the Mule, who returns to rule over his kingdom
peacefully for the rest of his life, without any further thought of
conquering the Second Foundation.
However, as a result, the first Foundation has learned something
of the Second Foundation beyond the simple fact that it exists, and has
some understanding of its role. This means their behavior will now be
chosen in light of that knowledge, and not based on uninformed natural
human behavior, which means their behavior will no longer be the natural
responses required by the mathematics of the Seldon Plan. This places
the Plan itself at great risk. In addition, the first Foundation starts
to resentfully consider the other as a rival, and a small group secretly
begins to develop equipment for detecting and blocking mental influence
in order to detect members of the Second Foundation. After many
attempts to infer the Second Foundation's whereabouts from the few clues
available, the Foundation is led to believe the Second Foundation is
located on Terminus (the "opposite end of the galaxy" for a galaxy with a
circular shape). The Foundation uncovers and destroys a group of fifty
members of the Second Foundation and is left believing they have
destroyed the Second Foundation. No longer concerned with the perceived
threat, their behavior as a society will tend towards those anticipated
by the Plan.
In fact the group of fifty were volunteers on Terminus whose role
was to be captured and give the impression that they composed the whole
of the Second Foundation, so that the Seldon Plan would be able to
continue unimpeded. The Second Foundation itself, however, is finally
revealed to be located on the former Imperial Homeworld of Trantor. The
clue "at Star's End" was not a physical clue, but was instead based on
an old saying, "All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars
end." Seldon, being a social scientist and not a physical one, placed
the two Foundations at "opposite ends" of the galaxy, but in a
sociological rather than physical sense. The first Foundation was
located on the Periphery of the galaxy, where the Empire's influence was
minimal; the Second Foundation was on Trantor, where, even in its dying
days, the Empire's power and culture were strongest.
Believing the Second Foundation still exists (despite the common belief that it has been extinguished), young politician Golan Trevize is sent into exile by the current Mayor of the Foundation, Harla Branno, to uncover the Second Foundation; Trevize is accompanied by a scholar named Janov Pelorat.
The reason for their belief is that, despite the unforeseeable impact
of the Mule, the Seldon Plan still appears to be proceeding in
accordance with the statements of Seldon's hologram, suggesting that the
Second Foundation still exists and is secretly intervening to bring the
plan back on course. After a few conversations with Pelorat, Trevize
comes to believe that a mythical planet called Earth
may hold the secret to the location. No such planet exists in any
database, yet several myths and legends all refer to it, and it is
Trevize's belief that the planet is deliberately being kept hidden.
Unknown to Trevize and Pelorat, Branno is tracking their ship so that,
in the event they find the Second Foundation, the first Foundation can
take military or other action.
Meanwhile, Stor Gendibal,
a prominent member of the Second Foundation, discovers a simple local
on Trantor who has had a very subtle alteration made to her mind, far
more delicate than anything the Second Foundation can do. He concludes
that a greater force of Mentalics must be active in the Galaxy.
Following the events on Terminus, Gendibal endeavors to follow Trevize,
reasoning that by doing so, he may find out who has altered the mind of
the Trantor native.
Using the few scraps of reliable information within the various
myths, Trevize and Pelorat discover a planet called Gaia which is
inhabited solely by Mentalics, to such an extent that every organism and
inanimate object on the planet shares a common mind. Both Branno and
Gendibal, who have separately followed Trevize, also reach Gaia at the
same time. Gaia reveals that it has engineered this situation because it
wishes to do what is best for humanity but cannot be sure what is best.
Trevize's purpose, faced with the leaders of both the First and Second
Foundations and Gaia itself, is to be trusted to make the best decision
among the three main alternatives for the future of the human race: the
First Foundation's path, based on mastery of the physical world and its
traditional political organization (i.e., Empire); the Second
Foundation's path, based on mentalics and probable rule by an elite
using mind control; or Gaia's path of absorption of the entire Galaxy
into one shared, harmonious living entity in which all beings, and the
galaxy itself, would be a part.
After Trevize makes his decision for Gaia's path, the intellect
of Gaia adjusts both Branno's and Gendibal's minds so that each believes
he or she has succeeded in a significant task. (Branno believes she has
successfully negotiated a treaty tying Sayshell to the Foundation, and
Gendibal – now leader of the Second Foundation – believes that the
Second Foundation is victorious and should continue as normal.) Trevize
remains, but is uncertain as to why he is "sure" that Gaia is the
correct outcome for the future.
Still uncertain about his decision, Trevize continues on with the
search for Earth along with Pelorat and a local of Gaia, advanced in
Mentalics, known as Blissenobiarella (usually referred to simply as
Bliss). Eventually, Trevize finds three sets of coordinates which are
very old. Adjusting them for time, he realizes that his ship's computer
does not list any planet in the vicinity of the coordinates. When he
physically visits the locations, he rediscovers the forgotten Spacer
worlds of Aurora, Solaria, and finally Melpomenia. After searching and facing different dilemmas on each planet, Trevize still has not discovered any answers.
Aurora and Melpomenia are long deserted, but Solaria contains a
small population which is extremely advanced in the field of Mentalics.
When the lives of the group are threatened, Bliss uses her abilities
(and the shared intellect of Gaia) to destroy the Solarian who is about
to kill them. This leaves behind a small child who will be put to death
if left alone, so Bliss makes the decision to keep the child as they
quickly escape the planet.
Eventually, Trevize discovers Earth, but it, again, contains no
satisfactory answers for him (it is also long-since deserted). However,
it dawns on Trevize that the answer may not be on Earth, but on Earth's
satellite – the Moon. Upon approaching the planet, they are drawn inside
the Moon's core, where they meet a robot named R. Daneel Olivaw.
Olivaw explains that he has been instrumental in guiding human
history for thousands of years, having provided the impetus for Seldon
to create psychohistory and also the creation of Gaia, but is now close
to the end of his ability to maintain himself and will shortly cease to
function. Despite replacing his positronic
brain (which contains 20,000 years of memories), he is going to die
shortly. He explains that no further robotic brain can be devised to
replace his current one, or which will let him continue assisting for
the benefit of humanity. However, some additional time can be won to
ensure the long term benefit of humanity by merging R. Daneel Olivaw's mind with the organic intellect of a human – in this case, the intellect of the child that the group rescued on Solaria.
Once again, Trevize is put in the position of deciding if having
Olivaw meld with the child's superior intellect would be in the best
interests of the galaxy. The decision is left ambiguous (though likely a
"yes") as it is implied that the melding of the minds may be to the
child's benefit, but that she may have sinister intentions.
Development and themes
The early stories were inspired by Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The plot of the series focuses on the growth and reach of the
Foundation, against a backdrop of the "decline and fall of the Galactic
Empire." The themes of Asimov's stories were also influenced by the
political tendency in SF fandom, associated with the Futurians, known as Michelism.
The focus of the books is the trends through which a civilization
might progress, specifically seeking to analyze their progress, using
history as a precedent. Although many science fiction novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four or Fahrenheit 451
do this, their focus is upon how current trends in society might come
to fruition and they act as a moral allegory of the modern world. The Foundation
series, on the other hand, looks at the trends in a wider scope,
dealing with societal evolution and adaptation rather than the human and
cultural qualities at one point in time. In this he followed the model
of Thucydides' work The History of the Peloponnesian War, as he once acknowledged.
Furthermore, the concept of psychohistory, which gives the events
in the story a sense of rational fatalism, leaves little room for
moralization. Hari Seldon himself hopes that his Plan will "reduce
30,000 years of Dark Ages and barbarism to a single millennium," a goal
of exceptional moral gravity.
Yet events within it are often treated as inevitable and necessary,
rather than deviations from the greater good. For example, the
Foundation slides gradually into oligarchy and dictatorship prior to the
appearance of the galactic conqueror, known as the Mule,
who was able to succeed through the random chance of a telepathic
mutation. But, for the most part, the book treats the purpose of Seldon's plan
as unquestionable, and that slide as being necessary in it, rather than
mulling over whether the slide is, on the whole, positive or negative.
The books also wrestle with the idea of individualism. Hari
Seldon's plan is often treated as an inevitable mechanism of society, a
vast mindless mob mentality
of quadrillions of humans across the galaxy. Many in the series
struggle against it, only to fail. However, the plan itself is reliant
upon the cunning of individuals such as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow
to make wise decisions that capitalize on the trends. On the other
hand, the Mule, a single individual with mental powers, topples the
Foundation and nearly destroys the Seldon plan with his special,
unforeseen abilities. To repair the damage the Mule inflicts, the Second
Foundation deploys a plan which turns upon individual reactions.
Psychohistory is based on group trends and cannot predict with
sufficient accuracy the effects of extraordinary, unforeseeable
individuals, and as originally presented, the Second Foundation's
purpose was to counter this flaw. Later novels would identify the Plan's
uncertainties that remained at Seldon's death as the primary reason for
the existence of the Second Foundation, which (unlike the First) had
retained the capacity to research and further develop psychohistory.
Asimov tried to end the series with Second Foundation.
However, because of the predicted thousand years until the rise of the
next Empire (of which only a few hundred had elapsed), the series lacked
a sense of closure. For decades, fans pressured him to write a sequel.
In 1982, after a 30-year hiatus, Asimov gave in and wrote what was at
the time a fourth volume: Foundation's Edge. This was followed shortly thereafter by Foundation and Earth.
This novel, which takes place some 500 years after Seldon, ties up all
the loose ends and ties all his Robot, Empire, and Foundation novels
into a single story. He also opens a brand new line of thought in the
last dozen pages regarding Galaxia, a galaxy inhabited by a single collective mind. This concept was never explored further. According to his widow Janet Asimov (in her biography of Isaac, It's Been a Good Life), he had no idea how to continue after Foundation and Earth, so he started writing the prequels.
Asimov's imprecise future history
Asimov (right) was inspired by the Future History
stories of Heinlein (left), but self-consciously wrote that his was
"not the beautiful job that Heinlein did, but was actually made up 'ad
hoc'".
In the spring of 1955, Asimov published a future history of humanity in the pages of Thrilling Wonder Stories
magazine based upon his thought processes concerning the Foundation
universe at that point in his life. According to the publication, "the
scheme was not originally worked out as a consistent pattern and only
includes about one-quarter of his total writings". Because of this, the
dating in the foundation series is approximate and inconsistent.
Asimov estimates that his Foundation series takes place nearly 50,000 years into the future, with Hari Seldon born in 47,000 CE.
Around this time, the future emperor Cleon I is born in the imperial
capital Trantor, 78 years before the Foundation Era (FE) and the events
of the original Foundation trilogy. After Cleon inherits the crown, the
mathematician Hari Seldon comes to Trantor from Helicon to deliver his
theory of psychohistory that predicts the fall of the empire, which
triggers the events of Prelude to Foundation. Forward the Foundation picks up the story a few years later, with the emperor being assassinated and Seldon retiring from politics.
At the start of the Foundation Era, the events of the original Foundation novel (first published in Astounding Science Fiction as a series of short stories) take place, and the in-universe Foundation Era truly begins.
According to Asimov, he intended this to take place around the year
47000 CE, with the Empire in decay as it battles the rising Foundation,
who emerges as the dominant power a few centuries later. Thus begins the events of the Foundation and Empire, which include the unpredicted rise of the Mule, who defeats the Foundation thanks to his mutant abilities. The events of Second Foundation
chronicle the titular Second Foundation's search and defeat of the
Mule, and their conflict with the remnants of the original Foundation,
averting the Dark Age. Asimov estimates that the Mule rises and falls somewhere around 47300 CE.
Foundation's Edge takes place 500 years after the establishment of the Foundation, outside of the original trilogy of novels. Foundation and Earth
follows immediately after, with humanity choosing and justifying a
third path distinct from the opposing visions of the two Foundations. According to Asimov, the Second Galactic Empire is established 48000 CE, 1000 years after the events of the first novel.
Asimov himself commented that his fiction's internal history was
"actually made up ad hoc. My cross-references in the novels are thrown
in as they occur to me and did not come from a systemized history. ...
If some reader checks my stories carefully and finds that my dating is
internally inconsistent, I can only say I'm not surprised."
Cultural impact
Impact in nonfiction
In Learned Optimism, psychologist Martin Seligman identifies the Foundation
series as one of the most important influences in his professional
life, because of the possibility of predictive sociology based on
psychological principles. He also lays claim to the first successful
prediction of a major historical (sociological) event, in the 1988 US elections, and he specifically attributes this to a psychological principle.
In his 1996 book To Renew America, U. S. House SpeakerNewt Gingrich wrote that he was influenced by reading the Foundation trilogy in high school.
Stating that it "offers a useful summary of some of the dynamics of far-flung imperial Rome", Carl Sagan in 1978 listed the Foundation
series as an example of how science fiction "can convey bits and
pieces, hints and phrases, of knowledge unknown or inaccessible to the
reader". In the nonfiction PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Sagan referred to an Encyclopedia Galactica in the episodes "Encyclopaedia Galactica" and "Who Speaks for Earth".
Awards
In 1966, the Foundation trilogy beat several other science fiction and fantasy series to receive a special Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series". The runners-up for the award were the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Future History series by Robert A. Heinlein, the Lensman series by Edward E. Smith and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The Foundation series was the only series so honored until the
establishment of the "Best Series" category in 2017. Asimov himself
wrote that he assumed the one-time award had been created to honor The Lord of the Rings, and he was amazed when his work won.
The series has won three other Hugo Awards. Foundation's Edge
won Best Novel in 1983, and was a bestseller for almost a year.
Retrospective Hugo Awards were given in 1996 and 2018 for, respectively,
"The Mule" (the major part of Foundation and Empire) for Best
Novel (1946) and "Foundation" (the first story written for the series,
and second chapter of the first novel) for Best Short Story (1943).
Impact in fiction and entertainment
Science fiction parodies, such as Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero, often display clear Foundation influences. For instance, "The Guide" of the former is a spoof of the Encyclopedia Galactica,
and the series actually mentions the encyclopedia by name, remarking
that it is rather "dry", and consequently sells fewer copies than the
guide; the latter also features the ultra-urbanized Imperial planet
Helior, often parodying the logistics such a planet-city would require,
but that Asimov's novel downplays when describing Trantor.
The 1957 short storyMarius, which set off Poul Anderson's early future history, the Psychotechnic League,
clearly shows the influence of Asimov's Foundation—though moved from
the far future of a collapsing Galactic Empire to a near future of a
late 20th Century Earth struggling to recover from the devastation of a
nuclear Third World War.
In this situation, the Finnish Professor Valti starts the science of
Psychodynamics, which makes it possible to mathematically predict the
future, and The Psychotechnic Institute makes use of Valti's formulas to
subtly "guide" and manipulate the emerging world government. The similarity to Seldon and the Foundation is obvious, nor did Anderson try to hide it.
Frank Herbert also wrote Dune
as a counterpoint to Foundation. Tim O'Reilly in his monograph on
Herbert wrote that "Dune is clearly a commentary on the Foundation
trilogy. Herbert has taken a look at the same imaginative situation that
provoked Asimov's classic—the decay of a galactic empire—and restated
it in a way that draws on different assumptions and suggests radically
different conclusions. The twist he has introduced into Dune is that the
Mule, not the Foundation, is his hero."
In 1995, Donald Kingsbury wrote "Historical Crisis", which he later expanded into a novel, Psychohistorical Crisis. It takes place about 2,000 years after Foundation,
after the founding of the Second Galactic Empire. It is set in the same
fictional universe as the Foundation series, in considerable detail,
but with virtually all Foundation-specific names either changed
(e.g., Kalgan becomes Lakgan), or avoided (psychohistory is created by
an unnamed, but often-referenced Founder). The novel explores the ideas
of psychohistory in a number of new directions, inspired by more recent
developments in mathematics and computer science, as well as by new ideas in science fiction itself.
The oboe-like holophonor in Matt Groening's animated television series Futurama is based directly upon the "Visi-Sonor" which Magnifico plays in Foundation and Empire. The "Visi-Sonor" is also mirrored in an episode of Special Unit 2, where a child's television character plays an instrument that induces mind control over children.
According to lead singer Ian Gillan, the hard rock band Deep Purple's song The Mule
is based on the Foundation character: "Yes, The Mule was inspired by
Asimov. It's been a while but I'm sure you've made the right
connection... Asimov was required reading in the 60's."
By 1998, New Line Cinema had spent $1.5 million developing a film version of the Foundation Trilogy. The failure to develop a new franchise was partly a reason the studio signed on to produce The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
On July 29, 2008, New Line Cinema co-founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne
were reported to have been signed on to produce an adaptation of the
trilogy by their company Unique Pictures for Warner Brothers.
However, Columbia Pictures (Sony) successfully bid for the screen rights on January 15, 2009, and then contracted Roland Emmerich to direct and produce. Michael Wimer was named as co-producer.
Two years later, the studio hired Dante Harper to adapt the books. This project failed to materialize and HBO acquired the rights when they became available in 2014.
In November 2014, TheWrap reported that Jonathan Nolan was writing and producing a TV series based on the Foundation Trilogy for HBO. Nolan confirmed his involvement at a Paley Center event on April 13, 2015.
In June 2017, Deadline reported that Skydance Media would produce a TV series. In August 2018 it was announced that Apple TV+ had commissioned a 10 episode straight-to-series order.
However, on April 18, 2019, Josh Friedman left the project as co-writer
and co-showrunner. This was apparently planned, with either Friedman or
screenwriter David Goyer leaving and the other staying. On June 22, 2020, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the series would be released in 2021. On 13 March 2020, Apple suspended all active filming on their shows due to the COVID-19 outbreak; filming resumed on October 6, 2020.
The series is filmed at Troy Studios, Limerick, Ireland and the budget was expected to be approximately $50 million. The first two episodes premiered on September 24, 2021. Metacritic gave the first season a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Books within the greater Foundation series
Merging with other series
The series is set in the same universe as Asimov's first published novel, Pebble in the Sky, although Foundation takes place about 10,000 years later. Pebble in the Sky became the basis for the Empire series. Then, at some unknown date (prior to writing Foundation's Edge) Asimov decided to merge the Foundation/Empire series with his Robot series.
Thus, all three series are set in the same universe, giving them a
combined length of 18 novels, and a total of about 1,500,000 words (see
the List of books below). The merge also created a time-span of the series of around 20,000 years.
The stand-alone story Nemesis is also in the same continuity; being referenced in Forward the Foundation, where Hari Seldon
refers to a twenty-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could
communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis."
Commentators noted that Nemesis contains barely disguised
references to the Spacers and their calendar system, the Galactic Empire
and even to Hari Seldon which seem to have been deliberately placed for
the purpose of later integration into the Foundation universe.
Asimov's "Author's Note" in Prelude to Foundation
The foreword to Prelude to Foundation contains the chronological ordering of Asimov's science fiction books. Asimov stated that the books of his Robot, Empire, and Foundation
series "offer a kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not
completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency to begin with."
Asimov also noted that the books in his list "were not written in the
order in which (perhaps) they should be read". In the Author's Note, Asimov noted that there is room for a book between Robots and Empire and The Currents of Space, and that he could follow Foundation and Earth with additional volumes.
The End of Eternity is vaguely referenced in Foundation's Edge, where a character mentions the Eternals, whose "task it was to choose a reality that would be most suitable to Humanity". (The End of Eternity also refers to a "Galactic Empire" within its story.) Asimov himself did not mention The End of Eternity in the series listing from Prelude to Foundation. As for Nemesis, it was written after Prelude to Foundation, but in the author's note Asimov explicitly states that the book is not part of the Foundation or Empire series, but that some day he might tie it to the others.
In Forward the Foundation, Hari Seldon refers to a
20-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with
an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis", a reference to Nemesis. In Nemesis,
the main colony is one of the Fifty Settlements, a collection of
orbital colonies that form a state. The Fifty Settlements possibly were
the basis for the fifty Spacer worlds in the Robot stories. The implication at the end of Nemesis
that the inhabitants of the off-Earth colonies are splitting off from
Earthbound humans could also be connected to a similar implication about
the Spacers in Mark W. Tiedemann's Robot
books. According to Alasdair Wilkins, in a discussion posted on
Gizmodo, "Asimov absolutely loves weird, elliptical structures. All
three of his non-robot/Foundation science fiction novels — The End of Eternity, The Gods Themselves, and Nemesis — leaned heavily on non-chronological narratives, and he does it with gusto in The Gods Themselves."
Pebble in the Sky (1950) - third Empire Series novel, primarily set thousands of years in the future on Earth, when the galaxy is unified into a Galactic Empire
The End of Eternity (1955) - a standalone novel, about Eternity, an organization "outside time" which aims to improve human happiness by altering history
Other authors contributing to the expanded series
Asimov's
novels covered only 500 of the expected 1,000 years it would take for
the Foundation to become a galactic empire. The novels written after
Asimov did not continue the timeline but rather sought to fill in gaps
in the earlier stories. The Foundation universe was once again revisited in 1989's Foundation's Friends, a collection of short stories written by many prominent science fiction authors of that time. Orson Scott Card's "The Originist" clarifies the founding of the Second Foundation shortly after Seldon's death; Harry Turtledove's
"Trantor Falls" tells of the efforts by the Second Foundation to
survive during the sacking of Trantor, the imperial capital and Second
Foundation's home; and George Zebrowski's
"Foundation's Conscience" is about the efforts of a historian to
document Seldon's work following the rise of the Second Galactic Empire.
Also, shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels by Roger MacBride Allen, known as the Caliban trilogy, set between Robots and Empire
and the Empire series. The Caliban trilogy describes the terraforming
of the Spacer world Inferno, a planet where an ecological crisis forces
the Spacers to abandon many long-cherished parts of their culture.
Allen's novels echo the uncertainties that Asimov's later books express
about the Three Laws of Robotics, and in particular the way a thoroughly roboticized culture can degrade human initiative.
After Asimov's death and at the request of Janet Asimov and the Asimov estate's representative, Ralph Vicinanza approached Gregory Benford and asked him to write another Foundation
story. He eventually agreed, and with Vicinanza and after speaking "to
several authors about [the] project", formed a plan for a trilogy with
"two hard SF writers broadly influenced by Asimov and of unchallenged
technical ability: Greg Bear and David Brin." Foundation's Fear (1997) takes place chronologically between part one and part two of Asimov's second prequel novel, Forward the Foundation; Foundation and Chaos (1998) is set at the same time as the first chapter of Foundation, filling in background; Foundation's Triumph
(1999) covers ground following the recording of the holographic
messages to the Foundation, and ties together a number of loose ends.
These books are now claimed by some to collectively be a "Second Foundation
trilogy", although they are inserts into pre-existing prequels and some
of the earlier Foundation storylines and not generally recognized as a
new Trilogy.
In an epilogue to Foundation's Triumph, Brin noted he could imagine himself or a different author writing another sequel to add to Foundation's Triumph,
feeling that Hari Seldon's story was not yet necessarily finished. He
later published a possible start of such a book on his website.
More recently, the Asimov estate authorized publication of another trilogy of robot mysteries by Mark W. Tiedemann. These novels, which take place several years before Asimov's Robots and Empire, are Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001), and Aurora (2002). These were followed by yet another robot mystery, Alexander C. Irvine's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), set five years after the Tiedemann trilogy.
In 2001, Donald Kingsbury published the novel Psychohistorical Crisis, set in the Foundation universe after the start of the Second Empire.
Novels by various authors (Isaac Asimov'sRobot City, Robots and Aliens and Robots in Time series) are loosely connected to the Robot series, but contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered part of the Foundation series.
In November 2009, the Isaac Asimov estate announced the publication of a prequel to I, Robot under the working title Robots and Chaos, the first volume in a prequel trilogy featuring Susan Calvin by fantasy author Mickey Zucker Reichert. The first book was published in November 2011 under the title I, Robot: To Protect, followed by I, Robot: To Obey in 2013 and I, Robot: To Preserve in 2016.
