When I first interviewed at Spectra, one of the questions they asked me, naturally, was if I had read any Spectra authors. The first thing out of my mouth was “Asimov.”
I’m a huge Asimov fan, and despite the fact that I’m pretty sure they were asking about some of our more contemporary authors, I couldn’t help myself: Asimov is my boy.
And I think that’s part of the point of this celebration: the fact that not only are the books on this list still in print, but that they have such enduring cultural relevance (if only for me, though I rather doubt it).
Now I tend to think of the Foundation series as one whole book (I tend to do this with a lot of series–it makes coming up with “Top Ten Favorite Book” lists with my friends controversial), but I will say that Forward the Foundation is one of my favorites, after Prelude to Foundation and Foundation and Empire (The Mule!).
I think it’s because the main character, Hari Seldon, is so fascinating, and that psychohistory is such a cool topic (honestly, I wanted to major in psychohistory, and was extremely disappointed to find that my college–well, every college–didn’t offer it).
I love the fact that I work for the company that published one of the canonical science fiction series (and continues to keep the whole series in print today). Basically, I love the idea that I, in some way, have a connection to Asimov other than just finding his novels brilliant.
Not that it would be a bad thing to simply be touched by the Foundation books.
If you’ve never read the Foundation novels–or if you’ve never read Asimov at all–then do yourself a favor and pick one up (I prefer starting with Prelude and Forward the Foundation, but you can definitely start with Foundation and not be disappointed.
At all.
–DP, June 2010
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