Foundation

Recently I felt the need to revisit a set of books I hadn’t read since my teens. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy intrigued me when I was fifteen and now, in my fifties, I wanted to see why.

I went into Oxford and found a copy of the first book but held off buying it. This was partly because I’m a bit poor this month and partly because I suspected my original copy was still at my mum’s house.

So, on my next visit to my mum’s I rooted through the shelves and found only books two and three of the original trilogy, resplendent as they were with their Chris Foss covers. My next step was to call up my favourite independent bookshop and order the first book. Amazingly, the owner had just ordered some classic science fiction books, including a copy of Foundation, which he put aside for me.

Will this end with crushing disappointment or a happy rediscovery? I’ll let you know.