Foundation and Empire, by Isaac Asimov

This is the second volume in the original Foundation Trilogy. Since it contains only two stories, or rather, novellas (where the first book had five), the overall flow is much less discontinuous.The first story, The General puts psychohistory and the Seldon Plan to the test when an individual attempts to counteract the work of the Foundation. We are told by psychohistory that individuals don't matter in the big scheme of things. Large populations and socio-historical forces have a much greater inertia than the actions of a single person, no matter how powerful that person may be. Bel Riose, a military loyal to the shrinking Empire initiates an offensive against the Foundation attempting to reclaim the worlds that had been lost to Cleo II. Good story with a good pace, but it almost serves only as an appetizer to the main course, The Mule, the second story in the book. The Mule is arguably one of Asimov's masterpieces and sets the stage for the long range development of the Foundation series. It's hard for sci-fi to get much better than this. The story puts in question, one more time, the Seldon plan. It is centered on another individual, a mutant nicknamed "The Mule", who unlike Bel Riose is not an Imperialist. "The Mule" is out to establish an empire of its own and in his campaign he starts to incorporate more and more of the Foundation worlds into his domain. This story has interesting twists and shows that perhaps there were variables unaccounted for in Seldon's psychohistorical plan which could undermine the course plotted in his plan. Also importantly, it brings back into the mix the Second Foundation, which Seldon would have established in a secret location in the galaxy. This story cemented my interest in the Foundation universe and gave me a momentum for going deeper into the series that lasted throughout all the Foundation, Robot, Galactic Empire, and Second Foundation series.