Second Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

When I first read this, about 15 years ago, I saw something much greater and impressive in the first Foundation trilogy. Although I enjoyed the reread and still saw a lot of interesting themes well-explored in this third volume, I feel that I've changed too much to see this with the same eyes of a 25-year old. This is not to say that I think this isn't top notch material, but put in the light of other books I've read in the meantime, Foundation has lost some of its impact on me.

I find it interesting that Foundation starts of as a series of short stories in the first volume, then develops into novellas in the second and third volumes, and starts to coalesce into full-length novels later on. I think this is perhaps an indication that Asimov's vision and ideas for where the story was going matured as he wrote on. I enjoyed the longer books better perhaps because the character became progressively more complex and more interesting. This process of trying to understand how my tastes have changed indicates to me that even more than the clever scientific speculations, I enjoy a story centered in the human element - our conflicts, struggles, and intellectual and emotional developments became more important to me.

With all that said, Second Foundation is still pretty darn good. Of the two novellas in this volume, the second one, in which the search for the Second Foundation finally concludes, is definitely my favorite. The theme of political manipulations of a vast number of worlds under the reign of the Mule in the first novella is interesting enough, but not terribly gripping. In the second one, Arcadia Darell, a fourteen-year old girl becomes the central piece in the unveiling of where in the universe lies the world of the mental manipulators to were prepared to carry through with Hari Seldon's plan. This character, in my opinion, shows that by the time Asimov got to this point in the story, he was confident enough in his writing to entrust the backbone of the story to a human being, a flesh and blood person, who ultimately can be as interesting and exciting as any bit of science. For me, the series only gets better as it goes on.