Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Series #3) » (Reprint)

David Brin has degrees in astronomy and applied physics but has been a full-time science fiction writer for many years. He has won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for both The Uplift War and Startide Rising, which also won the Nebula Award. He has also won the Hugo Award for short story. His novel The Postman was recently made into a feature film starring Kevin Costner. He lives near San Diego, California, with his wife and children.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy is one of the highwater marks of science fiction.The monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline and a secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the coming Dark Age with tools of Psychohistory, Foundation pioneered many themes of modern science fiction.Now, with the approval of the Asimov estate, three of today's most acclaimed authors have completed the epic the Grand Master left unfinished.

The Second Foundation Trilogy begins with Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear, telling the origins of Hari Seldon, the Foundation's creator. Greg Bear's Foundation and Chaos relates the epic tale of Seldon's downfall and the first stirrings of robotic rebellion. Now, in David Brin's Foundation's Triumph, Seldon is about to escape exile and risk everything for one final quest-a search for knowledge and the power it bestows. The outcome of this final journey may secure humankind's future-or witness its final downfall...

Publishers Weekly

With the permission of the estate of Isaac Asimov, Gregory Benford (Foundations Fear), Greg Bear (Foundation and Chaos) and Brin, collectively billed as the Killer Bs, took on the Second Foundation Trilogy. Unhappily, Brins preachy, gelatinous conclusion deserves another Bfor Boring. Having followed the adventures of the galactic Foundation founder, Hari Seldon, in previous volumes, Asimov aficionados here find Seldon retired, aged, infirm and on the brink of death. Then a chance encounter with a low-level bureaucrat stimulates Seldon into creaky action against chaos, a mental disease afflicting all humanity. Seldon travels fitfully through an upside-down universe 20,000 years into mankinds future, when humans have become impotent, amnesiac creator-gods. Their creations, Asimovs positronic robots led by the enigmatic R. Daneel Olivaw, really control the universe. Brin (The Postman, etc.) resurrects many characters from the five previous Foundation volumes, but their lack of vitality makes these featureless humans as bland as robots. And he divulges these characters secrets in laborious sociological theorizing little better than a thin stream of platitudes. After so much recycling of Asimovs original, the wear and tear is showing, badly, but enough loose plot ends dangle to suggest that yet more sequels may be coming, someday. (May)