This book was a bit of a let down from Foundation. It is much more cohesive as a narrative than the first one, which I actually disliked. I loved the episodic style of the original book because it enabled the story to be driven more by action than by characters, which Asimov is admittedly quite awful at writing. I loved how the narrative action leapt centuries and planets at a time, because it helped widen the focus of the book to be on the scale of humanity as a whole rather than individuals. To me, it was the perfect way to explore the interesting concept of psychohistory and human culture at large!

When this book chose to focus on a few boring characters and a very predictable twist, I was pretty disappointed. Asimov just isn’t a great character writer, and the dated way women are written in this book doesn’t help either. However, I was intrigued enough by the reveal of the true purpose of the Second Foundation to want to continue reading! I’m very curious about it and eager to read the next book.

3.5
The ending twist bumps this up a bit, but man this was a slog to get through. I think this will be much better as a show.