In the distant future, a mathematician discovers that civilization will undergo a 500-year collapse, followed by a 30,000-year period of great pain and suffering. He has calculated a path that could reduce the dark time to just 1,000 years. Unfortunately, the ruling regime has held his findings to be treasonous.
That’s the premise of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It was given a one-time Hugo award in 1965 for “Best All-Time Series,” beating out Lord of the Rings (the first Dune book wasn’t published until that same year).
Based almost entirely on a series of short stories he published in “Astounding Magazine” from 1942 to 1950, Asimov was inspired by Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the Foundation stories, we view the events through the eyes of the mathematician’s followers, as they attempt to navigate through the treacherous historical currents.
Why hasn’t Hollywood turned the Foundation series into a big-budget movie? The short answer is, they’re working on it. In January, the rights were sold to Columbia Pictures. Roland Emmerich is set to direct, and Robert Rodat is busy working on the script. Rodat is best known for having written the script for Saving Private Ryan.
In the meantime, you can read the books. Or you can listen to an excellent eight-part BBC radio production that captures much of the intelligence, drama, and intrigue of Asimov’s original stories. The radio programs are available free through the Internet Archive. Here’s a link to download the radio series. If you just want to sample the radio programs, you can use this link to stream the first episode.