In the final weeks of the year, I’ve been pushing myself to see how much I can read. I aim to swap endless scrolling for story escapism. I’ve been enjoying losing myself in space, science fiction, and everything book-ish. Having recently finished The Expanse series (here), I wanted to read space science fiction that didn’t have epic space battles. Instead of detailed destructive space battles, Foundations by IIsaac Asimov walks us through the death of an empire, predicted by a newly developed theory of psychohistory, an effective mathematical model for predicting changes in society. The book follows the slow demise of a space-spanning empire. Initially, its demise is not acknowledged. Still, it soon becomes hard to ignore. The book focuses on what comes after a demise. Humanities path seems cursed to ping pong between education-focused expansion and religious fever after its demise. It rises up, pops, cools back down, and goes again. My two favourite quotes from the book: > “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” > “To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.” I listened to Audiobook via my local library using [BorrowBox](https://www.borrowbox.com/). --- You can find Foundations by Isaac Asimov on [Storygraph here](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/a312aaee-2250-4291-8e56-aa0985ced5dc), or on [Amazon here](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Foundation-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0008117497). --- I’m trying to push myself as both a reader and a writer by reading more book series and writing a review. #books #bookreview