It is one of those worlds that you keep going back to year after year. I read it during the summer time for well over a decade, also slowed down by having to wait for the next volume to release. Binge reading might get tedious, but was always great to pick up again.

If made into a series it should be a long running one as well, one season per book maybe two for the later bigger volumes. If done well it could become an epic longest running fantasy series. It would be a challenge with the ageless sedai.

Oh yeah that is why i most likely am more nitpicky with the series,i bought the whole series and did read them without slowing down too much and after reading many faster paced smaller fantasy series.

I felt heavy Tolkien influence in the worldbuilding,not nearly as grand but it surely took from it.(hell,a lot of fantasy novels have some Tolkien in them)

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time
Isaac Asimov's Foundation
JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (Well, mid 2nd age)
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Four of my very favourite Universes come to life in television.

Im currently doing that, reading through the entire story line (cronologically).


I, Robot / The Complete Robot
The Caves of Steel [ROBOTS]
The Naked Sun [ROBOTS]
Mirror Image (short story) [ROBOTS]
The Robots of Dawn [ROBOTS]
Robots and Empire [ROBOTS]
The Stars, Like Dust-- [EMPIRE]
The Currents of Space [EMPIRE]
Pebble in the Sky [EMPIRE]
Prelude to Foundation [FOUNDATION]
Forward the Foundation [FOUNDATION]
Foundation [FOUNDATION]
Foundation and Empire [FOUNDATION]
Second Foundation [FOUNDATION]
Foundation's Edge [FOUNDATION]
Foundation and Earth [FOUNDATION]
Foundation's Fear
Foundation and Chaos
Foundation's Triumph (with the super-secret extended ending by David Brin)

If anyone else was curious about what Jumpin was talking about.
Foundation series is well worth a read.

You will be surprised how well his books have aged.

Asimov? Foundation? Never heard of it.

My recommendation (based on multiple readings) is to go in this order if this is your first time:

Foundation [FOUNDATION]
I, Robot / The Complete Robot (personally, I'd recommend I, Robot for a first timer)
Foundation and Empire [FOUNDATION]
Second Foundation [FOUNDATION]
The Stars, Like Dust-- [EMPIRE] (Optional)
The Currents of Space [EMPIRE] (Optional)
Pebble in the Sky [EMPIRE] (Optional, but this one is worth it)
The Caves of Steel [ROBOTS]
The Naked Sun [ROBOTS]
The Robots of Dawn [ROBOTS]
Foundation's Edge [FOUNDATION]
Foundation and Earth [FOUNDATION]
Robots and Empire [ROBOTS]
Prelude to Foundation [FOUNDATION]
Forward the Foundation [FOUNDATION]

While the chronology is out of order, this is roughly the order of Asimov's thinking. If you read the Foundation prequels before Foundation and the Foundation sequels, you'll spoil the story. The Foundation prequels give away the ending of the original Foundation trilogy AND the Foundation sequels - they were also written and published later. Same with Robots and Empire, these serve to connect the two timeslines, and the story means a great deal less without the background of the Foundation sequels and the Robot trilogy. Also, stylistically, it's VERY jarring if you read them in chronological order, Asimov wrote Foundation and I, Robot in the 1940s, and his style was nowhere near as developed as it was toward the end of his life. He had a lot of difficulty writing characters and writing visually in his early work, and they were largely plot focused and fast paced. His later works were slower paced, but far richer and more vibrant. Not saying his early works are garbage, there's a lot to love about the fast-plot paced early stories.

Anyway, the most important thing for first time readers are spoilers. The publishing order is best. So while the Foundation prequels, for example, come before the original trilogy and the sequels, it serves to conclude the story of the sequels rather than set them up. It's like trying to watch Back to the Future in Chronological Order, in other words.

As a bit of an explanation without spoiling anything:
* First read I, Robot and the original Foundation trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation). I like to start with the book Foundation, because it's such a great introduction to Asimov's writing as a whole. Also, if you finish with the prequels, you basically begin where Foundation starts.
* Next read the Empire series (The Stars Like Dust, Currents of Space, Pebble in the Sky), and this is optional - if you find yourself not liking any of these books, you can skip ahead, there's not a lot of narrative lost. Pebble in the Sky is the most significant of these books as it has SOME relevance, and it's also quite good as far as his early works go.
* Elijah Baley/Robot series (Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn) - this takes you more into Asimov's more developed writing style and really fleshes out the Spacer civilization.
* Foundation Sequels (Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth) - these don't follow The Foundation as closely as the original, they are stories that take place after regarding the search for the origin of humanity (think Xenosaga and Battle Star Galactica). They also the mark the first books of Asimov's later period, and his most developed writing style - characters are more vibrant than ever before.
* Robots and Empire, while chronologically quite a while before the Foundation sequels, they answer the questions that arise from the end of the Foundation sequels. So if you read this one first, you've spoiled the end of the Foundation sequels.
* Foundation prequels (Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation) come last, they answer ALL loose ends, why things happened in Foundation and the sequels the way they did, and a number of other things that even hinting at them would be a spoiler. Basically, if you read these books, you spoil a WHOLE LOT of the series. They also spoil Robots and Empire. They act as a way to fill in the blanks for basically all of the books that came before. Part of the reason these go at the end is because these two books chronicle the life of Hari Seldon and Chapter 1 of Foundation is re-examined at the end of the final book, and then you get to see a bit of what happened between chapter 1 and 2 of Foundation, and how the whole rest of the story was set up. It almost feels nostalgic when you get to the end, kind of like the Hobbits returning to the Shire for their last major conflict (which Peter Jackson cut) at the end of Lord of the Rings.

Oh yeah, other stories of Asimov to read:
* The Last Question (This is one of the most important short stories to read, ever. It's arguably the greatest ever written)
* The Bicentennial Man
* Mirror Image (on your list)
* Nightfall
* The Complete Robot series or any short story collection
* The End of Eternity (IMO, read this as late as possible, as it kind of explains discrepancies in Asimov's universe, especially reading stories like Hostess first)

On the TV series of Foundation. Some people are upset that the gender of certain characters were changed - but as an Asimov fan, this doesn't bother me in the slightest. Asimov himself said that in his early years he tended not to write female characters and strayed away from romantic subjects because he himself had not had any relationships in his younger years and didn't understand women. This (for anyone who reads Asimov) changes drastically in his later years where female have a much larger showing. But also, his characters (outside of Seldon) weren't developed in the original Foundation, they were cogs for the plot.

It's not particularly relevant what gender they are (aside from Hari Seldon). As a man, I generally prefer watching stuff that has both women and men in it, and I also like romance and sexual themes (much more available in Asimov's writings from the 1950s to 90s). I think if Asimov had a decade or so with the job of revising his works to the way he wanted, he'd probably make similar changes that were made with the TV show - most (if not all/almost all) people whining have never even read Asimov's books before and it is obvious, they're only interested in pushing political agendas; and their concern for "artistic integrity" is horse shit. Also, the Asimov estate and Asimov's daughter have creative control and they know more about Isaac Asimov's wishes than anyone else.