This book has such a big reputation as being one of the great science fiction novels of all time that I simply had to read it. I spent nearly all of last year reading nothing but fantasy and so am spending this year catching up on my sci-fi. This seemed like a good place to start. All in all it was a very good read, interesting story and characters and I can see how it will open up into one of those galaxy spanning epics. If there's one little gripe it would be that it seems to be very much a 'tell them, don't show them' kind of affair, which on the whole I'm not a fan of. The characters and what they say to each other seems to be the method of driving the story forward rather than the author actually describing events and having the characters play them out. This tends to lead to feelings of dusty old men sitting around playing politics as opposed to the all out action novel that I feel it wants to be. Still, it's well written and I did enjoy it. I will continue with the second novel at some point, but not immediately. After finishing Foundation I feel the urge to read something with a little action to it.
