Trevize's Travels

I've read alot of this book since I last posted, so this is going to be a bit of a pain.

After the group leaves Aurora, they go to the next set of co-ordinates; Solaria. Having been seemingly deserted for millenia, we find that there are still humans--of a sort--on the planet. Having lived underground for these millenia, they find that the Solarians, the last of the Spacers, have genetically engineered themselves to a great extent over the generations.

Shortly after Bander meets them and takes them into his--its, rather--mansion, the group is basically insulted several times as Bander calls them half-humans. The Solarians are now hermaphroditic; they have both male and female "features." Trevize indicates that this causes a stall in evolution, but I don't know how that works (nor do I have any desire to). They also have an extra brain-lobe, called a transducer. This lobe can harness the energy caused by the flow of heat from the core to the crust and the light to the shade; this allows them to transport objects through their air and power their estates.

Bander eventually tries to kill them, as all Solarians would have, but Bliss is able to stop him; she is extremely upset by the fact that she accidentally killed him, however. In trying to escape (they are by now quite far from the entrance) they come across a child named Fallom (they refer to it as a she). She would have been the successor to the estate, but she is currently to young, and would instead be killed; they take her with them.

The third set to coordinates takes them to Melpomenia, where (after dealing with some potentially deadly moss) they find a set of fifty coordintates; all fifty of the Spacer worlds.

Inserting these into the computer, the group finds that it forms a rough sphere, as would be expected. When the center of this sphere is calculated (the center being the likely origin of settlers) a planet with the name of Alpha is found.

This planet is found to be orbited a binary star; Alpha Centauri. On it, there is one small continent. It seems to be a paradise, but they are eventually told by a woman who loved Trevize that they had been infected with a virus to which the "natives" were immune; if they did not leave immediately, it would be activated, and they killed.

They then go to the nearest star to that one, which does not exist on the Galactic map, as all the Spacer worlds. Trevize has been uneasy with Fallom the entire time, go so far as to call her a monster. Approaching the next star, they see one of the tell-tale signs of Earth's solar system; Saturn. Pelorat had heard that the sixth planet from Earth's sun boasted rings that dwarfed the planet itself- something unheard of in other locations. After staring at it in awe, they continue toward the rocky planets.

They come toward Earth and see its moon; the second tell-tale sign. However, the final sign, which they had hoped to by a myth, is also there: the radioactive crust. Disappointed, they prepare to head back to Alpha wtih the hope that, as the nearest planet to Earth, the secret would have been moved there.

Just then, Fallom takes over. Attempting to control the ship, she tells it to go to Solaria (which she sorely misses). With here extremely limited understanding of the Galaxy, however, she believes that the nearest large body (the Moon) is Solaria. This contradictory command preventing the computer from responding, the others pull her away from the interface.

But the event has brought the Moon to Trevize's attention; perhaps the secret was relocated to the Moon, rather than Alpha; there is no atmosphere, but many planets build down rather than up.

Approaching the body, Bliss detects a sentience; apparently neither a robot (they encountered robots on Solaria) or a human. Entering an airlock, they are greeted by a red-haired man. Fallom takes a liking to him, as he reminds her of her robot caretaker on Solaria.

This man introduces himself as Daneel Olivaw, and sends Bliss and Fallom out of the room; they are not Foundationers. Telling the two men that he is twenty thousand years old, he describes to them his ultimate goal. Older than any other being in the Galaxy, he has worked all that time to bring about Galaxia; it was only when he decided that it may fail that he helped Hari Seldon develope psychohistory, to bring about the second best option: the Second Galactic Empire. The reason for this is the Zeroth Law; the only way to truly work by it is to make mankind a single organism.

He has renewed hope for Galaxia, however, with the success of Gaia. Only one more major problem stands in the way. Daneel is dying. With his lifespan of twenty thousand years, every part of his body has been replaced several times. With each replacement, his positronic brain (to which all of his memories are uploaded) becomes more advanced. It grows in capacity, but becomes more volatile. His first lasted ten thousand years, but his latest only six hundred. The only way to make sure that Daneel survives to see Galaxia through is for him to...let's say "fuse his essence" with Fallom.

Being a Spacer, she will live for several hundred years, enough for Daneel to see his plan through. Despite Bliss's love for her, it is the only option.

Before the book ends, we get to hear Trevize's revelations. He now strongly supports Galaxia; he has seen the flaw in psychohistory; it only allows for one sentient race. Despite the fact that only one exists in our galaxy, countless other galaxies exist. If, at any time, a race in another galaxy unites it and turns outside of its own galaxy to find this one filled with petty squabbles, our galaxy--and our race--would fall. The only way to definitively prevent this is to create Galaxia--to create a truly united galaxy.

So the Foundation series ends.

Asimov wrote two other Foundation books, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, but I have no intention of reading them any time soon. As I've stated before, prequels tend to annoy me; the chance for surprises, such as the revelation of the Second Foundation's location, is greatly diminished. Contrary to what Shakespeare may have thought, those surprises are part of what makes a story great for me.

The Foundation series was a great story. It occasionally got a little slow for me, but it was interesting throughout. Gaia was a developement that I could never have foreseen, and it served as a great backround for the final book.

I can't really say that Asimov has become one of my favorite writers (those being Terry Pratchett and Tad Williams, who are both alive and writing *cheer*) but I suppose that he's up there. His books are great, but not quite as entertaining or awe-inspiring (respectively) as my two favorites.

As to the book at hand, I wish that we had gotten more face time with Pelorat. In fact, I don't feel like I know any of the characters as well as I would like after having spent several hours of my life with them (so to speak). Pelorat's case especially irked me, though. He hardly did anything in this book except come up with the occasional piece of information. The time specnt between planets was almost entirely spent in arguments between Bliss and Trevize.

Oddly, however, I feel like Pelorat had the most detail in his personality. He was a really simpathetic (I hesitate to use the word; it makes it sound like something horrible happens to him) character to me.

What do you know? That wasn't so bad after all.