Foundation is a collection of five Foundation Series stories by Isaac Asimov, edited into a cohesive Novel for Gnome Press publication in 1951. Reprinted many times since, Ace Books used the title The 1,000 Year Plan for their abridged printings.
These first few stories establish the internal and external conflicts of Terminus tend to occur simultaneously. Wise enough leaders will deliberately manipulate one faction or another to ensure that both happen at near enough the same day because each "Seldon Crisis" must be solved by answering both problems at the same time.
Foundation chapters:
- "The Psychohistorians" (first publication)
- "The Encyclopedists"
- "The Mayors"
- "The Traders"
- "The Merchant Princes"
Foundation provides examples of:
- Advertising by Association: The 1960 Panther edition points out that Dr Asimov also wrote The Naked Sun.
- Arc Words: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
- Billed Above the Title:
- The French translation, published by Gallimard in 1957, includes Dr Asimov's name above the title in much smaller font.
- The Ace Books 1962 edition of The 1,000 Year Plan (red cover) places Dr Asimov's name above the title, in slightly smaller font. The older blue covers included his name at the bottom left of the cover instead.
- The Panther editions consistently published Dr Asimov's name above the title, ranging from "same size" to "three times the size".
- The Del Rey cover from 1983 makes "Isaac" three times as large as the title, and "Asimov" twice as large again.
- The Bantam Spectra cover from 1991 only uses "ASIMOV", but makes it twice as large as the title and Tagline combined.
- The Harper Collins (UK) cover from 1994 published Dr Asimov's name large enough to take up the top third, even larger than the focal point of the cover.
- The Harper Voyager (UK) cover from 2016 published Dr Asimov's name at the top, somewhat larger than the title, but smaller than the sun and spaceship on the cover.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: One translation of the English Foundation to Russian translates the words "Logarithmic slide rule" as "Pravilo logariphmicheskogo skol'zheniya". Literally "The law of logarithmic sliding".
- Compressed Adaptation: The Ace Books publications of the first Foundation novel are called The 1,000 Year Plan. This title reflects an abridged version of the original, with "The Merchant Princes" being cut.
- Cover Drop: The 1965 Panther cover, 1983 Del Rey cover, and 1991 Bantam Spectra cover have an artist depicting the Time Vault, where the long-dead Hari Seldon has a holographic message for the successors of Terminus.
- On the Panther cover, it's a red cube containing the Hologram of Seldon in a room with red walls.
- On the Del Rey cover, it's a green cube containing the Hologram of Seldon set upon a pedestal.
- On the Bantam Spectra cover, it's a blue cylinder containing the Hologram of Seldon behind a bronze vault door with blackness behind it.
- Dedication: This book is dedicated to Dr Asimov's mother.To My Mother
Of Whose Authentic Gray Hairs
Not a Few Were Caused by Myself - Double-Sided Book: Ace Books' double novel series has D-110; No World Of Their Own by Poul Anderson on the front and The 1,000 Year Plan by Isaac Asimov (the first novel of The Foundation Trilogy) on the back.
- Market-Based Title: The 1959 German translation (by Moewig) for Foundation is Terminus, der letzte Planet. In English, this is equivalent to Terminus, the last Planet.
- The Namesake:
- The title, reused from the first story, refers to the (first) Foundation, which Hari Seldon arranged to have colonized the distant planet Terminus.
- The alternative title, The 1,000 Year Plan, refers to Hari Seldon's Plan for a mere thousand years between the collapse of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the next Galactic Empire.
- Omnibus: Foundation (1951) and I, Robot were published as a single volume by Octopus Books in 1984.
- One-Steve Limit:
- A subtle aversion occurs because "The Encyclopedists" has a character named Jord Fara, while "The Merchant Princes" has a priest named Jord Parma. Fortunately, both are minor and appear in two different stories, set roughly a century apart, which minimizes the confusion.
- The Protagonist of "The Traders" is Lanthan Devers when originally published, but also one of the minor characters in "The General (Foundation)" was given the name Lanthan Devers, so when Dr Asimov edited "The Traders" for publication in Foundation (1951), he changed the name to Limmar Ponyets, to clarify that these weren't the same characters.
- One-Word Title: The name of the first book in The Foundation Trilogy is titled simply Foundation, taking it from the original name for "The Encyclopedists".
- Previously on…: Editions since the early eighties have included "The Story Behind the Foundation". It is a meta-example because it explains why The Foundation Trilogy has had so many different editions in the forty years since he sold "Foundation (1942)". It also tells the reader another book in the series is coming; Foundation's Edge.
- Raygun Gothic: Starting with "The Encyclopedists", characters have a variety of new devices that are essentially older technology with a smaller energy source, called 'atomics'. As the decades pass, they continue nuclear miniaturization, and in "The Traders" and "The Merchant Princes", start calling such devices 'nucleics'. The (collapsing) Empire uses generators the size of large buildings, while the Foundation creates generators the size of a pocketwatch.
- Tagline:
- "An Interplanetary Novel by Isaac Asimov" — Gnome Press cover from 1951
- "A million worlds made up their society— now the threat of thirty thousand years of anarchy loomed large" — Panther edition from 1960
- "The Galaxy was crumbling into thirty thousand years of anarchy" — Panther edition from 1964 & from 1965
- "In a future century the Galactic Empire dies and one man creates a new force for civilized life" — Avon's cover from 1966
- "Book One of the Foundation Trilogy, awarded the Hugo as Best Series Ever!" — Del Rey's cover from 1983
- "The first book in the epic Foundation saga" — Panther edition from 1984.
- "The Foundation Novels" — Bantam Spectra cover from 1991
- Title Drop Chapter: The first Novella was initially published as "Foundation". When publishing this Novel, Dr Asimov renamed the chapter to "The Encyclopedists" and deliberately avoided sharing a chapter title with the book's title.
