Grand science fiction series about the future of human society among the stars.
Foundation is a very forward-thinking saga of science fiction novels that centers around the hypothetical science of "psychohistory". Back in the 1940s, years before the eponymous first novel's publication, Asimov predicted a future in which all the various factors that account for the course of humanity's actions can be collected and input into a highly advanced computer. Coming before a general-purpose computer had even been invented, this was a very novel idea indeed. Characters don't take center stage in this series — the concept of psychohistory and its inventor Hari Seldon's machinations to ensure it is applied properly across the ages are the stars of the show. The only exception to this rule is the Mule, an enigmatic character who appears in the second book Foundation and Empire, but in general, the characters are interchangable. In this way, this befits the series, as it is fundamentally about trends larger than any individual. Even the futuristic science of psychohistory cannot predict individual actions, and there is something elegant about that.