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Asimov wrote in his memoir, he still "had no idea how those complications could be handled." He never did. |
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Between the completion of Robots and Empire and the start of Foundation and Earth, Asimov contracted with the William Morris Literary Agency to write Fantastic Voyage II, in anticipation that it would become a motion picture. Like Fantastic Voyage, it would deal with the use of miniaturized vessels in the human bloodstream. But that project foundered over his stipulation that Doubleday have an opportunity to bid on its publication and then over his reluctance to proceed when Doubleday executives objected. The Agency turned to Philip José Farmer as a replacement, but didn't like his manuscript, although Asimov found it "terrific" and faithful to the Agency outline. |
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In part because of his reluctance to continue with the Foundation future, Asimov finally agreed to write the novel, which brought cooperating Russians and Americans together on one vessel, after the Agency agreed to pay Farmer for an accepted novel and to allow Doubleday to publish Asimov's novel. The novel was published in 1987. Asimov didn't think it did as well because of the Russian-American cooperation (in spite of its prescience). As Asimov had anticipated, the movie was never made. |
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Asimov liked to analyze his actions and trace his ideas to their origins. His next novel, he wrote in his memoir, came about when a young man riding in his apartment elevator commented that he had always wanted to know what had happened to Hari Seldon and how he had come to invent psychohistory. For two of his last three books Asimov would devote himself to those discoveries. |
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The first was Prelude to Foundation, which he began on February 12, 1987 and completed nine months later. It was published later that year. The novel begins fifty years before the events narrated in the first chapter of The Foundation Trilogy and traces the beginnings of psychohistory as Hari Seldon announces it as a theoretical possibility in a paper read at the Decennial Convention of mathematicians on Trantor, his first visit there from his obscure home planet of Helicon. |
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The Empire's First Minister, Eto Demerzel (another example of Asimov's belief that power lies behind the throne), encourages the Emperor, Cleon I, to meet with Seldon to explore the possibility of perfecting psychohistory into a practical discipline. Seldon, outlining all the difficulties, thinks the task is impossible and wants to return home. But he is prevented from doing so by an attack by two young hoodlums. |
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