Isaac Asimov's Foundation series was once voted the greatest sf series of all time. Well, being a die-hard Asimov fan I'm not likely to disagree with this particular assessment. This is true to Asimov's usual style, we are presented with a story of galactic-wide politics, all managed without any of the major players having to resort to violence.

Towards the end of the Galactic Empire, during the initial stages of its decline, Hari Seldon fights a legal battle with the powers that be on Trantor (the Galactic capital planet), who feeling threatened by his proclamations of the impending end of the Empire. Following the trial's resolution he is allowed to set up his Foundation project under the auspices of producing an Encyclopaedia of all human knowledge, on the one condition that he move to the ends of the Empire – the planet Terminus - so that his message will not frighten a jittery populous.

Hari Seldon is a professor of mathematics, the inventor of a science called Psychohistory, a science that allows him to predict the future. Using this he science he sets up the Foundation with a purpose far removed from the stated aim of the Encyclopaedia.

He has predicted that when the Empire falls a period of thousands of years of chaos and anarchy will ensue, and his Foundation will limit this interregnum to a far shorter period.

Fifty years after the Foundation the Seldon vault is due to be opened, and a pre-recorded message from the long dead Founder will be played to anyone assembled. The months leading up to this are a troubled period for the Foundation, an unarmed academic institution surrounded by warring kingdoms.

But this being an Asimov book a solution will be found that relies on intelligence and not brute force. Salvor Hardin, during this period, becomes the first mayor of Terminus, seizing power in a bloodless coup from the Academics. He comes to power when the Foundation needs him most and he sets into motion a plan to save Seldon's project.

It's hard for me to be objective when it comes to Asimov's writing, I am a fan and have been since I was a teenager. Asimov's writing is not the best I've read, but it is easy to read. It's his ideas which elevate his stories and earn him his place in the sf pantheon. This is epic stuff, taking place on a galaxy wide stage, and all is achieved without resulting to route-one "let's get the guns out".