Foundation and Earth

By: Isaac Asimov

Narrated by: Larry McKeever

Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the great masterworks of science fiction. An ingenious blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women determined to shield enlightened humanity from a ceaseless threat of darkness and ultimate annihilation.

Golan Trevize, former councilman of the First Foundation, has chosen the future, and it is Gaia. A superorganism, Gaia is a holistic planet with a common consciousness so intensely united that every dewdrop, every pebble, every being, can speak for all - and feel for all. It is a realm in which privacy is not only undesirable, it is incomprehensible. But is it the right choice for the destiny of mankind? While Trevize feels it is, that is not enough. He must know.

Trevize believes the answer lies at the site of humanity’s roots: fabled Earth...if it still exists. For no one is sure where the planet of Gaia’s first settlers is to be found in the immense wilderness of the galaxy. Nor can anyone explain why no record of Earth has been preserved, no mention of it made anywhere in Gaia’s vast world-memory. It is an enigma Trevize is determined to resolve and a quest he is determined to undertake, at any cost.

Listen to all of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, including (in chronological order):

Prelude to FoundationForward the FoundationFoundationFoundation and Empire Second FoundationFoundation's EdgeFoundation and Earth

©1986 Nightfall, Inc (P)2011 Random House Audio

Mixed Feelings

After what I considered a pretty amazing follow up to the original trilogy (Foundations Edge), you certainly wont be satisfied by avoiding this, and you may not be satisfied by reading it. I really have mixed feelings. The scale of this story ramped up really fast at the close of Foundations Edge, and it does again at the end of this. The story seems to drag more than its predecessor, despite this, I found the search for Earth to be very interesting and entertaining overall. My gripe comes mainly from the end. I wont spoil anything but the ending is not quite ambiguous enough to be a perfect cliffhanger and is a bit too ambiguous to be a definitive conclusion. That is, the conclusion that is drawn is done so quickly and unsatisfactorily. If only Asimov had lived long enough to follow this up properly to tie up loose ends while properly unraveling other loose knots.

I cant give this 3 stars, since I thoroughly enjoyed a majority of the story, but I wont 5 stars since it really falls short of the original trilogy and its direct predecessor in my opinion.

Regarding the performance, I really preferred Scott Bricks performance throughout the 4 previous books. I wish he returned here to bring more life to the characters.

So disappointing - narrator ruins it.

I love the whole Foundation series (and Asimov’s Robots series!). I have read all the books several times, and still enjoy listening to them often. I decided this week to listen to the original trilogy, then Foundation’s Edge, following up, of course, with Foundation and Earth. I forgot about the change in narrator for the series, so was surprised and disappointed (again) when this book started. I’m sure Larry McKeever is a decent fellow, but as a narrator, he is awful and ruins a great story. I would love to hear Scott Brick doing the narration on this one, too.

narrator needs to find a new line of work

this is a great story I have read several times. This guy close to ruins it. The next in the series is also read by him....I'm skipping it

Insanely Bad Narration

I'm a huge fan of Asimov and of Foundation but this narration is inexcusable. Transitioning from Scott Brick's inspired work to this particular narrator is very difficult. I've heard text to speech engines with better pronunciation and delivery.

Worst reading ever…

Amazing series! Not sure why they could not get the same voice actor for the whole series… honestly ruined the last book for me, I should have just read the paper back would have been way better… I don’t know why audible keeps doing that with series.

Monotonous reading...

Monotonous reading... but you have to listen to book 5 before moving on to book 6. Someone should really re-do the reading.

The Story Is Good But The Reading Falls Flat!

It is better to listen to this reading at a faster speed. The performance is far too slow and I found 1.3X to be best for me, also the reading is far to flat and monotone and I found the story itself worth this minor inconvenience however.

This needs to be redone, sorry mr. mckeever

Another review says this should be recorded again with Scott Brick the reader of the books before this. That would be good, but ideally we’d get someone better than Scott Brick as well. Scott Brick is ALWAYS solid, and I appreciate that. I can always listen to him just fine, and I’ve listened to enough audiobooks that I know there are readers that are far beyond solid/decent/fine. Nick Podehl is the one that jumps to mind because he’s unbelievably good, but there’s a lot of good options.

A continuation of the story, but written for the younger generation and lacked a little reality in the imagination.

For the younger generation. They should read the original Foundation trilogy first. I read them when I was in my early twenties.

It's really missing Scott Brick

I enjoyed this story, It kept my interest and the new characters are good. New worlds, new challenges and It fills in some more storylines from the previous books. The narrator is terrible. It's read like a textbook which makes it very difficult to know what character is speaking.