Isaac Asimov was ultimately hopeful about humanity. He saw us again and again coming to a crossroads and prevailing. The Foundation is about that.

What matters in sagas is sweep. This, the Foundation series surely has. I can only hope I have added a bit to that.

Works tracing the intricacies of the Foundation include notably Alexei and Cory Panshin’s historical The World Beyond the Hill, James Gunn’s insightful Isaac Asimov, Joseph Patrouch’s thorough The Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov, and Alva Rogers’ Requiem for Astounding, which gives a sense of what it was like to read the classic works as they appeared. I learned from all these studies.

For advice and comments on this project I am especially grateful to Janet Asimov, Mark Martin, David Brin, Joe Miller, Jennifer Brehl, and Elisabeth Brown for close readings of the manuscript. My gratitude goes to Don Dixon for his fantastical, future beastiary. Appreciation for general help is due to my wife Joan, Abbe, and to Ralph Vicinanza, Janet Asimov, James Gunn, John Silbersack, Donald Kingsbury, Chris Schelling, John Douglas, Greg Bear, George Zebrowski, Paul Carter, Lou Aronica, Jennifer Hershey, Gary Westfahl and John Clute. Thanks to all.

Gregory Benford

—physicist, educator, author-was born in Mobile, Alabama. He is a professor of physics at the University of California-Irvine, and conducts research in plasma turbulence theory and experiment, and in astrophysics. He has published well over a hundred papers. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a visiting professor at Cambridge University and has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA, and the White House Council on Space Policy.

Many of his best-known novels are part of a six-novel sequence beginning in the near future with In the Ocean of Night, and continuing on with Across the Sea of Suns. The series then leaps to the far future, at the center of our galaxy, where a desperate human drama unfolds, beginning with Great Sky River, and proceeding through Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, and concluding with Sailing Bright Eternity. At the series’ end the links to the earlier novels emerge, revealing a single unfolding tapestry against an immense background.