spectru
1/15/2017
Foundation and Earth is a sequel to, and should be read after, Foundation's Edge. It is supposedly a continuation of the famous Foundation trilogy, written decades earlier, and so it is, but only loosely so. Trevize and his companions follow a quest in search of the legendary Earth. The visit several planets, eac of which poses a threat and from which they must leave in a hurry. Eventually they do find earth by plotting the coordinates of the Spacer worlds, the first worlds to be settled by humans, and confirm the mythical facts: Earth's system has four gas giants; one of which has an impressive ring system; Earth has an unusually large satellite; and Earth is contaminated by radiation. During their adventures they visit the planets of Aurora and Solaria, both from the robot series of novels, and even mention one of the books by name - Caves of Steel. Eventually, they meet Daneel Oliva, the android from the robot series, now 20,000 years old. Foundation and Earth is more of a continuation of Asimov's robot series than it is the Foundation trilogy.
There was one thing left unresolved, in my mind at least. I wonder if the answer was there and I just missed it. Why was Earth too radioactive to support life?