JM Written: Haiku Series

I recalled a sunny memory from Boracay island in the Philippines when I wrote this.

Relaxing on Sand

by: JMM

Relaxing on sand

Seashells lying by the shore

Intricate designs

Review: Second Foundation (by Isaac Asimov)

The third book of the Foundation saga is simply called "Second Foundation."

It is about 80 years from the conclusion of the 2nd book. It tells of a group of Psychologists  planning to eradicate the Second Foundation. Thinking that this act will bring about the actual fulfillment of the Seldon Plan, these Psychologists believe that they are destined to beat them.

Little do these Psychologists know that the Second Foundation is full of descendants of the original psycho-historians. The Second Foundation had their own plans and could make certain predictions regarding the possible moves of these Psychologists. The book then tells of this great and climactic battle between the Psychologists and the Second Foundation, with the fate of the Seldon Plan in the balance. Exciting stuff.

Readers will surely experience the awe I felt when I was reading this exciting conclusion to the Foundation saga. This is one of the best books I have read. I can compare my experience reading and re-reading this story to the one I had when I read the Harry Potter series. However, the style of writing and the enjoyment is very different. With Harry Potter, you tend to see the magical world and all its adventures in your head as you read along with the story. With Hari Seldon (haha), you read about the conversations and the exciting discussion of ideas and concepts as the characters experience the "history" Asimov plots out for them.

Asimov's writing is unlike any other. But you don't need to take my word for it; first hand experience is the best. Read it just once and you will understand.

Recommended Age: 14+

Book Rating: Inscrutable, yet Inspiring

JM Written: Rhyme Scheme Poetry

I wrote this while thinking of Spring and the beautiful things that come with it. It is the best time of year. All of that cold snow disappears. Anything one could even want of nature, is here! This is a poem about just that!

It goes a little something like this:

Spring Sings!
by: JMM

The snow is melting, Spring has come!

Dandelions, sunflowers, roses, and then some!

Mother Nature arrives in full bloom

Time to shake off that winter gloom!

The trees dust off their snowy caps

Waking up, stretching from their winter naps

They spread out their branches in all different ways

Standing up, reaching for the bright sun's rays!

Everyone and everything

Coming together and singing, "Spring!"

Review: Foundation and Empire (by Isaac Asimov)

The second book of the Foundation saga is simply called "Foundation and Empire".

It is about 70 or so years from the conclusion of the first book, and the story talks about the success of the Seldon Plan for the first 300 years after the events in "Foundation".

The Foundation is growing in a sustained, steady, and rapid pace. The people in it are confident in their abilities to fend off anything. They have complete faith that Hari Seldon and his psychohistorians had planned for everything. Everything was going according to plan, until it wasn't. You see, psychohistory was proven to be effective at foreseeing events happening on a galactic scale. It was not so good at predicting individual actions, or in this case, the coming of a powerful individual who would call himself "The Mule". The Foundation had no warning of his coming and were completely helpless against his power.

The Foundation was helpless against the Mule. How could they fend off a mutant of such power, for all they knew he might be one of them? The secret of his true identity made him a dangerous and unpredictable spy. Was the Mule a male? A female? Was he even a person or a group? The Foundation knew nothing except the name "The Mule" and the extreme danger they were in before the Mule's power. They needed help. They needed the Second Foundation.

Now, for some reason, the Mule knew that he would be defeated if the Second Foundation were left untouched and undiscovered. So now both the Foundation and the Mule were in a race to find the secret of the Second Foundation and the first to find them would be the victor.

I think this book is a great feat of literature. The way Asimov describes it, at first seemed, very uninteresting. But he later surprised me with a connection between multiple subjects, in a way that created the interest of "reading till you can't read anymore" or "I can't put the book down." Asimov created an empire, a universe free of boundaries, of things you cannot imagine. He explains his fiction in a logical way, convincing his readers into believing that a universe like this exists.

Recommended Age: 14+

Book Rating: Outstanding

Review: Foundation (by Isaac Asimov)

The first book of the Foundation saga is simply called "Foundation".

It is in a time far far away from now. The exact time is unsaid, but it is easily over 100,000 years into the future. The tale of Hari Seldon and his Psycho-Historians, people who base their mass calculations of the future's events on mathematics, creating the Seldon Plan. A plan supposedly, planning the future of a thousand years, and its events between. According to their calculations, and planning, at the end of all of it, a Second Foundation. The latter parts of the book are about the Foundation spreading its roots, setting up the "foundation" of its beginning, its experiences, and the four main worlds surrounding it. The story also sets up the beginning of their exploration of the systems just outside their own.

Isaac Asimov is unsurpassed in science fiction stories, he plays with words as if they are his puppets, he, a puppeteer. He is a master of writing, and this series is his pièce de résistance. 

It seems like Asimov's writing here also sets the "foundation" for modern science fiction writing; many writers today start their stories with what is known (or science fact) and then adding on what could be (science fiction) in order to make their premises believable. After reading so much about Psychohistory as a "science", it almost seems like a real subject that one could take up in university.

I first read this series when I was younger, maybe just in Grade 3. I thought it was cool then but it was only when I read it again just recently that I realized how much I did not really understand in my first reading. I think I might read this again when I get older.

Recommended Age: 13+

Book Rating: Exceptional