Point of View

A wholly anonymous storyteller of Prelude to Foundation follows with considerable sympathy and empathy the adventures of mathematician Hari Seldon and historian/bodyguard Dors Venabili during their "flight" from the Emperor's ostensibly evil and manipulative chief of staff, Eto Demerzel. Prelude to Foundation is told in the third person past tense, largely through narrative connecting extensive dialog, without delving into the characters' inner thought processes. There are indications that the storytelling is as much as twenty years after-the-fact (based on a comment that Emperor Cleon I is the last of his dynasty to sit on the Imperial throne). It also acknowledges that the Hari Seldon who appears here is a far cry from the white-haired, wheelchair-bound cultural icon he is destined to become.

Apart from that one reference, the narrator is far from a hagiographer. All of the well-rounded characters have flaws, the hapless protagonist in...