So far, I am finding Foundation quite engaging.

Thinking about the entire structure of it, essentially being a very long game where a plan is woven around all the characters, it reminds me of the old curiousity of how often such things are going on in the actual world. If they are, how far ahead are they planned, how successful are they, and who is in such a position to plan them?

Of course, some will build conspiracy theories around these things, somehow assuming that they are naturally happening every time the weather forecast is slightly off, or some such triviality. To me, this just seems like this age's version of "the ground is rumbling? Hmm... The gods must be angry!" or "my crops fail _and_ you recently lost a child... you must be a witch!" so they are rarely interesting.

Some of these things, of course, do eventually turn out to be true (various declassified propaganda initiatives or temporary denial of unpopular ideas by various authorities, etc), but I wonder how many are unknown (and yes, arguably this includes my own "Ontario Maneuver" conspiracy theory).

Further, I find the thought processes of the characters in the book to be interesting since many of them know that there is a plan, but don't know its details or when the next important step is to happen, and most of them don't want to know (since then they might screw it up). It is interesting to think about a complex system where the pieces within it believe that the plan exists, will ultimately benefit their interests, but they can only properly participate if they maintain a high degree of ignorance to its structure.

It is interesting, if a little unsettling, that such systems at a certain point all start to resemble blind faith in what effectively becomes a religion (which also includes "religions within religions", funnily enough).

The book also moves at an impressively efficient pace, probably because getting mired in the details would be a distraction or potentially put further strain on plausibility. It is interesting that the point-of-view character changes, every few chapters, as the old one died of old age in the intervening decades.

No wonder the story is spoken of so highly,
...Nights