Holy fucking shit, what an ending!

I'll start by saying this book was a huge improvement over the first book, for most of the book, however it is in the middle of the book when it regressed to the first book's poorer quality.

The book was in two parts, The General gripped me pretty quickly, the story of

the problem of Bel Riose and Brodrig, and the brilliance of Lathan Devers and Ducem Barr trying to stop them by using Imperial Politics, and out of instinct came to the same solution Seldon's Psychohistory had, that the way to solve the crisis was to fuel the Emperor's paranoia of being overthrown by popular generals and have him eliminate Bel Riose himself. And even though Devers and Barr's plan to cause this failed, their sheer presence near the Emperor and the fact they left, fueled his paranoia enough for him to do what they wanted anyway, solving their problem for them without him even knowing it. Seldon's Psychohistory did not fail.

Absolutely fucking awesome!


As for The Mule, this was where some of the best and worst parts of the book were for me and where the story got boring and muddled, but there were little nuggets of excellence and an incredible ending with a dirty twist I fucking loved!

It followed a married couple, Toran (of the Traders) and Beyta (of the Foundation) and how they met a mysterious Jester who was held captive by a new threat, a Mutant called The Mule. He was quickly conquering territories and was clearly heading to capture the Foundation.

Towards the end, I thought I had figured it all out, thought I had followed all the breadcrumbs of foreshadowing and I was a little Sherlock Holmes with my pipe,

I thought Magnifico's Visi-Sonor was the actual power behind The Mule's control of people. I thought he had his own machine and was using it to control people. That's why he sought Magnifco, because he knew he wasn't a Mutant and his control came from technology, not a mutation. I thought Magnifco using his machine to kill the prince and his men on Neotrantor was proof of that, that it did more than we knew and it could affect human biology. It explained everything!

....then the truth came to light, and Magnifco was The Mule, using the Derrells to travel to Foundation and meet influential people that run all these places and warp their minds to his needs. The reason Toran went out of his way to save a stranger, Magnifico, in the first place was because he was controlled to do so. Magnifco was the Mule all along, and it makes perfect sense, and I'm a dummy for not putting it together myself. He was often so annoying that I found myself in disbelief all these characters put up with him, now it makes sense, their emotions were manipulated.
But the real twist, the real cherry on the cake, was how irony foiled The Mule's plans. He was foiled by his own emotions, because he found someone who truly cared about him without emotional manipulation, and he wanted to cherish that feeling forever, and so he never manipulated or read the emotions of Beyta, which meant he didn't realise at the end she had figured it out and planned to kill Mis to stop The Mule from hearing the location of the Second Foundation. And she figured it out in the first place because he killed the prince without even touching him and used his "Visi-Sonor" to do so, because he had made veiled threats of rape and forcing Beyta to be his woman, which, naturally, infuriated Magnifco and caused him to kill him. That's why, it was his own emotions, which he could not control, that destroyed his plans.

Absolutely fucking beautiful and what a brilliant twist!

That ending alone has me dying to read book 3, which I'm starting in 3....2....1......bye 👋