Asimov: Forward the Foundation: Editing fiasco.
A. David Beach
appalling editing fiasco that occurred with Isaac Asimov's script for
"Forward the Foundation"? Surely i am not the only one, even if
Transworld Publishers (NZ) Ltd refuse to acknowledge that anything is
wrong.
Part IV, Chapters 1 and 2 are misplaced. They refer to events that
have not been reached in the narrative. I have looked for clues as to
the correct positioning of these chapters and I believe that they
should be inserted just prior to Chapter 17 of Part IV (although there
are one or two other possibilities).
As Isaac Asimov died shortly after writing this book, it is quite
possible that this error in proof reading was inadvertently passed
through to printing without being noticed. One would hope that the
next printing will correct this error.
The sequential errors are:
Ch. 1, p 297 Seldon meets three men in the Library and invites one of
them to meet him in his office at ł4pm the day after tomorrow˛ (p 300)
p 302 Seldon is said to be 70 (2nd para)
p 304, 1st para, Las Zenow greets Seldon łWelcome my friend...˛
p 305, bottom, Zenow notes that Seldon has just passed his 70th
birthday.
Ch. 8, p324, Seldon meets Zenow for the first time. (paras 3,4,5)
Ch. 9, p328, bottom, Seldon is quoted as being 66.
p 331, bottom, Seldon is 66
Chs. 17 to 23 describe a single sequence of events.
Ch. 23, p368, bottom, Seldon refers to having met with three men in
the Library and invited one to meet him in his office that day.
It is possible to infer a lengthy temporal break in the storyline
between the end of Ch. 16 and the start of Ch. 17, so I would
logically place the events of Chs. 1 and 2 just prior to Ch. 17, when
the sequence of events would be correct.
I suspect that proofreading was interrupted by the death of the
author, the error was not spotted prior to printing, and all copies
currently in print contain this error.
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