Impressions after reading 'Prelude to foundation" by Isaac Asimov

I am just discovering the work of the great SF writer. Although this was the last one published by the author in the Foundation series, I had the chance to read it first, as it was envisioned by Asimov.

The narrative is about the young mathematician Seldon Hari who captured the attention of a busy Emperor of a Galactic Empire some tens of thousand years in the future. Seldon is a native of Helicon, one of the smaller and lesser populated planets among ten thousand others in the Empire located at the margins of the Galaxy.

His participation to an important Conferences on mathematics brings him forth in the public domain with the introduction of the idea of employing probabilistic and history to forecast the future of the Empire and its multiple worlds. Seldon names that idea as 'psychohistory' even before having a very clear understanding on how to approach the subject.

Prelude is the story of taking of the 'psychohistory' from idea to a workable mathematical model that allows for prediction of future events with levels of certainty. Various characters such as Hummin Cheeter, Doors Venabili and many other complete the narrative to give it some substance.

My overall impression is that the idea of the book is excellent however the sense of uni character is there. One cannot distinguish different personalities between the characters through discussions. The world presented is very impoverished of features and the key ideas are very very had to swallow.

For Asimov, the Robot character in his books as this one plays the role of the immortal good who plays the saviour of humanity at times.