Listen free for 30 days
-
Foundation and Empire
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for £14.49
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
I, Robot
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when a robot begins to question its creators? What would be the consequences of creating a robot with a sense of humour? Or the ability to lie? How do we truly tell the difference between man and machine? In I, Robot, Asimov sets out the Three Laws of Robotics - designed to protect humans from their robotic creations - and pushes them to their limits and beyond.
-
-
Dire
- By DH on 08-12-19
-
Blade Runner
- Originally published as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignment: find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
-
-
Why the title?
- By Mr. G. J. Walker on 10-11-09
-
Dune
- By: Frank Herbert
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, and others
- Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shortlisted for the Audiobook Download of the Year, 2007.
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
-
-
A superb production of a sci fi classic!
- By Peter on 21-07-07
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
A fantastic combination
- By Mr. S. Gibson on 15-08-10
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
Tchaikovsky is still writing Symphonies!
- By Simon on 11-05-17
-
Robot Dreams
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A robopsychologist must outwit a machine determined to stay hidden in "Little Lost Robot"; a woman’s talent for "Light Verse" overshadows her true accomplishments with her robot servants; "The Last Question" presented to computer after computer over a hundred billion years may remain forever unanswered … and seventeen more future visions from the grand master of science fiction.
-
-
fantastic
- By UK on 21-05-18
-
I, Robot
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when a robot begins to question its creators? What would be the consequences of creating a robot with a sense of humour? Or the ability to lie? How do we truly tell the difference between man and machine? In I, Robot, Asimov sets out the Three Laws of Robotics - designed to protect humans from their robotic creations - and pushes them to their limits and beyond.
-
-
Dire
- By DH on 08-12-19
-
Blade Runner
- Originally published as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignment: find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
-
-
Why the title?
- By Mr. G. J. Walker on 10-11-09
-
Dune
- By: Frank Herbert
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, and others
- Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shortlisted for the Audiobook Download of the Year, 2007.
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
-
-
A superb production of a sci fi classic!
- By Peter on 21-07-07
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
A fantastic combination
- By Mr. S. Gibson on 15-08-10
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
Tchaikovsky is still writing Symphonies!
- By Simon on 11-05-17
-
Robot Dreams
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A robopsychologist must outwit a machine determined to stay hidden in "Little Lost Robot"; a woman’s talent for "Light Verse" overshadows her true accomplishments with her robot servants; "The Last Question" presented to computer after computer over a hundred billion years may remain forever unanswered … and seventeen more future visions from the grand master of science fiction.
-
-
fantastic
- By UK on 21-05-18
-
Exile
- The Five Worlds Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Al Sarrantonio
- Narrated by: Dave Courvoisier
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the first book in the long out of print Five Worlds Trilogy by award-winning author Al Sarrantonio. As the 25th century draws to a close, Prime Cornelian, a ruthless usurper of Martian rule, will do anything to control all of human civilization, and the fate of all humankind is in the hands of the exiled King of Earth, Dalin Shar. Find more novels by Al Sarrantonio at Audible.com. Search Crossroad Press to find more titles by Al Sarrantonio and many other science-fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, western and mainstream authors.
-
-
Nice beginning for a trilogy !
- By Ostfeld on 26-06-22
-
The Mote in God's Eye
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: L J Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
-
-
Listen before you buy!
- By Curates egg on 04-05-10
-
Rendezvous with Rama
- Rama Series, Book 1
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Toby Longworth
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence.
-
-
One of the best books ever made so dull
- By Mr. Adam M. Bushill on 17-12-13
-
Ringworld
- By: Larry Niven
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping. Larry Niven's novel, Ringworld, is the winner of the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.
-
-
Never run out of space again
- By Celtic Exile on 10-07-13
-
2001
- A Space Odyssey: Space Odyssey, Book 1
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It has been 40 years since the publication of this classic science-fiction novel that changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man adventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.
-
-
Excellent... but why no 2010 on Audible yet?
- By Martin on 31-07-14
-
The Dispossessed
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Roddy Doyle, Tim Treloar
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shevek is brilliant scientist who is attempting to find a new theory of time - but there are those who are jealous of his work, and will do anything to block him. So he leaves his homeland, hoping to find a place of more liberty and tolerance. Initially feted, Shevek soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game. With powerful themes of freedom, society and the natural world's influence on competition and co-operation, The Dispossessed is a true classic of the 20th century.
-
-
fantastic
- By Chris on 20-11-19
-
Shadowline
- Starfishers, Book 1
- By: Glen Cook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The vendetta in space had started centuries before "Mouse" Storm was born, with his grandfather's raid on the planet Prefactlas, the bloodbath that freed the human slaves from their Sangaree masters. But one Sangaree survived--the young Norborn heir, the man who swore vengeance on the Storm family and their soldiers,in a carefully mapped plot that would take generations to fulfill. Now Mouse's father, Gneaus, must fight for an El Dorado of wealth on the burning half of the planet Blackworld.
-
Neuromancer
- Sprawl Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Jason Flemyng
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel. William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the cyberpunk movement.
-
-
Of its time
- By G. B on 18-10-21
-
Of Ants and Dinosaurs
- By: Cixin Liu
- Narrated by: Bruno Roubicek
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout the universe, intelligence is a rare and fragile commodity - a fleeting glimmer in the long night of cosmic history. That Earth should harbour not just one but two intelligent species at the same time defies the odds. That these species, so unalike - and yet so complementary - should forge an alliance that kindled a civilisation defies logic. But time is endless and everything comes to pass eventually....
-
-
History of two species.
- By Rosemary White on 10-02-21
-
Colossus
- Colossus Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: D. F. Jones
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Forbin has dedicated the last 10 years of his life to the construction of his own supercomputer, Colossus, rejecting romantic and social endeavors in order to create the United States' very first Artificially Intelligent defense system. Colossus is a supercomputer capable of taking in and analyzing data rapidly, allowing it to make real time decisions about the nation's defense.
-
-
Makes you think.
- By E on 05-02-22
-
Seveneves
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Peter Brooke
- Length: 32 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The astounding new novel from the master of science fiction. What would happen if the world were ending? When a catastrophic event renders the Earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain....
-
-
Mixed feelings
- By Chris on 24-07-15
-
Childhood's End
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. When the Overlords finally showed themselves it was a shock but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began. But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and soon they will be ready to join the Overmind...and, in a grand and thrilling metaphysical climax, leave Earth behind.
-
-
Perfect example of how a bad narrator can ruin a great book.
- By Ed Scott on 13-07-18
Summary
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series
The Foundation series is Isaac Asimov’s iconic masterpiece. Unfolding against the backdrop of a crumbling Galactic Empire, the story of Hari Seldon’s two Foundations is a lasting testament to an extraordinary imagination, one whose unprecedented scale shaped science fiction as we know it today.
The First Foundation survived two centuries of barbarism as the once-mighty Galactic Empire descended into chaos. Now it must prepare for war against the remnants of the Empire as the Imperial fleet advances on their planet, Terminus.
Hari Seldon predicted this war; he even prepared his Foundation for it. But he couldn’t foresee the birth of the mutant Mule. In possession of a power which reduces fearsome opposition to devoted slaves, the Mule poses a terrible threat to Seldon’s Foundation.
Critic reviews
"One of the most staggering achievements in modern SF." (The Times)
"Isaac Asimov was one of the great explainers of the age. It will never be known how many practising scientists today, in how many countries, owe their initial inspiration to a book, article, or short story by Isaac Asimov." (Carl Sagan)
"Asimov displayed one of the most dynamic imaginations in science fiction." (Daily Telegraph)
More from the same
What listeners say about Foundation and Empire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emil Veselinov Milanov
- 04-10-21
Enter the Mule
Asimov's grand narrative continues ever onward towards its seemingly inevitable conclusion. The decline and final fall of an Empire that has stood for thousands of years is truly a sight to behold. The living will of the last of the Imperials clashes with the dead hand of Raven Seldon and with the weight and logic of history itself. And somewhere in the shadows, a new variable, unknown and unaccounted for, stirs ominously. The Mule has come, and the Foundation does not seem to have a fighting chance!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lewis broadway
- 01-08-21
Amazing
It’s rare that a sequel would out do the original in such a way, adds to the universe in a great way and takes a hard left turn which I didn’t see coming but greatly improved the story! 10/10
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- "wilwebber"
- 28-08-20
not as good as first installment
I tired of narrators style this time round, I was okay with it during Foundation.
will listen to third installment though
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Burghelea Mihai
- 08-06-21
Amazing story!
Not the most avid listener/reader, but I do enjoy sci-fi stories and this one here along with the first book have been probably the best I’ve heard/read ever!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt Neilson
- 21-04-21
outstanding
this second book in the foundation series is pure class just as enthralling and captivating as the first book with surprises and suspense throughout. Asimov was a master of his craft and the performance of William hope through the series is impeccable. I highly recommend this series to any sci fi or political thriller fan
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ALK
- 31-12-20
Classic Sci-Fi epic Surprisingly Enjoyable
second in the original trilogy of books by Asimov, this book was an improvement on the first (which I enjoyed the immediacy of). It comprises of two novellas linked by the continuing story arc of the Foundation, and the predictions of Hari Selden from the first book. Of the two novellas I found the second more interesting, with the amusing twist at the end and the set-up (I hope) for book three. Asimov's writing is surprisingly fresh and engaging for a book written when my father was but a boy. The underlying themes are interesting yet not overly heavy, and so much sci-fi that was to follow took inspiration from this book I can see why it earned its status.
for the Audio book, the narration was great. definitely one of the better narrators I've listened to.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom Johnson
- 28-05-20
brilliant
a brilliant book from 1952 which feels like it could have been written in 2020
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 23-04-23
Very nice story and great narrator!
I loved the character of Magnifico! excited for the next book
the story went by quite fast to me, definitely didn't feel like that many hours
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Will M.
- 04-04-23
Stronger than the original
While Foundation holds the crown for worldbuilding, I felt it relied on a lot of coincidence and convenient intellectualising to solve every problem. It never felt like a crisis was beyond the Foundation's ability to resolve. Indeed, Hari Seldon's predictions had already anticipated the resolution ahead of time, so it always felt like 'going through the motions' to feel like an actual thriller.
Foundation and Empire both plays up to and then massively subverts this formula in a much stronger style than the original and the series is all the more stronger for having introduced conflict that cannot simply be debated or resolved with outthinking the opponent.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SST
- 21-12-22
Absolutely Brilliant
I don't usually listen or read science fiction but the reading and the content are top notch.