Thanks for pointing out Wallerstein and Braudel, I'm going to check out their work. Spoilers The Second Foundation really creeps me out and definitely puts th

Thanks for pointing out Wallerstein and Braudel, I'm going to check out their work. Spoilers The Second Foundation really creeps me out and definitely puts the Plan on a different light. 1) those sentinels are well aware of the Plan; 2) Seldon could not predict the behaviour of such a small community, yet they have tremendous power over the universe; 3) Mentalists behave differently from humans. They break psychohistory's fundamental assumptions – to be fair, Seldon himself is an anomaly –, yet without them the Plan is likely to fail. Overall, I like how the books never fully explain the actual extent of Seldon's strategy: Asimov is clever enough to let the reader draw his own conclusions. On a side note, I didn't enjoy at all the last books about Gaia. Imho the writing seems rushed and lacking the quality and depth of the original series.