If you are looking for a true science fiction novel, you may want to consider Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Asimov, author of over three hundred books, shows his mastery in this novel of intrigue, action, and of course amazing technology.
   The novel begins with the psychologist, Hari Seldon, who has predicted the downfall of the massive Empire, which has ruled over a million planets for 12,000 years, to be followed by 30,000 years of barbarity and misery. This visionary establishes two Foundations, one of physical scientists and a Second Foundation of psychologists at "opposite ends of the Galaxy" to shorten the oncoming years of darkness to a mere thousand years.
   The Foundation stories, with a few exceptions, come thematically on the side of predestination. In "The Encyclopedists," set only fifty years after Sedlon's death, a local mayor named Salvor Hardin finds that he can do nothing to avert the defeat of the Foundation, which is saved by circumstances beyond any individual's plan. However, troublesome exceptions prevent a simple solution to the question of an individual's role in history. The most important of these involves the existence of the Foundation itself. Hari Seldon foresees the years of savagery and had planted the Foundations to reduce the interregnum; this seems to contradict the concept of minimal individual involvement in history. Seldon's life itself appears to illustrate human actions changing history.
   The second important aspect of the Foundation series is psychohistory. Psycho- history is the art of prediction projected as a science. It consists of the use of a behavioral science, a social science, and a humanity to predict the actions of the masses. Asimov's method, statistical probability, prohibited the prediction of any actions smaller than those of large aggregates of population. Asimov also provided some of his philosophy of history in his storytelling. Basically, if you want to escape reality, Foundation's intense storyline introduces you to a whole new world of nuclear wizardry.

-The Mighty Taco, Vulture staff