Hober Mallow

Hober Mallow appears in the novella "The Big and the Little", published in the August 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was later retitled "The Merchant Princes", collected with four other stories and published as Foundation in 1951. Description Mallow is a successful merchant who brokers deals within the Foundation, and also between their territories and non-Foundation worlds. He is a native of Smyrno, one of the four "barbarian" planetary kingdoms of the Anacreon Province that exist under the Foundation's religious influence, but he dislikes the religion itself. Plot In "The Big and the Little", Hober Mallow is a Master Trader for the Foundation. He and his ship, Far Star, are sent to Korell to investigate the disappearance of three Foundation vessels in the vicinity. A Foundation missionary, Reverend Jord Parma, seeks sanctuary, but Mallow suspects subterfuge and turns Parma over to the Korellians, whose laws forbid Foundation missionaries to be on the planet under penalty of death. Mallow negotiates the sale of Foundation devices to the ruler of Korell, and soon the planet is dependent on them. Mallow is later tried for murder on the Foundation planet Terminus for condemning the missionary to death, but is exonerated when he proves that Parma was actually an agent of the Korellian secret police. Mallow's popularity results in his appointment to Mayor of Terminus. Korell subsequently declares war on the Foundation, and when Mallow imposes an embargo on them, the Korellan economy collapses due to its dependency on Foundation technology, thus forcing its surrender. == Adaptations ==

Radio Mallow is voiced by Julian Glover as in episode three "The Merchant Princes" of the 1973 BBC Radio 4 adaptation The Foundation Trilogy. Television Mallow is portrayed by Dimitri Leonidas in season two of the 2021 Apple TV+ television series adaptation Foundation. He is a roguish trader and con man with a "sarcastic personality and questionable morals, who is summoned against his will to serve a higher, selfless cause." Storyline In the 2023 episode “A Glimpse of Darkness”, Hari Seldon's mysterious Vault on Terminus opens after 138 years. Warden Jaegger Fount approaches, and exclaims "Get Hober Mallow!" before being incinerated. The name "Hober Mallow" is subsequently projected in front of the Vault. In "King and Commoner", Mallow swindles Commdor Argo of Korell, and evades capture alongside High Claric Poly Verisof and Brother Constant of the Foundation's propagandist Church of the Galactic Spirit. Mallow, Verisof and Constant meet with Seldon's digital avatar in the Vault in "Where the Stars are Scattered Thinly", and Seldon recruits Mallow in a scheme against the Empire. Subsequently in "A Necessary Death", Mallow approaches the Empire's navigators, the genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced Spacers, with an offer to free them from their servitude to the Empire by giving them a synthesized version of the micronutrient opalesk, on which they are dependent. After weighing the risks, the Spacers reject Mallow's offer and turn him over to Imperial General Bel Riose, but he escapes. In "The Last Empress", Mallow saves Constant from execution by the Empire, and they consummate their relationship. In the season two finale "Creation Myths", Mallow's capture is revealed to have been a ruse to smuggle a special jump sequence to She-Bends-Light, a Spacer on Riose's flagship, Shining Destiny. She uses it to program the fleet's warships to jump into one another, which will inevitably destroy them all and free the remaining Spacers from the Empire. Riose battles the Emperor clone Brother Day in hand-to-hand combat, and uses Mallow's castling device to switch places with Day via teleportation, venting the Emperor into space and killing him. Trapped on the doomed flagship, Mallow and Riose share a toast as the Shining Destiny explodes. Reception Sean T. Collins of Decider wrote, "Dimitri Leonidas actually has that roguish Han Solo charm so many actors and characters have tried and failed to recapture." Collins called Mallow's rescue of Constant "legitimately one of the most exciting and sexy acts of swashbuckling" he had seen in years. Goyer said that the deaths of Mallow and Riose were always planned for season two, adding that "I like that they meet their fates twinned together". == References ==