I hope this is the best place to put this, but if it's not, feel free to move it. : ) Anyway, I was reading some criticism about Isaac Asimov, and this stood out for me: I guess I'd just like to know if you agree with that statement, and if it isn't, necessarily, a bad thing? I actually quite like stories where there's no "action" or indepth description. I'm not sure why this is exactly, I guess I enjoy the freedom to imagine so much more than strict descriptions. Anyway, I figured I'd ask what you thought (about this / Asimov in general).
I disagree, I love Asimov. My grandmother actually introduced me to his writing and I found it to be very interesting. I hate what they did to I, Robot in the movie version, and I didn't care for the movie Bicentennial Man. I believe that Asimov writes great science fiction with intriguing characters and plots.
I tend to prefer his earlier works over his later stuff. He suffered the same sickness as Heinlein, that the more years behing him, the more he tended to ramble. The Foundation trilogy is among my favorite of his work. Later, he added another Fondation series beginning where the first left off, but I didn't enjoy that anywhere near as much, especially when he tired it back to his Caves of Steel series. But the original series, where Hari Seldon designed the future of the human race and put it into motion, is a truly fun read. As dushechka pointed out, it is not be any means an action thriller, but rather a commentary on the forces of historiy. Asimov also wrote nonfiction. His three volume series, Understanding Physics is an amazingly readable overview of the subject. I still have that imy bookcase, and encouraged my then teenaged children to make use of it.
I agree, Asimov doesn't have much character, description or action in his stories. But they still work, because the ideas are so interesting. His later books merely recycle old ideas, or, worse, contradict them. I think I'll create a thread about the second Foundation trilogy, the one by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford and David Brin.
