Asimov novels are 90% stilted expository dialogue punctuated by tepid action. Yet they somehow work. Why? I think sheer conceptual ambition.
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They defined a genre. Similar to Doc Smith earlier. As space opera? It stinks. But it was the first fumblings towards greatness
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It doesn't stink! Psychohistory is still one of the finest operatic plot devices ever!
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I still wish Asimov stayed with the vignette approach from Foundation. It makes sense that The Plan failed over 1000 years... but still
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But yeah vignette approach conveyed vast sense of history as foreground characters turned into historic figures. A literary Doppler effect.
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The Landon Devers/oligarch confrontation alluded to at the conclusion of one, turned into, "so the oligarchs imprisoned him and he died"
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