What do you love about Asimov?

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Isaac1970

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I have been thinking about this a lot recently and wondering to myself what makes me like a particular author.

To give you some idea, my favorite authors are, Dr Asimov, Harry Harrison, Arthur C Clarke and A E Van Vogt.

Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison vie for my top spot constantly and depending on my mood one can win over the other. I decide that one is my all time favorite, but then I read a short story, novel, verse or whatever and the other jumps ahead,

So... I am wondering... why do you love the darling Dr?
 
His rationality of thought and clarity of style. His Aristotelian voraciousness for all knowledge. His wit and lack of false modesty. His lending of his name to the last (so far) successful science fiction magazine. That he always made the reader (or this reader, anyway) feel like a friend. That, more than anyone else, he made me conscious of written SF as a distinct entity and sparked my love for it. And his books! Lots and lots of great books! :)
 
More than anything, I think its his effortless, spare style of writing, and his ability to speak directly to the reader as though you were both in conversation.
 
I suppose I enjoy his work for a variety of reasons, but what I like best about his stories is his world-building and the interactions without. When I think back on what I enjoyed about the Robot or Foundation series, I always think about the planets he describes and the ways in which they interact with one another, on a large scale and on a more personal one.

His utilization of scientific concepts is occasionally very intriguing (The Gods Themselves), and I always appreciate that he does not base his stories on reality. His fiction, probably because of it's optimism, additionally because of the easy reading clarity of his style, always has the ability to make me feel detached from the world I live in and immerse myself excitedly in the universe he creates. Asimov can make you think when he wants to, but when I think of good Asimov I typically think of the intrigue of created worlds and the large scale interactions/predictions of psychohistory (Foundation), or the delineation of the robot mind as in the Robot series.

Simply put, it is fun, easy to read sci-fi. Out of any of the more pulpy science fiction writers, Asimov is probably my favorite.
 
I love his insight and foresight. I love how he was able to what was universal to what was possible. I also love his humanities in every single one of his books and stories.
 
As with others, there are varying reasons I like Asimov's work, but I suppose the one which stands out for me is the intensity of his humanist stance, followed by the wide variety of types of work he did.
 
The way he makes the most distant fantasies come true, in a realistic an scientific manner.
How profficient he is on an absurdly wide array of knowledge, he can be the best on fields like fisics, chemistry, biology, hystory, psychology, sociology, (and the list goes on!) on the SAME story.
And his writing style, wich is direct and crystal-clear, withouth the Affected language that plagues literature, and that poor-minded individuals mistake with a clever language.
 
The fact that as old as Foundation is , It's still timeless. :)
 
I really liked the fact that he told his stories without the need to 'fill out' the narrative with a 'love story'. When I started reading Science Fiction in the late 60s, I wanted to explore the universe and Asimov took me with him - minus all the angst of tortured love-afairs.

He also pleases with his love of puns such as the Judge's summing up: "...A niche in time saves Stein." from the time travel short story 'A Loint of Paw'.

Asimov helped to create the genre as we know it today. He started writing in a time when SF was for kids and considered, literally, 'pulp fiction' - Not fit for serious literary consideration. Today, SF is a multi-billion? dollar industry, often presages real-world technology and research and makes us into wide-eyed children eager to discover the unknown limits of our imagination.

'I, Robot' was the first Asimov story I read, and Asimov will always be my first SF crush. :D

Regards

GNDN
 
My favorite author is most likely Philip K Dick, but I really appreciate Isaac Asimov for his everyday approach to technology, which makes reading his science fiction works feel like reading non-fiction. Also, the incredible chronological scope from Robots to the Foundation series. To me only Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time comes close in terms of sheer time-span.
 
Isaac1970 said:
I have been thinking about this a lot recently and wondering to myself what makes me like a particular author.

To give you some idea, my favorite authors are, Dr Asimov, Harry Harrison, Arthur C Clarke and A E Van Vogt.

Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison vie for my top spot constantly and depending on my mood one can win over the other. I decide that one is my all time favorite, but then I read a short story, novel, verse or whatever and the other jumps ahead,

So... I am wondering... why do you love the darling Dr?
Click to expand...

You know when I started reading science fiction in 1953 , at the age of 12, I only knew Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. By way of friends I discovered Asimov and Heinlein. I was really taken by the Foundation Series. What impressed me was the world building of a far future that seemed lived in. Of course it was also a narrative of ideas. There is ACTION in Foundation but it is most off stage. The foundation stories are detective stories or rally Problem Solving stories. I loved this 'seriousness' , it gave me a feeling of viability , I would feel 'I could actually live in this world' a moment of transport that I did not get with fantasy. Asimov and Heinlein were not the only writers to do this , the stories in Astounding, Galaxy and F&SF really talked to me.
(By the by , at the time, I did not know that many of these stories were written as early as 1940, the leap to sophistication in science fiction prose was also a phase transition starting with John Campbell's editorship of Astounding in 1938.)
 
I appreciate Asimov's "big picture" perspective of the story of humanity. He doesn't fall for cliches about heroes saving the world. In the Foundation and Robot series, he looks at humanity as a whole and portrays a positive perspective on where we may be heading. It is a refreshing break from dystopian stories.
 
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