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Old 09-18-2012, 12:30 PM   #26
fjtorres
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RDaneel54 View Post
I like Asimov for his exploration of ideas like the collapse of a galactic civilization, the effects of robotics (a word he invented), etc.
And psychohistory, which is (under different names) actually being developed.
Robotics as a science practically deifies him since he pretty much wrote the roadmap for the science.

To appreciate Asimov you have to appreciate ideas more than wordsmithing.
His prose is intentionally lean and accessible to make the ideas accessible (the man wrote textbooks and popular science books--he was Brian Greene before Brian Greene).

If wordsmithing is your thing, go to Bradbury and Ellison and the other New Wave/Dangerous Vision era writers. Don't expect it from the Asimov era SF writers because that is not what the *editors* were looking and paying for. (That is precisely what the Dangerous Visions revolt was all about.)

Asimov started in the 30's and wrote most of his signature works in the 40's.
For a look of what his works evolved to, you might want to look at THE GODS THEMSELVES or his latter Robot and Foundation books.

He can no more be blamed for writing 40's SF than 70's fantasists can be blame for writing Tolkienesque fantasies. He and they wrote what the market let them publish.
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