Quote:
Originally Posted by holymadness
He is not a very strong manipulator of language. His plots are simplistic, as he prefers imagining the contours of alternate universes to creating interesting and intricate storylines. He created no memorable characters in his lifetime.
If we compare him to his contemporaries—Raymond Chandler, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Arthur Miller, Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck—there is really no question that he was a minor, minor figure in letters at the time. Had he not popularized science fiction along with Clarke and Heinlein, I think he would be forgotten today.
He has the merit of being a visionary, but not a particularly good writer.
I don't think it should. Some others in the thread are saying that because 1950s sci-fi movies/pulp fiction were cheesy, Asimov somehow has the right to be just as cheesy.
Sci-fi should be held to the same standard as all literature.
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Actually, Asimov was a very good writer with a very strong command of the English language.
What one has to remember, though, is that when he was writing his science fiction he was deliberately trying to write unmemorable prose. In fact, he is on record as saying that whenever he wrote what he thought was a particularly good sentence he struck it out.
Isaac Asimov did not want anyone to pay attention to his writing. His belief was that if the reader is paying attention to how a writer is saying something they are not paying that attention to what they are saying. He did not want his writing to draw attention away from his ideas.
He knew exactly what he was doing.