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I just read this thread end-to-end (with Warren Zevon in the background...)
Asimov just wrote and threw it at the wall...And most of it stuck.
Even so... most of it was forgettable. But when he was on, he was ON.
The Ugly Little Boy, It's a Beautiful Day, The Last Question, Liar!, The Fun They Had...
But that is the difference between then and now. No TV, no ability to re-watch a movie, reading was IT for entertainment. And more demand that there was quality product to fill with. And not as much interest in immersing yourself in a long book days on end. An hour or two's read, that was what people wanted. 10-50 pages a pop...Today, you turn on the babble box...
(As to Dune, it fell apart for me when I realized the Arrakis ecology was a mono-culture. What is the one thing you know, beyond any shadow of doubt, about a mono-culture? It is always ARTIFICIAL! And it is unstable! So who made it, and why. And how close to the times portrayed? Not a peep out of Herbert about that, ever... See Joe Haldeman's Mindbridge.)
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