# Was Isaac Asimov a good writer or a stylistic hack with visionary ideas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2004, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557 "2004-07-17T06:33:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/21 "2004-07-17T19:07:40Z")
> [@PussyCow](#): > > Not entirely true. There was a small, not too explicit sex scene in _Robots of Dawn_ And _The Gods Themselves_ is all about sex - in a species with three genders! Nevertheless, whatever Asimov may have written about copulation, he never wrote about sex. Equally so, there is also a world of difference between a clear style and an inability to have a style. Asimov was the latter. > [@commasense](#): > > Sorry, we can’t let this stand. Asimov originated the revolutionary notion (now a commonplace in SF) that robots would not be allowed by their designers to become Frankenstein’s monsters. Asimov worked very hard all his life to perpetuate this myth, but there is no substance to it. Check out the entry on Robots in _The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_ for a swift and definitive refutation. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/22 "2004-07-17T19:12:50Z")
I’m not so sure I would say that Asimov loved writing. More, he felt _compelled_ to write. It was an addiction of sorts, for him. So I can see him saying that he hated it, even though that’s what he would always choose to do. As for his characterizations, I think the problem is not that he _couldn’t_ create full characters, just that he usually didn’t. Andrew (“The Bicentennial Man”) and Dr. Susan Calvin, for instance, are very full characters. But you don’t see anywhere near that level of detail in, say, the interchangeable Donovan and Powell, or the protagonists of the Galactic Empire and Foundation novels. And does anyone else see the irony in that _Village Voice_ article calling Asimov a hack, and then illustrating the point by discussing solely a movie that has nothing to do with Asimov? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/23 "2004-07-17T19:25:18Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > > [@commasense](#): > > > > Sorry, we can’t let this stand. Asimov originated the revolutionary notion (now a commonplace in SF) that robots would not be allowed by their designers to become Frankenstein’s monsters. > > Asimov worked very hard all his life to perpetuate this myth, but there is no substance to it. Check out the entry on Robots in _The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_ for a swift and definitive refutation. Gosh, and after I went out of my way to say something nice about _you_! Okay, so I’m Asimov’s dupe, and I don’t happen to have a copy of the _Encyclopedia_ at hand. Please fight my ignorance, **Exapno**. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/24 "2004-07-17T19:25:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And does anyone else see the irony in that _Village Voice_ article calling Asimov a hack, and then illustrating the point by discussing solely a movie that has nothing to do with Asimov? **Chronos** , I have to take exception here. As far as I could tell, reading the ‘reveiw’ the _Village Voice_ never actually illustrated the point about Asimov being a hack, just left it as a Q.E.D. and continued from there to trash the movie. I’m not looking to defend the movie, but why on earth can’t papers (the _Voice_ is not alone in this…) actually have reviewers who like the kind of story being reviewed write a review? When the review exudes some kind of major disdain for SF in general, even before it begins to talk about the movie, doesn’t that strike an editor as a sign that this is not a particularly open minded look at the piece in question? ---
**Author:** ![Helena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/25 "2004-07-17T19:40:47Z")
I’ve enjoyed his short stories, and a lot of his autobiographical and commentary stuff. I started reading the Foundation series but gave up a short way into the second book. I do like novels to have _some_ characterization, so I can keep track of who’s who. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/26 "2004-07-17T20:23:56Z")
> [@PussyCow](#): > > Not entirely true. There was a small, not too explicit sex scene in _Robots of Dawn_ There was also a little sex in _Murder at the ABA_, which I read when I was twelve. [hijack]Then I found that you could look up authors’ addresses in Who’s Who in America in the library, so I wrote to him, saying that I liked the book but thought the sex was unnecessary. He wrote back to suggest that I wait five years and re-read the book. I didn’t do it then, but did do so recently. What I didn’t realize at twelve was that the sex wasn’t prurient but a critical plot device. I also didn’t realize that I was criticizing his favorite book.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/27 "2004-07-17T20:28:37Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > There was also a little sex in _Murder at the ABA_, which I read when I was twelve. > > [hijack]Then I found that you could look up authors’ addresses in Who’s Who in America in the library, so I wrote to him, saying that I liked the book but thought the sex was unnecessary. He wrote back to suggest that I wait five years and re-read the book. I didn’t do it then, but did do so recently. What I didn’t realize at twelve was that the sex wasn’t prurient but a critical plot device. I also didn’t realize that I was criticizing his favorite book.[/hijack] Was it his favorite book because he (or a pseudonymous avatar) was in it? 🙂 While Asimov did have an ego, he was also capable of poking fun at both himself and it. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/28 "2004-07-17T22:19:53Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > Note I’m not talking about the awful Robert Silverberg “novelisation”. Far as I’m concerned, none of the “based on Asimov” derivatives are worth a damn – not Silverberg’s stretched-out novelizations, not the “Robot City” series, not the “Foundation” spin-offs. Feh. As for sex in Asimov’s stuff, I vaguely recall a sex scene in one of the last _Foundation_ novels, between two senior citizens…? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/29 "2004-07-18T00:17:55Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Gosh, and after I went out of my way to say something nice about _you_! > > Okay, so I’m Asimov’s dupe, and I don’t happen to have a copy of the _Encyclopedia_ at hand. Please fight my ignorance, **Exapno**. I assume **Exapno** is talking about Brian Stableford’s article in the Clute Nicholls Encyclopedia. He says that good sf stories at the time did not have a Frankenstein theme, and gives a couple of classic stores - the Binder _I, Robot_, _Farewell to the Master_ the inspiration for the movie _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ (and much better) and del Rey’s _Helen O’Loy_. This is all true, but two things. First, as Stableford admits, Asimov alway gave credit to Campbell for codifying the Laws, though Campbell said they were in the stories. Second, while there were good stories with good robots, the Three Laws made the old evil robots unacceptable in decent science fiction. (I’m sure there were plenty in Ray Palmer’s mags, I don’t remember any stories with them off the top of my head.) Still, there is no question of whose robot stories were more influential. It’s been years since I’ve read Stapledon, but I never got the impression that his empires (which were non-human) could work. Asimov’s were political and economic. They were also very clearly based on the Roman empire, so you don’t have to go to far looking for the inspiration. Asimov never claimed to be a great stylist. He often talked about how many of his early stories got rejected, and the real early stuff in _The Early Asimov_ are godawful. I remember one place where he said how he learned to do scene transitions from Clifford Simak. As opposed to Heinlein, who sold his first story to Astounding, Asimov struggled, and never said otherwise. However, the reason his science popularization books did so well is that his style was very clear and easy to follow. He was slightly above average in style for when he started writing (and don’t judge the average by the stuff that gets reprinted) and never grew. I think he did love to write. He wrote about bringing his typewriter with him on vacation. Oh, and don’t judge him by anything written in the last few years of his life. His last Foundation book was bitter, as was the end of his last autobiography. I’d guess that health issues, and maybe just age, were affecting him. This is not to say that he was ever a saint, though. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/30 "2004-07-18T00:21:19Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Far as I’m concerned, none of the “based on Asimov” derivatives are worth a damn – not Silverberg’s stretched-out novelizations, not the “Robot City” series, not the “Foundation” spin-offs. Feh. As a slight hijack, I wish people wouldn’t write these novelizations and extensions. Silverberg’s Nightfall about the best of the lot, but Benford’s extension to Clarke’s _Against the Fall of Night_ was painful to read - especially after I reread the original which was printed with it. And yes, Hari Seldon, action hero - feh. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/31 "2004-07-18T00:24:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > As a slight hijack, I wish people wouldn’t write these novelizations and extensions. Silverberg’s Nightfall about the best of the lot, but Benford’s extension to Clarke’s _Against the Fall of Night_ was painful to read - especially after I reread the original which was printed with it. > > And yes, Hari Seldon, action hero - feh. That’s right up there with FDR, Hero of the Revolution! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/32 "2004-07-18T02:05:20Z")
Here’s an interesting analysis of Asimov’s work in Slate re the “I, Robot” movie. [Isaac Asimov - How I, Robot gets the science-fiction grandmaster wrong.](http://slate.msn.com/id/2103979/) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/33 "2004-07-18T03:14:32Z")
FYI, there’s an editorial about Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws in Sunday’s New York Times. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/34 "2004-07-18T03:57:12Z")
If you’re looking for sex in Asimov, go read the middle section of _The Gods Themselves_. Very explicit. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/35 "2004-07-18T04:14:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Another example of innovation: In the Foundation series he conceived of epic stories on a time scale that, to my knowledge, had only previously been attempted by one writer, Olaf Stapledon. (Does anyone happen to know if there’s any indication that Asimov had read Stapledon’s Last and First Men?) Asimov himself said that he based the Foundation series on the decline fo the Roman Empire. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/36 "2004-07-18T06:00:54Z")
In Composition 101 We used Asimov’s “A Choice of Catastrophes” because the professor felt that it contained a number of excellent and clearcut examples of various methods of exposition.\* This was because of the very mechanical way that Asimov used those methods. Of course, this was a science book (pop science) so the style was appropriate in this case. \*I’m trying to remember some of those methods. The only one I remember is “compare and contrast”. I _think_ some of the others were things like “list”, “description”, “analogy”; but I’m not sure. Maybe someone who knows can post a list. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/37 "2004-07-18T14:39:15Z")
> [@PussyCow](#): > > Honestly I feel his writing style is rather bland, but not in such a way as to make his books boring. They just somehow lack an artistic quality. Like he’s telling a news story - a very exciting one. My husband says he writes “very much as a white guy”. Could you please explain this “very much as a white guy” thing? Consider this: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Tolstoi, Hugo, Kafka, Proust, Borges, were all white guys. Each of them was in his own right a great writer and yet they are unique. Your husband owns me an explanation. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/38 "2004-07-18T14:42:26Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > Could you please explain this “very much as a white guy” thing? Consider this: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Tolstoi, Hugo, Kafka, Proust, Borges, were all white guys. > Each of them was in his own right a great writer and yet they are unique. > Your husband owns me an explanation. It’s the literary equivalent of doing the white guy shuffle frug. Happy now? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/39 "2004-07-18T17:37:20Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Gosh, and after I went out of my way to say something nice about _you_! > > Okay, so I’m Asimov’s dupe, and I don’t happen to have a copy of the _Encyclopedia_ at hand. Please fight my ignorance, **Exapno**. And of what value is praise from the ignorant? 😃 Seriously, I just put down some corrections in a hurry before I had to leave. I didn’t want to retype a block of stuff either. **Voyager** is technically correct when he says, “while there were good stories with good robots, the Three Laws made the old evil robots unacceptable in decent science fiction.” But my interpretation of that is different from his. First, the laws were John W. Campbell’s inspiration. And Campbell absolutely dominated sf in the 1940s. When Campbell decided that he wasn’t going to allow evil Frankensteinian robots in his magazines and gave Asimov the logical basis for eliminating them, that decision changed the field. You might be able to publish them in the pulps or the lesser digests, but you wouldn’t have any impact or influence over the rest of the field. But as the Robots entry shows, the field had already moved beyond simplistic robot stories. The stories cited there were published in Amazing, Thrilling Wonder, and Super Science Novels, as well as several that Campbell had already published in Astounding. It was Campbell who made the difference here, far more so than Asimov. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557/40 "2004-07-19T06:06:25Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > FYI, there’s an editorial about Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws in Sunday’s New York Times. Yes! It is not often that the NY Times feels the need to state editorially that a movie sucks. It was a fantastic editorial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-isaac-asimov-a-good-writer-or-a-stylistic-hack-with-visionary-ideas/255557.md?page=3)