[philwelch]

I loved the Foundation trilogy for its ideas, but you can't get much more stark and dull as far as prose goes. The art of literature isn't what you write about, it's how well you write it, and there's very little of that in the Foundation trilogy. There's no artistry in the prose or characterization: it's just a straight translation of ideas to text. Of course, the ideas are very interesting and good, which is what justifies it.