[anigbrowl]

True...but while his ideas were great, his writing hasn't aged well. I picked up a Foundation novel in a thrift store a few months ago in a moment of nostalgia and found myself cringing so much that it was a relief to reach the end.

Television soap operas are also impressive in purely quantitative terms, but that doesn't make them good, does it?

[jdietrich]

TV presents an interesting example of quantity versus quality. British networks tend to commission very short compared to American networks. For example, the British version of The Office had a total of 14 episodes, versus 201 episodes for the American version.

Quantity is clearly more directly profitable, but quality seems to be disproportionately influential. British broadcasters have remarkable success in exporting programmes and formats internationally.

[jogjayr]

> I picked up a Foundation novel in a thrift store a few months ago in a moment of nostalgia and found myself cringing so much that it was a relief to reach the end.

Leaving out the tacky technology (nuclear-powered kitchen knives? really?) and society seemingly in a 1950s stasis, what did you find cringeworthy, if you don't mind me asking? I re-read Foundation last year and nothing else obviously bad popped out.

[anigbrowl]

The dialog. The pacing, The...just everything. It's not just the age; I can laugh out loud at the jokes in 18th century French literature because the characters and dialog feel truthful.

It's like a movie with a great plot but really bad acting, you know?

[cicero]

Asimov's poor dialog, writing style, and character development were recognized from the beginning. His writings stood out because of the ideas they contained, which admittedly are not as impressive 50 years later because they are not new anymore. Similarly, William Shatner's bad acting does not change the fact that Star Trek caught the imagination of a generation.

[anigbrowl]

Well, that's basically what I said in the first place :-/