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Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

Have you read Asimov recently?

In the cold light of adulthood it is unfortunately not as good as my inner child remembers. Nowhere near as bad as Rowling, who is an awful writer, but still pretty bad. To be fair to Rowling her first book actually introduced some good ideas, the rest were pretty much universally crap.

Some of Asimov's themes and ideas are also feeling very dated now too, he seemed to be heavily influenced by the US/Russia situation and early electronics and those inspirations have not stood the test of time.

A visionary in his time and for a generation afterwards, but I'm starting to doubt he'll be much read in 10 or 20 years time.

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"Nowhere near as bad as Rowling, who is an awful writer, but still pretty bad. To be fair to Rowling her first book actually introduced some good ideas, the rest were pretty much universally crap."

What? Excuse me, are you serious? Rowling is a very good writer. In terms of style and plotting, the latter of which isn't always perfect, but definitely not as awful as you make out. And why on earth are you measuring her in terms of "ideas" such as historical context, she wrote a series of children and teen's books, which happen to possess a cross-over appeal to adults due to their quality. Harry Potter isn't hard science fiction, and I do find your seeming inability to find simple pleasure in reading such a (in my view) charming series quite disheartening.

@ araneae and mattmanser

I really thought Hacker News was a more intellectual place, than to condone empty blanket statements like "their writing is crap".

Please, if you are going to state something, especially in a thread regarding rationality, please back it up.

If you're going to posture as an amateur writing critic, thinking about the social context of Asimov's writing, you probably shouldn't also condemn a writer loved by readers, writers, and critics as "pretty much universally crap". It's counter-cultural and pretentious yet very shallow, and so you lose a lot of credibility as a critic.

Is it really controversial to say that Asimov had a bad prose style and is primarily an idea or conceptual writer?

I mean, look at http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=asimov%20%22prose... . These people aren't making it up; Asimov will never be praised for his striking style, magnificent metaphors, or lucid descriptions, like, say, Gene Wolfe is.

Pretty sure he was defending Rowling, not Asmiov.

His writing is pretty bad in the original Foundation trilogy, but it was his early work. He got a lot better later on. Have you read Stephen King's first novel, Carrie? The writing is awful.

And yes, there are a lot of direct cold war references in something like Fantastic Voyage II that make it seem outdated, but I think that his really futuristic stuff doesn't have that flaw.

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