Asimov

I've recently begun reading Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov in the beginning of a journey toward reading the entire Foundation series (as written by Asimov, not the posthumous sequels). It always strikes me when I read works by Asimov what an incredibly bad writer he is, at least as far as novels. His short stories generally are good, but that's because you expect something different from a sci-fi short story than what you expect from a novel. A sci-fi short story is supposed to explore some kind of futuristic scientific speculation--and Asimov is the undisputed master of this style. A sci-fi novel, on the other hand, is supposed to be just like any other novel, and the speculation is incidental to the story, or at least the story takes the forefront. Asimov seemed to have missed the distinction.

Which is not to say that I don't like it. I'm one of a limited number of people that actually enjoys reading that kind of thing. But let me explore why it's bad from a fiction-writing standpoint.

The most important rule of writing fiction is "show, don't tell." Asimov is absolutely famous for telling rather than showing. Every novel of his that I've read has a character unfamiliar with his surroundings and a person who knows about it. The one familiar with them shows the other around and explains all the workings of the space station or planet or whatever else is involved.
He's famous for having long passages of explanation of what's happening. He does make concession to the rules of fiction by adding some exciting events, but this is the lesser part of the story.
And in Nemesis, for example, we see one of the largest failings of most Asimov novels. The main characters are often scientists who sit around and discuss the scientific problem until they come to a solution.

If you like that kind of thing, like me, it's fine, and reading Asimov is great. Of course, if you like that kind of thing you've probably already read a lot of Asimov, so what I'm saying here won't be much help.