A lot of sci-fi seems to be 'idea' or theme-driven rather than character-driven. The characters often just exist as a vehicle for themes so long, dialogue-based scenes (often with very clunky dialogue) are pretty common. If you are fascinated by the ideas, no problem. If you want more "literary" elements - characterisation, believable motivations and relationships and so on - it gets frustrating. Also, I guess a lot of the ideas in sci-fi are recycled; it can be very genre-bound, so a lot of those ideas, once shocking or intersting, are overly familiar now. When Asimov was writing this stuff, they weren't so familiar. I thought Foundation was interesting but I had no desire to continue the series or re-read it.
Earl_Tucker t1_ja11h8j wrote
Reply to Asimov's Foundation Is Bad Literature by Kryptin
A lot of sci-fi seems to be 'idea' or theme-driven rather than character-driven. The characters often just exist as a vehicle for themes so long, dialogue-based scenes (often with very clunky dialogue) are pretty common. If you are fascinated by the ideas, no problem. If you want more "literary" elements - characterisation, believable motivations and relationships and so on - it gets frustrating. Also, I guess a lot of the ideas in sci-fi are recycled; it can be very genre-bound, so a lot of those ideas, once shocking or intersting, are overly familiar now. When Asimov was writing this stuff, they weren't so familiar. I thought Foundation was interesting but I had no desire to continue the series or re-read it.