(My own copy)
"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."
Friedrich Schiller
I admired it much more than I actually enjoyed it. Asimov's ideas are brilliant but his characters are somewhat bloodless and cardboard. Even when he tries to work against this it comes out all embarrassing. The third section on the moon is a pale imitation to Heinlein's 'Moon is a Harsh Mistress'. Given the timing on the publication that can't have been an accident.
As to the Big Three argument, it's silly to throw Heinlein out at this stage. He dominated the actual science fiction writing of the late 30's and early 40's. His juvenile works in the 50's were incredibly important gateway works. Much of the NASA personnel that launched the moonshots got into science because of them. Bradbury didn't write nearly as much science into his fiction. You may prefer him (I don't) but he really doesn't fit the category in the same way that Heinlein does.
Two thirds of it was pretty shoddily written - far too much exposition, and people behaving irrationally in order to move on the plot. The remaining third, though, is excellent - the section set in the parallel universe. Even then the work is now little more than a curiousity.
Incidentally, I would highly recommend Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban series. These three books (Caliban, Inferno and Utopia) are based on the spacer vs settler conflict set up by Asimov, and are listed as being co-written by Isaac. In them the author(s) rewrite the famous 3 laws of robotics, as well as telling a much better story than old Isaac ever did.
(Bought in 1994)
Asimov started my love of science fiction when I bought "The Martian Way" in a Brasilian-Portuguese translation as an 11 year old on a wet and boring holiday in Portugal in 80s. I'll always be grateful for what he led me to but I have to say that, like most of the other so called "golden age" authors, he was long on ideas and short on quality of prose. Still without him would we have had George Turner or Ian M. Banks?
"Nightfall" still remains for me the ultimate horror story. The prose is often dire but the yarns are great fun. For utter dire-ness of prose but a ripping and far-fetched yarn, you can't beat E.E. “Doc” Smith's Lensman series. I swear he used up the universe's entire stock of superlatives.
NB: I have been told Gene Wolfe is much better then Isaac Asimov by a friend of mine. The problem with Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" is that we've got to deal with Wolfe's obsession with his hero's massive sword and women with small, high breasts... Ah well. I must get round to write a review on it too.
