IMHO, Asimov was a terrible writer of fiction. (I haven't read his non-fiction.) Some interesting ideas, but nothing like the imagination of, say, China Miévill

IMHO, Asimov was a terrible writer of fiction. (I haven't read his non-fiction.) Some interesting ideas, but nothing like the imagination of, say, China Miéville. Terribly thin characters and plots, and very mediocre writing. He had the good fortune to get into sci-fi near the beginning and crank out a lot of readable material, and get some good ideas out there first. The rest is confirmation bias. Had he appeared 30 years later he would have been writing Star Trek or Star Wars novels. I've got nothing against classics per se. "Dune" for example is still very good. But some classics were only considered great because they broke new ground, and they do not stand the test of time.