I've been reading a lot of Asimov lately (though I've not read Foundation yet) and greatly enjoying it. Something I love about his novels is that about halfway

I've been reading a lot of Asimov lately (though I've not read Foundation yet) and greatly enjoying it. Something I love about his novels is that about halfway through, the characters will start interpreting the situation and making decisions about it, and there's a great deal of sophistication to it. People are often wrong, or even come to the correct conclusion through incorrect means. Currents of Space is an especially good example here, the characters will spin these complex conspiracy theories and talk themselves into a paranoid position, but in the end the explanations are very simple, but their bigotries prevented them from seeing it. Which brings me to my next point, I was surprised by how political they were, in a quiet, unassuming way. There's a strong through line of center-left populism and critiques of bigotry and classism and sexism (though Asimov clearly had some blind spots here as well, he's a product of his time after all). He was very artful about constructing scenarios where his critique was apparent, without being explicit and without it feeling forced or in your face.