Perhaps the most important reason of all was that Asimov did not have an editor who could tell him, as John Campbell and Horace Gold and Walter Bradbury would have had no reluctance to tell him: "You're getting too wordy, Isaac [Campbell, at least, would have called him 'Asimov']. Tighten it up!" And, Asimov, always receptive to good editing (and convinced, as he says in his autobiography, that an editor has his role in the process and his prerogatives, just as the writer has his) would have tightened it up. And, as always when standards are raised for the good writer and the easy way is eliminated, the novel would have been better. It is not that Asimov did not want to write the best novel it was possible for him to write for the sake of his pride in his work, of which he had much, he wanted to write well. But a writer, particularly a writer like Asimov who said (though we must not take this as total truth) that he did not know anything about writing, needs a good editor. Whoever were Asimov's editors at Doubleday, even Bradbury if he were still there, would have had difficulty editing the Asimov of 1983.
The Robots of Dawn
was going to be a bestseller no matter how Asimov wrote it, as long as it was not a complete disgrace (and even then, some cynics would say). Asimov invested considerable
time, effort, and thought in writing it it was not a disgrace but there was no
incentive
for him to keep it "direct and spare" or for an editor to tell him to do so. Like many of us over sixty (and particularly Asimov, who had had a heart attack and would soon have a triple-bypass operation), Asimov had recognized in recent years that his writing time was limited. Early in a writer's career he feels immortal, and he has time to write everything. Now Asimov realized that writing one book (or spending an excessive length of time on one) meant that he would not be able to write another; his editors knew this as well and would not, or could not, call to his attention anything more than gross errors. One does not edit bestselling authors or institutions, and Asimov was both.