Baley didn't feel anywhere near a complete human to me. If he has hobbies, hopes, or dreams, they weren't significant to the narrative. Even someone who spends all their time at work must surely have friends, ambitions, petty rivalries - or else he could be a single-minded obsessive who thinks of nothing but solving the case. But neither of those things came through into my awareness, if they were even mentioned on the pages at all. I genuinely couldn't remember whether he was single/married/divorced/widower without looking it up.
None of which is a fault with the stories! You could say the same for, say, Sherlock Holmes: these are not convincingly rendered human characters because that's not the point of this kind of storytelling. My point is that Asimov's work succeeds on its own terms, and resonates today, without needing any of the things that the literary/soft sci-fi fans will tell you are essential.
None of which is a fault with the stories! You could say the same for, say, Sherlock Holmes: these are not convincingly rendered human characters because that's not the point of this kind of storytelling. My point is that Asimov's work succeeds on its own terms, and resonates today, without needing any of the things that the literary/soft sci-fi fans will tell you are essential.