After reading The Foundation Trilogoy (after 20+ years when he started to write the rest of foundation stories), Isaac Asimov wrote :

"I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for some-thing to happen, and nothing ever did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No action. No physical suspense. What was all the fuss about then,? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? -- To be sure, I couldn't help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly and that I was upset when I finished the book, and that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness' sake. you couldn't go by me."

Well, I like the stuff.

More from the same text.

"I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the money, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by sceince-fiction writer and critic, James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, "Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy-- virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost invisible -- but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas." Oh, well if what was needed were "permutations and reversals of ideas," then that I could supply."

I agree that most of Asimov's that I have read don't have much details about surroundings and he does not harp much on painting the characters but the stories are gripping neverteless. I just finished reading Foundation. I plan to read Inscrutable Americans before I start with third foundation story Foundation and Empire.