asimov was, first and foremost, a satirical author. i know that's not well understood, and it may be understood the least by his audience, or at least the part of it that's not dead yet. he was the last of the old guard, in that sense; wells and verne were also both, primarily, satirists. his writing is pretty much always more political than technical and almost never has exaggerated action scenes, making it very different than most of what is nowadays imagined as science fiction.

they're political satires set in outer space.

so, if it's there, it's going to be snarky - as everything he wrote was snarky.

i remember the broad outline of the foundation series, but it wasn't as heavy-handed as the robot series (which i realized even at the time was a marxist allegory, even if i couldn't articulate it) and i don't expect i got the tone right.