What Turns My Crank in Writing (spoilers ahead)

I know, I know, I still owe you the one on what I hate about my writing.  That is in the works.  I thought I would discuss some of my favorite series that I have read through the years.
The first one that comes to mind is Isaac Asimov's Robot Series.  Asimov painted one hell of a galaxy with only one main species:  man.  In it, Earth is a populated by a society afraid to go out into the outdoors (agoraphobia).  Elijah Baley is a cop who is teamed up with a positronic cop, R. Daneel Olivaw.  Throughout their adventures we see Baley go from a human afraid to venture outside, to one who has to go to other planets and ultimately leads into him leading the second wave of colonization, much to the chagrin of the spacers.  The spacers are the people from the first wave of colonization that inhabited 40 other worlds, and in the case where man went to these alien words, their lifetimes are extended greatly, because they no longer are facing typical earth pests.
What I really liked about this series is that Earth was portrayed as the scum of the galaxy, one man, a cop, overcomes his fears to lead a second wave of colonization, and it is perhaps R. Daneel Olivaw that led me to try and work with beings who are alive for millennia.   For R. Daneel Olivaw by the end of the Foundation Series by Asimov, we find out that everything is being controlled by R. Daneel Olivaw, who is still going millennia after he first meets Baley.  And of course, R. Daneel Olivaw is doing all of this because of the 4 Laws of Robotics.
Another series that I have talked of often, is the Dark Tower Series.  King weaves one hell of a tale over 7 volumes that leaves you wanting more.  I followed it for close to 20 years (I can still remember being in high school and seeing book 1 in the bookstore and freaking, because he had released a single novel called the Dark Tower, which covered the entire story).  He has a way of describing the setting that, well hell, made me want to cross a bridge and go into another world.  Roland is essentially a loner, all his friends killed off years ago in a war that devastated his world.As time goes on, he faces the Dark Man (who is in other stories) and forms a new Ka-Tet with new friends.  I won't go too much into details as I don't want to spoil it, but there are a few things that I really like.  First off is the almighty Dark Man, aka Randall Flag, is killed like he is nothing.  Me and a friend of mine always take opposite sides on discussing this, in particular, for my point, King is showing how the almighty can easily fall, while a friend of mine is saying it is wrong for him to die how he did and an insult to readers.  I also like the many different characters that King introduces into the story, and some are just there for a few pages, but he puts equal amount of work in there.
Other stuff I like reading include Clive Cussler, he makes it easy for light reading.  I will lave Paul O. Williams for another day, I can go on about this stuff.

Man I sure hope Randall Flag is not real. Please, oh please.