If Asimov’s Robots series has a shorter/no wait I think they’re worth reading. Maybe not as exciting as the Empire and Foundation series, but it’s interesting background- the evolution of robots, positronic brains, robot/human relations, jump ships, space colonization, human clones. Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn are murder mystery detective stories that advance the robot plot.
Asimov recommended reading his books in this order:
The Complete Robot (1982) and/or I, Robot (1950)
Caves of Steel (1954)
The Naked Sun (1957)
The Robots of Dawn (1983)
Robots and Empire (1985)
The Currents of Space (1952)
The Stars, Like Dust (1951)
Pebble in the Sky (1950)
Prelude to Foundation (1988)
Note: Forward the Foundation (1993) was then unpublished, but would have followed Prelude.