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Isaac Asimov

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Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was a Russian-born American author and biochemist, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his science books for the lay person. Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation Series, which he later combined with two of his other series, the Galactic Empire Series and Robot series. He also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as a great amount of non-fiction. In fact, he wrote or edited over 500 volumes and an estimated 90,000 letters or postcards, and has works in every major category of the Dewey Decimal System except Philosophy.

Asimov received HIV-infected blood during heart bypass surgery in 1983. His death in 1992 was from AIDS-related complications, although this was kept secret by his widow for over a decade after his death.

Asimov was a long-time member of Mensa, albeit reluctantly (he described them as "intellectually combative"). The asteroid 5020 Asimov is named in his honor, as is Honda's humanoid prototype robot ASIMO.


Biography

Asimov was born around January 2, 1920 (his date of birth for official purposes—the precise date is not certain) in Petrovichi, near Smolensk, Russia, to Anna Rachel and Judah Asimov, a Jewish family. They emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he taught himself to read at the age of 5. His parents owned a candy store and everyone in the family was expected to work in it. He saw science fiction magazines in the store and began reading them; he learned how to touch the pages very softly so as not to damage them for sale. In his mid-teens, he began to write his own stories and soon was selling them to pulp magazines.

He graduated from Columbia University in 1939 and took a Ph.D. in chemistry there in 1948. He then joined the faculty of Boston University, with which he remained associated thereafter, but in a non-teaching capacity. The university ceased to pay him a salary in 1958, by which time his income from writing already exceeded his income from his academic duties. Asimov remained on the faculty as an associate professor, being promoted in 1979 to full professor, and his personal papers from 1965 onward are archived at Boston University's Mugar Memorial Library, where they consume 464 boxes on 232 feet (71 meters) of shelf space. In 1985, he became President of the American Humanist Association and remained in that position until his death in 1992; his successor was his friend and fellow writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

He married Gertrude Blugerman on July 26, 1942, with whom he had two children, David (b. 1951) and Robyn (b. 1955). After an extended separation, they were divorced in 1973, and Asimov married Janet O. Jeppson later that year.

Asimov died on April 6, 1992, having contracted HIV from an infected blood transfusion during heart bypass surgery in 1983. He was survived by his second wife, Janet, and his children from his first marriage. That he died of heart and renal failure as a complication of AIDS was not revealed until ten years later, in Janet Asimov's biography It's Been a Good Life. Janet Asimov claims that the Isaac's doctors encouraged them not to reveal his illness, while the doctors claim it was Janet herself who wanted to keep it secret.

Beliefs and politics

Isaac Asimov was a humanist and a rationalist. He did not oppose genuine religious conviction in others but was against superstitious or unfounded beliefs. He was afraid of flying, only doing so twice in his entire life. Asimov was also a claustrophile; that is, he enjoyed small, enclosed spaces.

Asimov was a progressive on most political issues, and a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party. In a television interview in the early 1970s he publicly endorsed George McGovern. He was unhappy at what he saw as an irrationalist tack taken by many progressive political activists from the late 1960s onwards. His defense of civil applications of nuclear power even after the Three Mile Island incident damaged his relations with some on the left. He issued many appeals for population control reflecting the perspective first articulated by Paul R. Ehrlich. In the closing years of his life Asimov blamed the deterioration of the quality of life that he perceived in New York on the shrinking tax base caused by middle class flight to the suburbs. His last non-fiction book, Our Angry Earth (1991, co-written with science fiction author Frederik Pohl), deals with elements of the environmental crisis such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer.

Asimov's writing career

Overview

Asimov's career can be divided into several time periods. His early career, dominated by science fiction, began with short stories in 1939. This lasted until about 1958, all but ending after publication of The Naked Sun. Following that, he greatly increased his production of non-fiction, consequently publishing little science fiction. Over the next quarter century, he would write only four science fiction novels. Starting in 1982, the second half of his science fiction career began with the publication of Foundation's Edge. From then until his death, Asimov would publish many sequels to his existing novels, tying them together in a way he had not originally anticipated.

Science fiction

File:Foundation cover.jpg
Hari Seldon's holographic image on the cover of Foundation. The Foundation Series is Asimov's most famous work.

Asimov began contributing stories to science fiction magazines in 1939, Marooned Off Vesta being his first published story, written when he was 18. Two and a half years later, he published his 32nd short story, Nightfall (1941), which is described in Bewildering Stories, issue 8, as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time" [1]. In 1968 the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall the best science fiction short story ever written [2]. In his short anthology Nightfall and Other Stories he wrote, "The writing of 'Nightfall' was a watershed in my professional career ... I was suddenly taken seriously and the world of science fiction became aware that I existed. As the years passed, in fact, it became evident that I had written a 'classic'."

In 1942 he began his Foundation stories—later collected in the Foundation Trilogy: Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953)—which recount the collapse and rebirth of a vast interstellar empire in a universe of the future. Taken together, they are his most famous work of science fiction, along with the Robot Series. Many years later, he continued the series with Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986) and then went back to before the original trilogy with Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1992).

His robot stories—many of which were collected in I, Robot (1950)—were begun at about the same time. They promulgated a set of rules of ethics for robots (see Three Laws of Robotics) and intelligent machines that greatly influenced other writers and thinkers in their treatment of the subject. One such short story, The Bicentennial Man was made into a movie starring Robin Williams.

The recent film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, was based on the Hardwired script by Jeff Vintar with Asimov's ideas incorporated later after acquiring the rights to the I, Robot title by the 20th Century Fox. It is not related to the I, Robot script by Harlan Ellison, who collaborated with Asimov himself to create a version which captured the spirit of the original. Asimov is quoted as saying that Ellison's screenplay would lead to "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made." The screenplay was published in book form in 1994, after hopes of seeing it in film form were becoming slim. See: I, Robot, [3]

He also wrote a spoof science article, The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline in 1948, which he feared would affect his chances of obtaining his doctorate.

Having spent much of the 1940s on the Foundation series and I, Robot, he returned to writing short stories for science fiction magazines in the 1950s, which he refers to as his golden decade. A number of these are included in his Best of anthology, including The Last Question (1956), his personal favorite and considered by many to be a contender to Nightfall. It deals with the ability of humankind to cope with and overcome entropy.

Beginning in 1977, he lent his name to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (now Asimov's Science Fiction) and penned an editorial for each issue. There was also a short-lived Asimov's SF Adventure Magazine and a companion Asimov's Science Fiction Anthology reprint series, published as magazines (in the same manner as stablemates Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine's "anthologies").

During the late 1950s and 1960s, Asimov shifted gears somewhat, and substantially decreased his fiction output (he published only four adult novels between 1957's The Naked Sun and 1982's Foundation's Edge, two of which were mysteries). At the same time, he greatly increased his non-fiction production, writing mostly on science topics; the launch of Sputnik in 1957 engendered public concern over a "science gap", which Asimov's publishers were eager to fill with as much material as he could write. Meanwhile, the monthly Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction invited him to continue his regular non-fiction column, begun in the now-folded bimonthly companion magazine Venture Science Fiction, ostensibly dedicated to popular science, but with Asimov having complete editorial freedom. The first of the F&SF columns appeared in November of 1958, and they followed uninterrupted thereafter, with 399 entries, until Asimov's terminal illness took its toll. These columns, periodically collected into books by his principal publisher, Doubleday, helped make Asimov's reputation as a "Great Explainer" of science and were referred to by him as his only pop-science writing in which he never had to assume complete ignorance of the subjects at hand on the part of his readers. The popularity of his first wide-ranging reference work, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science, also allowed him to give up most of his academic responsibilities and become essentially a full-time freelance writer.

He published Asimov's Guide to the Bible in two volumes—covering the Old Testament in 1967 and the New Testament in 1969—and then combined them into one 1300-page volume in 1981. Replete with maps and tables, the guide goes through the books of the Bible in order, explaining the history of each one and the political influences that affected it, as well as biographical information about the important characters.

Asimov also wrote several essays on the social contentions of his day, including "Thinking About Thinking" and "Science: Knock Plastic" (1967).

Other

Never entirely lacking wit and humor, towards the end of his life Asimov published a series of collections of limericks, mostly written by himself, starting with Lecherous Limericks, which appeared in 1975. His Treasury of Humor is both a working joke book and a treatise propounding his views on humor theory. According to Asimov, the most essential element of humor is an abrupt change in point of view, one that suddenly shifts focus from the important to the trivial, or from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Asimov published two volumes of autobiography: In Memory Yet Green (1979) and In Joy Still Felt (1980). A third autobiography, I. Asimov: A Memoir, was published in April 1994. The epilogue was written by Janet Asimov (née Jeppson), shortly after his death. It's Been a Good Life (2002) edited by Isaac Asimov's widow Janet Jeppson Asimov is a condensed version of his three autobiographies. This book is notable in revealing that Isaac Asimov's 1992 death was due to complications stemming from AIDS. Asimov contracted HIV from blood transfusions 9 years earlier during heart bypass surgery.

Literary themes

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Much of Asimov's fiction dealt with themes of paternalism. His first robot story, "Robbie", concerned a robotic nanny. As the robots grew more sophisticated, their interventions became more wide-reaching and subtle. In "Evidence", a robot masquerading as a human successfully runs for elective office. In "The Evitable Conflict", the robots ran humanity from behind the scenes, acting as nannies to the whole species.

Later, in Robots and Empire, a robot develops what he calls the Zeroth Law of Robotics, which states that "A robot may not injure humanity, nor, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm". He also decides that robotic presence is stifling humanity's freedom, and that the best course of action is for the robots to phase themselves out. A non-robot story, The End of Eternity, features a similar conflict and resolution.

In The Foundation Series (which did not originally have robots), a scientist implements a semi-secret plan to create a perfect society over the course of 1000 years. This series has its version of Platonic guardians, called the Second Foundation, to perfect and protect the plan. When Asimov stopped writing the series in the 1950s, the Second Foundation was depicted as benign protectors of humanity. When he revisited the series in the 1980s, he made the paternalistic themes even more explicit.

Foundation's Edge introduced the planet Gaia, obviously based on the Gaia hypothesis. Every animal, plant, and mineral on Gaia participated in a shared consciousness, forming a single super-mind working together for the greater good. In Foundation and Earth, the protagonist must decide whether or not to allow the development of Galaxia, a larger version of Gaia, encompassing the entire galaxy.

Foundation and Earth introduces robots to the Foundation universe. Two of Asimov's last novels, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, explore their behavior in fuller detail. The robots are depicted as covert operatives, acting for the benefit of humanity.

Criticisms

Asimov was criticised for the lack of sex and aliens in his science fiction. Asimov once explained that his reluctance to write about aliens came from an incident early in his career when one of his early science fiction stories was rejected because the alien characters were portrayed as superior to the humans. He decided that, rather than write weak alien characters, he would not write about aliens at all. Nevertheless, in response to these criticisms he wrote The Gods Themselves, which contains aliens, sex, and alien sex. Asimov said that of all his writings, he was most proud of the middle section of The Gods Themselves.

Others have criticised him for a lack of strong female characters in his early work. In his autobiographical writings, he acknowledges this, and responds by pointing to inexperience.

Quotes

  • "If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
  • "Early in my school career, I turned out to be an incorrigible disciplinary problem. I could understand what the teacher was saying as fast as she could say it, I found time hanging heavy, so I would occasionally talk to my neighbor. That was my great crime, I talked."
  • "I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending."
  • "If I could trace my origins to Judas Maccabaeus or King David, that would not add one inch to my stature. It may well be that many East European Jews are descended from Khazars, I may be one of them. Who knows? And who cares?"
  • "In 1936, I first wrote science fiction. It was a long-winded attempt at writing an endless novel...which died. I remember one sentence, 'Whole forests stood sere and brown in midsummer.'. That was the first Asimovian science-fiction sentence."
  • "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers."
  • "Night was a wonderful time in Brooklyn in the 1930s. Air conditioning was unknown except in movie houses, and so was television. There was nothing to keep one in the house. Furthermore, few people owned automobiles, so there was nothing to carry one away. That left the streets and the stoops. The very fullness served as an inhibition to crime."
  • "No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically."
  • "True literacy is becoming an arcane art and the United States is steadily dumbing down."
  • "Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject...they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules."
  • "When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself."
  • "What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for", September 20, 1973, Yours, Isaac Asimov, page 329.

Selected bibliography

In addition, see the complete bibliography. Asimov aspired to write 500 books but did not quite reach that total; he wrote over 450 titles.

Science fiction

Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation Series, which he later combined with his two other series, the Galactic Empire Series and Robot series. The Galactic Empire series takes place in the same continuity as the Foundation series, but so much earlier in their history, that they are usually considered distinct series.

Foundation series et al

Novels not part of a series

(While primarily independent, some of these novels have very minor connections to the Foundation series.)

Short story collections

Also see List of short stories by Isaac Asimov

Mysteries

Novels

Short story collections (Black Widowers and others)

Nonfiction

Annotations

Other

Trivia

  • One of Asimov's early short stories, The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline, was written in 1947 as a spoof of the turgid and laborious manner in which Thesis papers are produced. At the time, Asimov was preparing for his Doctoral Dissertation. Fearing that it would be seen as disrespectful to the Academic Establishment, he asked his publisher that it be released under a pseudonym. To his horror, it appeared under his own name shortly before he was due to appear before the evaluation board for his PhD. He was convinced that the examiners, who would undoubtedly hear about the story, would be offended by its satirical treatment of Thesis work. At the end of his oral examination, the scrutineers turned to him, smiling, and said Mr. Asimov, tell us something about the thermodynamic properties of the compound Thiotimoline. After a twenty minute wait, he was summoned back into the Examination Room, and congratulated as Dr. Asimov.
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