Isaac Asimov

(1920-1992)

Overview

     Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was a Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry. As a greatly successful writer, he is best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

     Some have called Asimov the most prolific writer of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Beyond this, he has works published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System.

     Asimov is commonly considered a master of the science-fiction genre. He, along with authors Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime. (Isaac Asimov) Asimov's most famous work is his Foundation Series. His other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series, both of which he later tied into the same fictional universe as the Foundation Series to create a unified "future history" for his stories. He wrote several short stories. Among them Nightfall, which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as the best short science fiction story of all time, a title many still honor. His writings also included mysteries and fantasy, as well as an immense amount of nonfiction.

     Most of Asimov's science books clarify scientific concepts in a historical way, for Asimov loved history. He often provides nationalities, birth dates, and death dates for the scientists he mentions, as well as etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Examples include his Guide to Science, the three volume set Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery.

     Asimov has earned the privilege to have things named after him. These include the asteroid named 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, a Brooklyn, NY elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov Awards are named in his honor.

Education

     Asimov began his love affair with science fiction at a young age. He would read the science fiction pulp magazines which were sold in his family’s candy stores. Asimov’s father forbade him from reading the pulp magazines, but Asimov convinced him that magazines with "science" in the title were educational.

     Asimov attended New York City Public Schools, including Boys' High School, in Brooklyn, New York. He was an excellent student and even skipped several grades. In 1934 he published his first story in a high school newspaper. A year later he entered Seth Low Junior College, an undergraduate college of Columbia University. In 1936 he transferred to Columbia’s main campus and changed his major from biology to chemistry. During the next two years Asimov's interest in history grew, and he read numerous books on the subject. He also read science fiction magazines and wrote stories. Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1939. He eventually returned to Columbia and earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1948.

Career

     Around the age of eleven, Asimov began writing his own stories. By the age of nineteen he began selling stories to the science fiction magazines. John W. Campbell, then editor of Astounding Science Fiction, had a strong formative influence on Asimov and eventually became a personal friend. 

     Asimov spent three years during World War II working as a civilian at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station. After the war ended, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving for just under nine months before receiving an honorable discharge. In the course of his short military career, he rose to the rank of corporal on the basis of his typing skills, and barely avoided participating in the 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

     After Asimov completed his doctorate in 1948, he joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine, with which he remained associated thereafter. From 1958, this was in a non-teaching capacity, as he turned to writing full-time because his writing income exceeded his teaching salary. Being tenured meant that he retained the title of associate professor, and in 1979 the university honored his writing by promoting him to full professor of biochemistry. Asimov's personal papers from 1965 onward are archived at the university's Mugar Memorial Library. He donated them at the request of curator Howard Gottlieb. The collection fills nearly 500 boxes, or seventy-one meters of shelf space.

Personal life

     Asimov married Canadian-born Gertrude Blugerman on July 26, 1942. They had two children together, David (born in 1951) and Robyn Joan (born in 1955). After a separation in 1970, he and Gertrude divorced in 1973, and Asimov married Dr. Janet O. Jeppson just weeks later. Jeppson was a psychiatrist as well as a science fiction author. 

     Asimov was claustrophilic, meaning that he enjoyed small, enclosed spaces. In his autobiography, Asimov recollects about a “childhood desire to own a magazine stand in a New York City Subway station”, within which he could “enclose himself and listen to the rumble of passing trains while reading.” (White)

     Asimov was afraid of flying, only doing so twice in his entire life, once in the Navy, and the other returning home from the Army base in Oahu in 1946. He was unable to travel very far due to his phobia of flying. This phobia influenced several of his fiction works, such as the Wendell Urth mystery stories and the Robot novels. In his later years, he found he enjoyed traveling on cruise ships. He was an able public speaker, and enjoyed doing so.

     Asimov was a regular at science fiction conventions[1], where he remained sociable and available to his fans. He good-naturedly answered tens of thousands of questions and other mail with postcards, and was happy to give autographs.

The American Humanist Association (AHA) named Asimov the Humanist of the Year in 1984. From 1985 until his death in 1992, he served as president of the AHA and his successor was his friend and fellow writer Kurt Vonnegut. He was also a close friend of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and earned a screen credit on Star Trek: The Motion Picture for advice he gave during production.

Illness and Death

     In 1977, Asimov suffered a heart attack which resulted in him having triple bypass surgery in 1983. After his death in New York City on April 6, 1992, his brother reported heart and kidney failure as the cause of death. He was survived by his second wife, Janet, and his children. Years after his death, Janet revealed that the myocardial and renal complications were the result of an infection by HIV, which he had contracted from a blood transfusion received during his 1983 bypass operation. In an autobiography of Asimov that Janet had revised after her husband’s death, she wrote that he had wanted to "go public," but his doctors convinced him to remain silent, warning him that the anti-AIDS prejudice would likely extend to his family members. Eventually, Janet and Robyn Asimov agreed that the AIDS story should be made public.

Awards

1957–Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Award, for Building Blocks of the Universe
1960–Howard W. Blakeslee Award from the American Heart Association for The Living River
1962–Boston University's Publication Merit Award
1963–special Hugo Award for "adding science to science fiction" for essays published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
1965–James T. Grady Award of the American Chemical Society (now called the James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry)
1966–Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award for the Foundation series
1967–Westinghouse Science Writing Award
1972–Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Gods Themselves
1973–Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Gods Themselves
1973–Locus award for Best Science Fiction Novel for The Gods Themselves
1977–Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Bicentennial Man
1977–Nebula Award for Best Novelette for The Bicentennial Man
1981–An asteroid, 5020 Asimov, was named in his honor
1987–Nebula Grandmaster award, a lifetime achievement award
1983–Hugo Award for Best Novel for Foundation's Edge
1983–Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Foundation's Edge
1992–Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Gold
1995–Hugo Award for Best Nonfiction for I. Asimov: A Memoir
1996–A 1946 Retro-Hugo for Best Novel of 1945 was given at the 1996 WorldCon to The Mule, the 7th Foundation story published in Astounding Science Fiction
1997–Posthumous induction into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
2009–A crater on the planet Mars, Asimov, was named in his honor
14 honorary doctorate degrees from various universities 

Asimov Quotes

• “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
• “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the
  transition that's troublesome. ”
• “I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. ”
• “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
  heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!)
  but 'That's funny ...'”
• “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.”

Selected Lists of Works

• Nightfall (1941)
• I, Robot, (1950)
• Foundation (1951)
• Davis Starr: Space Ranger (El ranger del espacio,1952)
• The Caves of Steel (1952)
• Foundation and Empire (1952)
• Second Foundation (1953)
• The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955)
• The Naked Sun (1956)
• Fantastic Voyage (1966)
• Asimov's Mysteries (1968)
• The Gods Themselves (1972)
• Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (Compre Júpiter, 1975)
• Limericks (1975)
• Asimov's Sherlockian Limericks (1978)
• Foundation's Edge (1982)
• The Complete Robot (1982) - Audiobook-
• The Robots of Dawn (1983)
• Foundation and Earth (1986)
• Robot Dreams (1986)
• Norby and the Queen's Necklace (1986, with Janet Asimov)
• Prelude to Foundation (1988)
• Nemesis (1989)
• All the Troubles of the World (1989)
• Franchise (1989)
• Robbie (1989)
• Sally (1989)
• Robot Visions (1990)
• The Complete Stories (1990)
• Forward the Foundation (1993)
• Norby and the Court Jester (1993, with Janet Asimov)

Writing

Style

     Asimov wrote in an unornamented prose style. He was even quoted saying, "I make no effort to write poetically or in a high literary style.” (Asimov) He was criticized for his basic writing style. He even addresses this criticism at the beginning of his book Nemesis which read: “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing– to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer Prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics– Well, they can do whatever they wish.” (Nemesis) 

Themes

     Three very common themes in Asimov's works are:

     Paternalism: many of Asimov's stories have robots that secretly take control for the betterment of humanity.

     Oppression: the oppressed in Asimov's books are usually either Earth people or robots. Robots often fight prejudice to be seen as human and is often reminiscent of racism in the twentieth century.

     Rational Thought: Asimov would often try to educate the reader by introducing a technology early in the story that would have be instrumental in the story's ending.     

Reception

     Asimov was often criticized for not including extraterrestrial life and sexuality in his science fiction. Asimov once explained that his reluctance to write about aliens came from an incident early in his career when Astounding's editor John Campbell rejected one of his early science fiction stories 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.

     Others have criticized him for a lack of strong female characters in his early work. Asimov acknowledged this and blamed it on lack of experience. His later writing included more female characters. 

Literary Influence

     Asimov credits his prose style of writing to Clifford Simak. His love for science fiction was influenced by the pulp magazines he read as a kid.

     It is said that most science fiction writers since the 1950s have been affected by Asimov, either modeling their style on his or deliberately avoiding anything like his style. The comic book Magnus, Robot Fighter quoted Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics on the first page of the first issue.

     Star Trek - The Next Generation gave credit to Asimov for conceiving the positronic brain, indispensable for androids.

     In a magazine interview, the famous J.R.R. Tolkien said that he enjoyed the science fiction of Isaac Asimov.

     The 2004 movie I, Robot was adapted after Asimov’s novel I, Robot.

Sources

External Links

http://www.isaac-asimov.com/

http://www.asimovs.com/2011_03/index.shtml

http://asimov.info/

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/i/isaac_asimov_2.html

http://youtu.be/1CwUuU6C4pk

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie/i-robot/

http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html

Works Cited

Asimov, Isaac. I. Asimov: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

—. It's Been a Good Life. Edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov. New York: Prometheus Books, 2002.

—. Nemesis. New York, New York: Bantam Books, 1989.

Asimov, Isaac. World of Ideas Bill Moyers. 1988.

"I, Robot: Overview." 2004. MSN Entertainment. 2012.

"Isaac Asimov." 2012. Good Reads. 2012.

"Isaac Asimov." - New World Encyclopedia. New World Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 10 July 2015.

"Isaac Asimov Quotes." 2012. Brainy Quotes. 2012.

Seiler, Edward. "A Catalogue of Isaac Asimov's Books." n.d. AsimovOnline.com. 2012.

White, Michael. Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005.