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| Bantam Paperback Edition |
Shortly after Isaac
Asimov’s death in 1992 his memoir I.
Asimov was released by Doubleday. It
is a series of essays Asimov wrote, seemingly, from the narrative and the date
of its publication, on his death bed. The book meanders—it starts at childhood, but
jumps forward to his early writing career, and then back. It is a patchwork of related postcards rather
than a chronological narrative of his life, and it works very well.
The essays run about
four or five pages—sometimes longer, sometimes shorter—and cover a specific
event, person, or idea. He discusses his
early life in detail; specifically, working in his parent’s Brooklyn candy store
as a boy surrounded by the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, which he wasn’t
allowed to read until he convinced his father the science fiction magazines
were about science.
The bulk of the book is
devoted to his literary life, which, in his own estimation was his life. In several sections of the book he wrote he
would rather write than anything else.
He did not enjoy travel, and while he did enjoy the company of others, he
did not tend to seek it out, and, especially in his early years, he had
difficulty getting along and making friends.
He touches on his major
works—The Foundation series—specifically
the original trilogy—“Nightfall,” “The Ugly Little Boy” and many others. He freely admits he enjoyed writing nonfiction
more than fiction, and in fact, he considered himself a much more accomplished writer
of nonfiction. A sentiment I tend to
agree with; however I enjoyed the original Foundation
trilogy immensely when I read it as a teenager.
The most interesting
essays in I. Asimov are the short
pieces he wrote about his experiences with other science fiction writers. He had lifelong relationships with many writers,
some of whom were part of the science fiction fan club The Futurians. The Futurians, as Asimov describes it, was an
off shoot of the Queens Science Fiction club.
The split occurred because the Queens club wanted science fiction to
keep itself above politics, and specifically not speak out against fascism,
which was spreading across Europe at the time, and The Futurians wanted fascism
denounced. The Futurians included Frederick Pohl, who has
written extensively about the club on his blog at (http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/),
Cyril M. Kornbluth, and Donald A. Wollheim.
He also writes
admiringly of John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (ASF),
who gave Asimov his first real hope of publishing his science fiction stories
and also, later, gave him the idea for his short story “Nightfall”. The seed for the story came from a Ralph
Waldo Emerson essay titled “Nature”.
Asimov seemingly knew
everyone writing science fiction in the 1940s through the 80s. A few of the more interesting comments Asimov
makes about his contemporaries follows.
H. L. Gold. Gold was the editor of Galaxy; a top tier science fiction magazine where Asimov placed several
stories. Gold was an ill-tempered
editor, who changed story narratives and titles, and replied with meanness when
the authors objected. Galaxy serialized Asimov’s novel The Stars, Like Dust and changed the title
to Tyrann; “Worst of all was his
[Gold had a] pernicious habit of writing insulting rejection letters.”
Robert Heinlein. Heinlein is considered the father of modern
science fiction, and Asimov worked with him during World War II, as a civilian
employee of the Naval Air Experimental Station (NAES) in Philadelphia. Asimov wrote that he and Heinlein had an
uneven friendship. He quipped about
Heinlein:
“…although
a flaming liberal during the war, Heinlein became a rock-ribbed far-right
conservative immediately afterward. This
happened at just the time he changed wives from liberal woman, Leslyn, to a
rock-ribbed far right conservative woman, Virginia.”
Clifford D. Simak. In 1938 when Asimov was still a teenager he
wrote a letter to ASF regarding Simak’s
story “Rule 18”; he didn’t like the story much.
Simak wrote a polite letter to Asimov inquiring what he didn’t like
about the story. In response to Simak’s
letter Asimov wrote:
“…I
promptly reread [it]…and I found, to my intense embarrassment, that it was a
very good story and that I liked it.”
I. Asimov doesn’t have the depth and detail of an
autobiography. It has the feel of a
congenial conversation, but it seemingly reveals his character, and he makes a
point to highlight his flaws. It is an
appealing book written by one of science fiction’s most well known writers, and
it is more entertaining and enlightening than I would have imagined.
This post is a little late, but Prologue Books, which is a subsidiary of F+W Media is offering two free eBooks for Nook and Kindle. The titles: The Screwball King Murder by Kin Platt, and The Evil Friendship by Vin Packer. They are both available until July 1, 2012.
