Isaac Asimov

Name	Isaac Asimov
Caption	Asimov in 1965
Birthname	Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
Birthdate	Between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and over 9,000 letters and postcards. His works have been published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System (The sole exception being the 100s: philosophy and psychology, although he did write a foreword for The Humanist Way, which is published in the 100s).

In December 1974, the former Beatle Paul McCartney approached Asimov and asked him if he could write the screenplay for a science-fiction movie musical. McCartney had a vague idea for the plot and a small scrap of dialogue; he wished to make a film about a rock band whose members discover they are being impersonated by a group of extraterrestrials. The band and their impostors would likely be played by McCartney's group Wings, then at the height of their career. Intrigued by the idea, although he was not generally a fan of rock music, Asimov quickly produced a "treatment" or brief outline of the story. He adhered to McCartney's overall idea, producing a story he felt to be moving and dramatic. However, he did not make use of McCartney's brief scrap of dialogue, and probably as a consequence, McCartney rejected the story. The treatment now exists only in the Boston University archives.

Beginning in 1977, Asimov 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 the stablemates Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine's "anthologies").

Popular science

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 Magazine, ostensibly dedicated to popular science, but with Asimov having complete editorial freedom. The first of the F&SF; columns appeared in November 1958, and they followed uninterrupted thereafter, with 399 entries, until Asimov's terminal illness. 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.

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

The great variety of information covered in Asimov's writings once prompted Kurt Vonnegut to ask, "How does it feel to know everything?" Asimov replied that he only knew how it felt to have the reputation of omniscience—"Uneasy". (See In Joy Still Felt, chapter 30.) In the introduction to his story collection Slow Learner, Thomas Pynchon admitted that he relied upon Asimov's science popularizations (and the Oxford English Dictionary) to provide his knowledge of entropy.

It is a mark of the friendship and respect accorded Asimov by Arthur C. Clarke that the so-called "Asimov-Clarke Treaty of Park Avenue", put together as they shared a cab ride along Park Avenue in New York, stated that Asimov was required to insist that Clarke was the best science fiction writer in the world (reserving second-best for himself), while Clarke was required to insist that Asimov was the best science writer in the world (reserving second-best for himself). Thus the dedication in Clarke's book Report on Planet Three (1972) reads: "In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer."

Coined terms

Asimov coined the term "robotics" in his 1941 story Liar!, though he later remarked that he believed then that he merely using an existing word, as he stated in Gold ("The Robot Chronicles"), though while acknowledging the Oxford Dictionary reference, he states that the word was first printed about one third of the way down the first column of page 100, Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942 printing of his short story Runaround .

Asimov also coined the term Spome in a paper entitled, “There’s No Place Like Spome” in Atmosphere in Space Cabins and Closed Environments, originally presented as a paper to the American Chemical Society on September 13, 1965. It refers to any system closed with respect to matter and open with respect to energy capable of sustaining human life indefinitely.

Other writings

In addition to his interest in science, Asimov was also greatly interested in history. Starting in the 1960s, he wrote 14 popular history books, most notably The Greeks: A Great Adventure (1965), The Roman Republic (1966), The Roman Empire (1967), The Egyptians (1967) and The Near East: 10,000 Years of History (1968).

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 1,300-page volume in 1981. Complete 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. His interest in literature manifested itself in several annotations of literary works, including Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970), Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost (1974), and The Annotated Gulliver's Travels (1980).

Asimov was also a noted mystery author and a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He began by writing science fiction mysteries such as his Wendell Urth stories but soon moved on to writing "pure" mysteries. He only published two full-length mystery novels but he wrote several stories about the Black Widowers, a group of men who met monthly for dinner, conversation, and a puzzle. He got the idea for the Widowers from his own association in a stag group called the Trap Door Spiders and all of the main characters (with the exception of the waiter, Henry, whom he admitted resembled Wodehouse's Jeeves) were modeled after his closest friends.

Toward 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. Limericks: Too Gross, whose title displays Asimov's love of puns, contains 144 limericks by Asimov and an equal number by John Ciardi. He even created a slim volume of Sherlockian limericks (and embarrassed one fan by autographing her copy with an impromptu limerick that rhymed 'Nancy' with 'romancy'). Asimov featured Yiddish humor in Azazel, The Two Centimeter Demon. The two main characters, both Jewish, talk over dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, about anecdotes of "George" and his friend Azazel. Asimov's 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.

Particularly in his later years, Asimov to some extent cultivated an image of himself as an amiable lecher. In 1971, as a response to the popularity of sexual guidebooks such as The Sensuous Woman (by "J") and The Sensuous Man (by "M"), Asimov published The Sensuous Dirty Old Man under the byline "Dr. 'A'" (although his full name was printed on the paperback edition, first published 1972).

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 his widow Janet Asimov a decade after his death. It's Been a Good Life (2002), edited by Janet, is a condensed version of his three autobiographies. He also published three volumes of retrospectives of his writing, Opus 100 (1969), Opus 200 (1979), and Opus 300 (1984).

In 1987, the Asimovs co-wrote How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort. In it they offer advice on how to maintain a positive attitude and stay productive when dealing with discouragement, distractions, rejection and thick-headed editors. The book includes many quotations, essays, anecdotes and husband-wife dialogues about the ups and downs of being an author.

Asimov and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry developed a unique relationship during Star Trek's initial launch in the late 1960s. Asimov wrote a critical essay on Star Trek's scientific accuracy for TV Guide magazine. Roddenberry retorted respectfully with a personal letter explaining the limitations of accuracy when writing a weekly series. Asimov corrected himself with a follow-up essay to TV Guide claiming despite its inaccuracies, that Star Trek was a fresh and intellectually challenging science fiction television show. The two remained friends to the point where Asimov even served as an advisor on a number of Star Trek projects.

In 1973, Asimov published a proposal for calendar reform, called the World Season Calendar. It divides the year into four seasons (named A–D) of 13 weeks (91 days) each. This allows days to be named, e.g., "D-73" instead of December 1. An extra Year Day is added for a total of 365 days.

Awards

1957Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Award, for Building Blocks of the Universe 1960Howard W. Blakeslee Award from the American Heart Association for The Living River 1962Boston University's Publication Merit Award 1963special Hugo Award for "adding science to science fiction" for essays published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1963Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1965James T. Grady Award of the American Chemical Society (now called the James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry) 1966Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award for the Foundation series 1967Westinghouse Science Writing Award 1972Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Gods Themselves 1973Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Gods Themselves 1973Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for The Gods Themselves 1983Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Foundation's Edge 1992Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Gold 1995Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book for I. Asimov: A Memoir 1996A 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 1997Posthumous induction into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame 2009A crater on the planet Mars, Asimov, was named in his honor

14 honorary doctorate degrees from various universities

Writing style

Characteristics

One of the most common impressions of Asimov's fiction work is that his writing style is extremely unornamented. In 1980, science fiction scholar James Gunn, professor emeritus of English at the University of Kansas wrote of I, Robot:

Gunn observes that there are places where Asimov's style rises to the demands of the situation; he cites the climax of "Liar!" as an example. Sharply drawn characters occur at key junctures of his storylines: In addition to Susan Calvin in "Liar!" and "Evidence", we find Arkady Darell in Second Foundation, Elijah Baley in The Caves of Steel and Hari Seldon in the Foundation prequels. Asimov addresses this criticism at the beginning of his book Nemesis:

Some details of Asimov's imaginary future technology as he described in the 1940s and 1950s have not aged well. For example, he described powerful robots and computers from the distant future using punched cards or punched tape and engineers using slide rules. In one dramatic scene in Foundation and Empire, a character gets the news by buying a paper at a vending machine. Of course, this charge could be leveled at virtually any writer of science fiction and has little critical impact.

In addition, his stories also have occasional internal contradictions: names and dates given in The Foundation Series do not always agree with one another, for example. Some such errors may plausibly be due to mistakes the characters make, since characters in Asimov stories are seldom fully informed about their own situations. Other contradictions resulted from the many years elapsed between the time Asimov began the Foundation series and when he resumed work on it; occasionally, advances in scientific knowledge forced him to revise his own fictional history. Other than books by Gunn and Patrouch, there is a relative dearth of "literary" criticism on Asimov (particularly when compared to the sheer volume of his output). Cowart and Wymer's Dictionary of Literary Biography (1981) gives a possible reason:

In fairness, Gunn's and Patrouch's respective studies of Asimov both take the stand that a clear, direct prose style is still a style. Gunn's 1982 book goes into considerable depth commenting upon each of Asimov's novels published to that date. He does not praise all of Asimov's fiction (nor does Patrouch), but he does call some passages in The Caves of Steel "reminiscent of Proust." When discussing how that novel depicts night falling over futuristic New York City, Gunn says that Asimov's prose "need not be ashamed anywhere in literary society".

Although he prided himself on his unornamented prose style (for which he credited Clifford Simak as an early influence), Asimov also enjoyed giving his longer stories complicated narrative structures, often by arranging chapters in non-chronological ways. Some readers have been put off by this, complaining that the nonlinearity is not worth the trouble and adversely affects the clarity of the story. For example, the first third of The Gods Themselves begins with Chapter 6, then backtracks to fill in earlier material. (John Campbell advised Asimov to begin his stories as late in the plot as possible. This advice helped Asimov create "Reason", one of the early Robot stories. See In Memory Yet Green for details of that time period.) Patrouch found that the interwoven and nested flashbacks of The Currents of Space did serious harm to that novel, to such an extent that only a "dyed-in-the-kyrt Asimov fan" could enjoy it. Asimov's tendency to contort his timelines is perhaps most apparent in his later novel Nemesis, in which one group of characters live in the "present" and another group starts in the "past", beginning fifteen years earlier and gradually moving toward the time period of the first group.

In 2002, Donald Palumbo, an English professor at East Carolina University, published Chaos Theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert’s Dune: The Fractal Aesthetic of Epic Science Fiction. This includes a review of Asimov's narrative structures that compares them with the scientific concepts of fractals and chaos. Palumbo finds that though the traditional interests of literature (such as symbolism and characterization) are often somewhat lacking or even absent, a fascination with the Foundation and Robot metaseries remains. He determines that the purposeful complexities of the narrative build unusual symmetric and recursive structures to be perceived by the mind's eye. This volume contains some of the most scholarly and in-depth criticism of Asimov to date.

Limitations

;Alien life''' Asimov was also criticized for the general absence of sexuality and of extraterrestrial life 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 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. The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1973. Asimov said that of all his writings, he was most proud of the middle section of The Gods Themselves, the part which deals with those themes.

In the Hugo Award-winning novella "Gold", Asimov describes an author clearly based on himself who has one of his books (The Gods Themselves) adapted into a "compu-drama", essentially photo-realistic computer animation. The director criticizes the fictionalized Asimov ("Gregory Laborian") for having an extremely nonvisual style making it difficult to adapt his work, and the author explains that he relies on ideas and dialogue rather than description to get his points across.

;Gender and social issues Others have criticized him for a lack of strong female characters in his early work. In his autobiographical writings, such as Gold ("Women and Science Fiction"), he acknowledges this and responds by pointing to inexperience. His later novels, written with more female characters but in essentially the same prose style as his early SF stories, brought this matter to a wider audience. For example, the August 25, 1985 Washington Post's "Book World" section reports of Robots and Empire as follows:

It may be noted, however, that in fact The Naked Sun (1957) deals with social issues as a core part of its central setting and motivation, depicts genetic engineering in the guise of eugenics as a fundamental part of that society, presents the reader with inverted arcologies where a single person is the focal point of the artificial environment as well as a hero who hails from a "normal" arcology on Earth. Meanwhile, totally artificial birth, although not specifically cloning, is the aim of the leaders of the society, sexual want is the major driving force of the main female character (albeit veiled in 1950s sensibilities), and the entire story is used to make the point that too much order is ultimately a stagnant dead end to be avoided.

Views

Religion

Isaac Asimov was an atheist, a humanist, and a rationalist. He did not oppose religious conviction in others, but he frequently railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science. During his childhood, his father and mother observed Orthodox Jewish traditions, though not as stringently as they had in Petrovichi; they did not, however, force their beliefs upon young Isaac. Thus he grew up without strong religious influences, coming to believe that the Torah represented Hebrew mythology in the same way that the Iliad recorded Greek mythology. As his books Treasury of Humor and Asimov Laughs Again record, Asimov was willing to tell jokes involving God, Satan, the Garden of Eden, Jerusalem, and other religious topics, expressing the viewpoint that a good joke can do more to provoke thought than hours of philosophical discussion.

For a brief while, his father worked in the local synagogue to enjoy the familiar surroundings and, as Isaac put it, "shine as a learned scholar" versed in the sacred writings. This scholarship was a seed for his later authorship and publication of Asimov's Guide to the Bible, an analysis of the historic foundations for both Old and New Testaments. For many years, Asimov called himself an atheist; however, he considered the term somewhat inadequate, as it described what he did not believe rather than what he did. Eventually, he described himself as a "humanist" and considered that term more practical. He did however continue to identify himself as a non-observant Jew as stated in his introduction to Jack Dann's anthology of Jewish science fiction, Wandering Stars: "I attend no services and follow no ritual and have never undergone that curious puberty rite, the bar mitzvah. It doesn't matter. I am Jewish."

In his last volume of autobiography, Asimov wrote, "If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul." The same memoir states his belief that Hell is "the drooling dream of a sadist" crudely affixed to an all-merciful God; if even human governments were willing to curtail cruel and unusual punishments, wondered Asimov, why would punishment in the afterlife not be restricted to a limited term? Asimov rejected the idea that a human belief or action could merit infinite punishment. If an afterlife of just deserts existed, he claimed, the longest and most severe punishment would be reserved for those who "slandered God by inventing Hell".

Politics

Asimov became a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party during the New Deal, and thereafter remained a political liberal. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and in a television interview during the early 1970s he publicly endorsed George McGovern. He was unhappy about what he considered an "irrationalist" viewpoint taken by many radical political activists from the late 1960s and onwards. In his second volume of autobiography, In Joy Still Felt, Asimov recalled meeting the counterculture figure Abbie Hoffman; Asimov's impression was that the 1960s' counterculture heroes had ridden an emotional wave which, in the end, left them stranded in a "no-man's land of the spirit" from which he wondered if they would ever return.

Social issues

Asimov considered himself a feminist even before Women's Liberation became a widespread movement; he joked that he wished women to be free "because I hate it when they charge". More seriously, he argued that the issue of women's rights was closely connected to that of population control. Furthermore, he believed that homosexuality must be considered a "moral right" on population grounds, as must all consenting adult sexual activity that does not lead to reproduction. he states that although he would prefer living in "no danger whatsoever" than near a nuclear reactor, he would still prefer a home near a nuclear power plant than in a slum on Love Canal or near "a Union Carbide plant producing methyl isocyanate" (referring to the Bhopal disaster).

In the closing years of his life, Asimov blamed the deterioration of the quality of life that he perceived in New York City on the shrinking tax base caused by the middle class flight to the suburbs. His last non-fiction book, Our Angry Earth (1991, co-written with his long-time friend science fiction author Frederik Pohl), deals with elements of the environmental crisis such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer.

Other authors

Asimov stated, both in his autobiography and in several essays, that he enjoyed the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. He paid tribute to The Lord of the Rings in a "Black Widowers" story. (In his letter to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, who had previously interviewed him for Daily Telegraph Magazine, Tolkien said that he enjoyed the science fiction of Isaac Asimov.)

Influence

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, has stated that it was Asimov's concept of psychohistory that inspired him to become an economist.

John Jenkins, who has reviewed the vast majority of Asimov's written output, once observed: }}

Selected bibliography

Including all titles, charts, and edited collections, there are currently 515 items in Asimov's bibliography—not counting his individual short stories, individual essays, and criticism. For his 100th, 200th, and 300th books (based on his personal count), Asimov published Opus 100 (1969), Opus 200 (1979), and Opus 300 (1984), celebrating his writing; he did not choose to do this for his 400th book, however. Asimov's writings span across all major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification except for Philosophy. However, if his foreword for The Humanist Way is included, he has been published in all categories.

There is an online exhibit displaying features, visuals, and descriptions of some of the over 600 books, games, audio recordings, videos, and wall charts included in the West Virginia University Libraries’ virtually complete Asimov Collection. Many first, rare, and autographed editions are in the Libraries’ Rare Book Room. Book jackets and autographs are presented online along with descriptions and images of children’s books, science fiction art, multimedia, and other materials in the collection.

For a listing of Asimov's books in chronological order within his future history, see the Foundation Series list of books.

Science fiction

"Greater Foundation" series

The Robot series was originally separate from the Foundation series. The Galactic Empire novels were originally published as independent stories. Later in life, Asimov synthesized them into a single coherent 'history' that appeared in the extension of the Foundation series.

The Robot series:

(first Elijah Baley SF-crime novel)

(second Elijah Baley SF-crime novel)

(third Elijah Baley SF-crime novel)

(sequel to the Elijah Baley trilogy)

Galactic Empire novels:

Original Foundation trilogy:

, Published with the title 'The Man Who Upset the Universe' as a 35c Ace paperback, D-125, in about 1952

Extended Foundation series:

(last of the Foundation series)

(occurs before "Foundation")

(occurs after "Prelude to Foundation" and before "Foundation")

Lucky Starr series (as Paul French)

David Starr, Space Ranger (1952)

Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (1953)

Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (1954)

Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury (1956)

Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter (1957)

Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (1958)

Norby Chronicles (with Janet Asimov)

Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot (1983)

Norby's Other Secret (1984)

Norby and the Lost Princess (1985)

Norby and the Invaders (1985)

Norby and the Queen's Necklace (1986)

Norby Finds a Villain (1987)

Norby Down to Earth (1988)

Norby and Yobo's Great Adventure (1989)

Norby and the Oldest Dragon (1990)

Norby and the Court Jester (1991)

Novels not part of a series

Novels marked with an asterisk * have minor connections to the Foundation series.

The End of Eternity (1955) *

Fantastic Voyage (1966) (a novelization of the movie)

The Gods Themselves (1972)

(1987) (not a sequel to Fantastic Voyage, but a similar, independent story)

Nemesis (1989) *

Nightfall (1990), with Robert Silverberg

The Ugly Little Boy (1992), with Robert Silverberg (aka: Child of Time)

The Positronic Man (1993) *, with Robert Silverberg

Short story collections

See also List of short stories by Isaac Asimov

Mysteries

Novels

The Death Dealers (1958), republished as A Whiff of Death

Murder at the ABA (1976), also published as Authorized Murder

Short story collections

Black Widowers series

Tales of the Black Widowers (1974)

More Tales of the Black Widowers (1976)

Casebook of the Black Widowers (1980)

Banquets of the Black Widowers (1984)

Puzzles of the Black Widowers (1990)

The Return of the Black Widowers (2003)

Other mysteries

Asimov's Mysteries (1968)

The Key Word and Other Mysteries (1977)

The Union Club Mysteries (1983)

The Disappearing Man and Other Mysteries (1985)

The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov (1986)

Nonfiction

Popular science

Collections of Asimov's essaysoriginally published as monthly columns in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction # Fact and Fancy (1962) # View from a Height (1963) # Adding a Dimension (1964) # Of Time, Space, & Other Things (1965) # From Earth to Heaven (1966) # Science, Numbers and I (1968) # The Solar System and Back (1970) # The Stars in Their Courses (1971) # The Left Hand of the Electron (1972) # The Tragedy of the Moon (1973) # Of Matters Great & Small (1975) # The Planet that Wasn't (1976) # Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1977) # Road to Infinity (1979) # The Sun Shines Bright (1981) # Counting the Eons (1983) # X Stands for Unknown (1984) # The Subatomic Monster (1985) # Far as Human Eye Could See (1987) # The Relativity of Wrong (1988) # Out of the Everywhere (1990) # The Secret of the Universe (1990)

Other science books by Asimov

The Chemicals of Life (1954) ISBN 9780451624185

Inside the Atom (1956) ISBN 978-0-200-71444-0

Only a Trillion (1957) ISBN 978-0441631216

Building Blocks of the Universe (1957; revised 1974) ISBN 0200710990 ISBN 978-0200710992

The World of Carbon (1958) ISBN 978-0020913504

The World of Nitrogen (1958) ISBN 978-0020914006

Words of Science and the History Behind Them (1959) ISBN 978-0395065716

The Clock We Live On (1959) ISBN 978-0200711005

Asimov on Numbers (1959) ISBN 978-0517371459

The Wellsprings of Life (1960) ISBN 978-0-451-03245-4

Life and Energy (1962) ISBN 978-0380009428

(1963) ISBN 978-0451024305, ISBN 978-0451627070 (revised)

(1963) ISBN 978-0451628671

Planets for Man (with Stephen H. Dole) (1964, reprinted by RAND 2007) ISBN 978-0-8330-4226-2

The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science (1965)

* The title varied with each of the four editions, the last being Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984) ISBN 978-0140172133

(1966) ISBN 9780380015962

The Neutrino (1966) ASIN B002JK525W

Is Anyone There? (1967), ISBN 0385084013 – where he used the term Spome

Photosynthesis (1968) ISBN 978-0465057030

Our World in Space (1974) ISBN 978-0821204344

Please Explain (1975) ISBN 978-0440968047

Asimov On Astronomy (1975) ISBN 978-0517279243

Asimov On Physics (1976) ISBN 978-0385009584

The Collapsing Universe (1977), ISBN 0-671-81738-8

Extraterrestrial Civilizations (1979) ISBN 978-0449900208

Visions of the Universe with coauthor Kazuaki Iwasaki (1981) ISBN 978-0939540013

Exploring the Earth and the Cosmos (1982) ISBN 978-0517546673

Understanding Physics (1988) [1966] ISBN 978-0880292511

*Vol. I, Motion, Sound, and Heat ISBN 978-0451003294

*Vol. II, Light, Magnetism, and Electricity ISBN 978-0451619426

*Vol. III, The Electron, Proton, and Neutron ISBN 978-0451626349

Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery (1989), second edition adds content thru 1993, ISBN 9780062701138

Asimov's Chronology of the World (1991) ISBN 9780062700360

Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space (1991) ISBN 9780449220597

(1991) ISBN 9781439509005

(1994) ISBN 9780836811339

The Moon (2003), revised by Richard Hantula ISBN 978-1591021223

The Sun (2003), revised by Richard Hantula ISBN 978-1591021223

Jupiter (2004), revised by Richard Hantula ISBN 978-1591021230

The Earth (2004), revised by Richard Hantula ISBN 978-1591021773

Venus (2004), revised by Richard Hantula ISBN 978-0-8368-3877-0

Annotations

Asimov's Annotated "Don Juan"

Asimov's Annotated "Paradise Lost"

Asimov's Annotated "Gilbert and Sullivan"

Asimov's The Annotated "Gulliver's Travels"

Familiar Poems, Annotated

Guides

Asimov's Guide to the Bible, vols I and II (1981), ISBN 0-517-34582-X

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, vols I and II (1970), ISBN 0-517-26825-6

Autobiography

In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920–1954, (1979, Doubleday)

In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978, (1980, Doubleday)

I. Asimov: A Memoir, (1994, Doubleday)

* It's Been a Good Life, (2002), condensation of Asimov's three volume biography by his widow, Janet Jeppson Asimov

Other Nonfiction

Opus 100 (1969), ISBN 0-395-07351-0

Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor (1971)

The Sensuous Dirty Old Man (1971), ISBN 0-451-07199-9

Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (1972), ISBN 0-385-17771-2

Lecherous Limericks (1976), ISBN 0-449-22841-X

More Lecherous Limericks (1976), ISBN 0-802-77102-5

Still More Lecherous Limericks (1977), ISBN 0-802-77106-8

Opus 200 (1979), ISBN 0-395-27625-X

Our Federal Union (1975), ISBN 0-395-2283-3

Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts (1979), ISBN 0-517-36111-6

A Grossery of Limericks, with John Ciardi (1981), ISBN 0-393-33112-1

The Roving Mind (1983) (collection of essays). New edition published by Prometheus Books, 1997, ISBN 1-573-92181-5

Opus 300 (1984), ISBN 0-395-36108-7

Limericks, Two Gross, with John Ciardi (1985), ISBN 0-393-04530-7

Asimov Laughs Again (1992)

Selected Books by Dewey Decimal Category

Hallucination Orbit: Psychology In Science Fiction, (000)

Asimov's Guide to the Bible, (200)

Why are the Rain Forests Vanishing?, (300)

Words from History, (400)

Realm of Numbers, (500)

The Human Body: Its Structure and Operation, (600)

Visions of the Universe, (700)

The Do-It-Yourself Bestseller: A Workbook, (800)

The Greeks: A Great Adventure, (900)

Television and film appearances

"To Tell The Truth", CBS, approximately 1968, playing the "real" Isaac Asimov.

The Nature of Things 1969

"ABC News" coverage of Apollo 11, 1969, with Fred Pohl, interviewed by Rod Serling

"David Frost" interview program, August 1969. This is the show in which Frost asked Asimov if he had ever tried to find God and, after some initial evasion, Asimov answered, "God is much more intelligent than I—let him try to find me."

The Dick Cavett Show 1970

Target... Earth? 1980

NBC TV, 1982 "Speaking Freely" interviewed by Edwin Newman 1982

ARTS Network talk show hosted by Studs Terkel and Calvin Trillin, approximately 1982. Other guests included Harlan Ellison and James Gunn.

Oltre New York 1986

Voyage to the Outer Planets and Beyond 1986

Bill Moyers interview 1988

Stranieri in America 1988

References

Sources

Asimov, Isaac. In Memory Yet Green (1979, ISBN 0-380-75432-0).

:In Joy Still Felt (1980, ISBN 0-380-53025-2). :I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994). ISBN 0-385-41701-2 (hc), ISBN 0-553-56997-X (pb). :Yours, Isaac Asimov (1996), edited by Stanley Asimov. ISBN 0-385-47624-8. :It's Been a Good Life (2002), edited by Janet Asimov. ISBN 1-57392-968-9.

Goldman, Stephen H., "Isaac Asimov", in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 8, Cowart and Wymer eds., (Gale Research, 1981), pp. 15–29.

Gunn, James. "On Variations on a Robot", IASFM, July 1980, pp. 56–81.

:Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (1982). ISBN 0-19-503060-5. :The Science of Science-Fiction Writing (2000). ISBN 1-57886-011-3.

External links

Isaac Asimov Home Page

Isaac Asimov Wikia Page that contains overview to some of his books

{Work in Progress} (one work, the 1952 short story "Youth")

15-Book Reading Order as Suggested by Asimov From "Author's Note" of "Prelude to Foundation" Doubleday 1988 hardcover edition

Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.

Real-life robots obey Asimov's laws

Isaac Asimov: A Prolific and Polymathic American Writer

Isaac Asimov was Born 90 Years Ago Today by The Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2010

P.S. 99: The Isaac Asimov School for Science and Literature

Frederik Pohl on Asimov

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