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Tomorrow, Jan. 2ed, is Science Fiction Day!!

Happy Science Fiction Day to all the fen, and Happy Birthday Isaac!


:D

in honor of his birthday.

One of those facts is no one knows exactly when his Birthday is, including Dr. Asimov himself. He was born in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution and decided to celebrate it on January 2nd, 1920.

Thanks for the link, G33z3r. What a fascinating article! I recently read Foundation and, while I didn't love it, I did appreciate the skill that went into it's writing. I really knew nothing about Asimov, though. Now I feel like I should go back and try another of his works. He sounds like the coolest of cool guys!

Aleah wrote: " I really knew nothing about Asimov, though. Now I feel like I should go back and try another of his works. He sounds like the coolest of cool guys! ..."

He is worthy of further study. Large amounts of his work now look rather dated - but that is because much of it is 40 years old! He was a scientist (mostly a chemist) of considerable academic stature as well as an SF author whose name is going to be remembered as one of The Greats for a very long time.
Some of his best work goes back to the 1950s and 1960s - as well as the Foundation trilogy look up the early Robots stories - mostly shorts, using a great character, Susan Calvin (horribly mis-cast in the film - wrong age!).
Look . That Wiki entry says "Asimov was an able public speaker and was a frequent fixture at science fiction conventions, where he was friendly and approachable " which I can testify to - but unless I missed it in my hurry, what it doesn't say is that until the mid 1970s that was only true in USA - he seriously didn't like flying, and did not attend UK conventions until he had some therapy for it at about that time.

I would disagree...most of the Good Doctor's best works go back to the 1940s...Nightfall, generally accepted as the greatest SF story ever written was published when he was only 21 years old...The Foundation Trilogy, for which Isaac received a Hugo for best series (beating out Doc Smith for his Lensmen series and Tolkien for his work) was likewise started in his 20s.

also, Isaac received a Hugo for Lifetime Achievement, based mostly on his work from the 1940s

Asimov took an extended break from writing fiction, actually. He is actually even more significant as a writer of amazingly clear science articles aimed at the layman.

Oh, and he is also a quite excellent mystery writer, both of science fiction and contemporary mysteries - the Black Widow stuff.

I was never actually a huge fan of Azimov's fiction. It just never resonated with me like Heinlein, Norton, EE Doc Smith, or a number of other "classic" SF authors. I did, however, dearly love his NON-fiction works. His history and science writing was always fascinating and engaging.

Thanks for the link, G33z3r! I love the idea of Asimov sequestered in a magazine kiosk, listening to the trains rumbling past.

Asimov's fiction books had a profound influence on me during my high school years, and I was fascinated by the way they dealt with issues of sentience, free will, and civil rights.

My favourite Asimov books would have to include The Caves of Steel; I, Robot; and The Bicentennial Man. I actually haven't read his non-fiction work, but I hope to get around to them.

The volumes of his autobiography are worth a read as well. As a writer, he had a much more humdrum life than he wrote about in his stories. However, as a writer, he makes his fairly ordinary life very absorbing just like he did for his other non-fiction works. It's a sign of how good a writer he was, and it's a good example of how to keep readers' interest in a topic.

William, that's a great point. Good storytellers can make even the most ordinary of activities seem compelling and meaningful.

An anthology of Jewish science fiction I recently received (Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction, published in 1974), has a charming intro from Asimov titled "Why me?" In the piece he talks about being a non-practicing Jew, not having a bar mitzvah but being comfortable with Yiddish, and using his own name instead of a pseudonym.

Speaking of pseudonyms, I still get a kick out of remembering discovering the author, Paul French, when I was in junior high. I read everything he wrote. I also discovered Asimov, and read everything I could find he wrote—a much more difficult challenge! It was only some years later I discovered "Paul French" was a pen name Asimov used for a series of YA science fiction.