Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition) (77 page)
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Authors: James Gunn
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Patrouch, Joseph F.
The Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974. An analysis of Asimov's works that considers their narrative success or failure. The author teaches English literature at the University of Dayton and in the late 1970s published science fiction of his own.
The Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974. An analysis of Asimov's works that considers their narrative success or failure. The author teaches English literature at the University of Dayton and in the late 1970s published science fiction of his own.
Tepper, Matthew B.
Asimov Science Fiction Bibliography.
Chinese Ducked Press, 1970. An early bibliography.
Asimov Science Fiction Bibliography.
Chinese Ducked Press, 1970. An early bibliography.
Wollheim, Donald A.
The Universe Makers.
New York: Harper & Row, 1971. A personal view of the development of science fiction by a pioneer author and editor, later a publisher, in which Asimov, and particularly his Foundation series, plays a key role, especially in establishing a consensus future history.
The Universe Makers.
New York: Harper & Row, 1971. A personal view of the development of science fiction by a pioneer author and editor, later a publisher, in which Asimov, and particularly his Foundation series, plays a key role, especially in establishing a consensus future history.
An Interview with Isaac Asimov
In April of 1979, upon the occasion of the Nebula Award weekend, I visited New York to interview Isaac Asimov in preparation for the writing of Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1982. He took an hour away from his guest duties at a New York City science-fiction convention, held at a mid-town college or university, as I recall, and we had the following conversation in a large, otherwise deserted, downstairs lobby.
Gunn:
When you write about your own writing you seem to be asking: how did it come to be so successful?
When you write about your own writing you seem to be asking: how did it come to be so successful?
A.:
Yes, you're perfectly right. To this day I don't know the steps by which it happened. The success of writers such as Bob Heinlein and van Vogt seemed easy to understand because from their first stories they were recognized as extremely good science-fiction writers, whereas I don't think in the case of my own first few stories there was any thought on the part of anybody, including myself, that I was a particularly good writer. I was a new writer and no one paid much attention to me. Even when "Nightfall" appeared, it didn't seem to me that it made much of a difference because it appeared in the same issue with stories by Heinlein that completely drowned it out.
Yes, you're perfectly right. To this day I don't know the steps by which it happened. The success of writers such as Bob Heinlein and van Vogt seemed easy to understand because from their first stories they were recognized as extremely good science-fiction writers, whereas I don't think in the case of my own first few stories there was any thought on the part of anybody, including myself, that I was a particularly good writer. I was a new writer and no one paid much attention to me. Even when "Nightfall" appeared, it didn't seem to me that it made much of a difference because it appeared in the same issue with stories by Heinlein that completely drowned it out.
Gunn:
Throughout
The Early Asimov
and the other collections in which you added autobiographical notes as well as in the first volume of your autobiography, what makes all this concentration on Asimov and his writing tolerable is a note of delighted surprise that it ever came out that way.
Throughout
The Early Asimov
and the other collections in which you added autobiographical notes as well as in the first volume of your autobiography, what makes all this concentration on Asimov and his writing tolerable is a note of delighted surprise that it ever came out that way.
A.:
Yes, I'm still delighted and I'm still surprised.
Yes, I'm still delighted and I'm still surprised.
Gunn:
The question keeps coming up: how did it happen? And that's one thing I'm going to be writing about in my book about your science-fiction writing. I'm interested in treating your work as being not only the unique product of your own personality, but also a kind of expression of
what science fiction was at the time, in the sense that what you wrote encapsulates what science fiction was concerned with.
The question keeps coming up: how did it happen? And that's one thing I'm going to be writing about in my book about your science-fiction writing. I'm interested in treating your work as being not only the unique product of your own personality, but also a kind of expression of
what science fiction was at the time, in the sense that what you wrote encapsulates what science fiction was concerned with.
A.:
In a way, I suppose, I was the perfect foil for John Campbell. On the one hand I was close to him. I lived right in town and I could see him every week. And, for another, I could endure him. That is, I imagine that a great many other writers found him too rich for their blood at least to sit there and listen to him hour after hour. But I was fortunate in the sense that he was in some ways a lot like my father. (Laughter) And I had grown up listening to my father pontificate in much the same way that John did, and so I was quite at home. I suppose if you took all the time that I sat there listening to John and put it together, it was easily a week's worth of just listening to him talk. Day and night. 168 hours. And I remembered everything he said and how he thought and I did my best because I desperately wanted to sell stories to him to incorporate his method of thinking into my stories, which, of course, also had my method of thinking, with the result that somehow I caught the Campbell flavor.
In a way, I suppose, I was the perfect foil for John Campbell. On the one hand I was close to him. I lived right in town and I could see him every week. And, for another, I could endure him. That is, I imagine that a great many other writers found him too rich for their blood at least to sit there and listen to him hour after hour. But I was fortunate in the sense that he was in some ways a lot like my father. (Laughter) And I had grown up listening to my father pontificate in much the same way that John did, and so I was quite at home. I suppose if you took all the time that I sat there listening to John and put it together, it was easily a week's worth of just listening to him talk. Day and night. 168 hours. And I remembered everything he said and how he thought and I did my best because I desperately wanted to sell stories to him to incorporate his method of thinking into my stories, which, of course, also had my method of thinking, with the result that somehow I caught the Campbell flavor.
Gunn:
That's close to what I wrote in the third volume of
The Road to Science Fiction.
Each of the stories is preceded by biographical notes, and I commented about you, and I hope you don't feel it denigrating, that you were the quintessential Campbell writer. You were Campbell's kind of writer; whereas Heinlein, I felt, was always his own kind of writer who just happened for awhile to write things that coincided with what Campbell wanted.
That's close to what I wrote in the third volume of
The Road to Science Fiction.
Each of the stories is preceded by biographical notes, and I commented about you, and I hope you don't feel it denigrating, that you were the quintessential Campbell writer. You were Campbell's kind of writer; whereas Heinlein, I felt, was always his own kind of writer who just happened for awhile to write things that coincided with what Campbell wanted.
A.:
I think you're right. I think you're right. Certainly towards the end, Campbell would say things to me that led me to think that, too.
I think you're right. I think you're right. Certainly towards the end, Campbell would say things to me that led me to think that, too.
Gunn:
Well, one thing I wrote was that the over-riding element of your fiction (there are a few places where it doesn't quite fit) is the search for answers the application of reason, rationality, to complex, puzzling situations. There is very little of the triumph of emotion over rationality. Or if it does, it is a kind of tragic circumstance. It is a happy circumstance when reason triumphs over emotion, or when people find a solution to whatever it is that bothers them.
Well, one thing I wrote was that the over-riding element of your fiction (there are a few places where it doesn't quite fit) is the search for answers the application of reason, rationality, to complex, puzzling situations. There is very little of the triumph of emotion over rationality. Or if it does, it is a kind of tragic circumstance. It is a happy circumstance when reason triumphs over emotion, or when people find a solution to whatever it is that bothers them.
A.:
You're right, you leave me nothing to say, because I agree with you completely there.
You're right, you leave me nothing to say, because I agree with you completely there.
Gunn:
As a matter of fact in the third volume of
Road to Science Fiction
I reprinted the story "Reason." Like you I delight in puns and I called the biographical headnote "The Clear, Cool Voice of Asimov."
As a matter of fact in the third volume of
Road to Science Fiction
I reprinted the story "Reason." Like you I delight in puns and I called the biographical headnote "The Clear, Cool Voice of Asimov."
I have read virtually all the science fiction you have ever published. I wonder whether the reason the stories in
The Early Asimov
were not included in your other anthologies was that they were in some way
inferior they didn't live up to your vision of what they might have been. It seemed to me that at some point you discovered that you liked to incorporate in your stories an element of mystery and suspense. I wondered whether you would feel it to be a fair statement that when your stories began to really incorporate not just detective elements, but always a kind of mystery to be discovered, this was really when your fiction began to please you, and began to be successful in your own eyes.
The Early Asimov
were not included in your other anthologies was that they were in some way
inferior they didn't live up to your vision of what they might have been. It seemed to me that at some point you discovered that you liked to incorporate in your stories an element of mystery and suspense. I wondered whether you would feel it to be a fair statement that when your stories began to really incorporate not just detective elements, but always a kind of mystery to be discovered, this was really when your fiction began to please you, and began to be successful in your own eyes.
A.:
Well, now that's very interesting, because I think perhaps you're right. Certainly the first stories that really satisfied me and made me feel good about my writing were my robot stories, and the robot stories, of course, virtually every one of them, had a situation in which robots which couldn't go wrong
did
go wrong. And we had to find out what had gone wrong, how to correct it within the absolute limits of the three laws. This was just the sort of thing I loved to do. And I enjoyed it.
Well, now that's very interesting, because I think perhaps you're right. Certainly the first stories that really satisfied me and made me feel good about my writing were my robot stories, and the robot stories, of course, virtually every one of them, had a situation in which robots which couldn't go wrong
did
go wrong. And we had to find out what had gone wrong, how to correct it within the absolute limits of the three laws. This was just the sort of thing I loved to do. And I enjoyed it.
Gunn:
And so when you began to write mysteries science fiction stories as mysteries it was really nothing new because you had really being doing this all along with the robot stories, except they weren't presented as detective stories there was no formal detective, but Susan Calvin was doing the job of a detective.
And so when you began to write mysteries science fiction stories as mysteries it was really nothing new because you had really being doing this all along with the robot stories, except they weren't presented as detective stories there was no formal detective, but Susan Calvin was doing the job of a detective.
A.:
Yes, that's right. And then by the time I got to
The Caves of Steel,
there was a robot story in which the detective element was formal. And I did the same with
The Naked Sun
and then it was just natural progression to go to straight mysteries. Which I now enjoy more than I do science fiction it is as though I've discovered what I really like and I can do that even without the science fiction. And, incidentally, this is very old-fashioned. People don't do it anymore even the mysteries, the straight mysteries I write are extremely old-fashioned and I suspect that if I weren't me I couldn't sell them. And this is another thing that constantly puzzles me about my own writing and I hate to talk about it too much for fear that someone else will see that. But to put it as briefly as I can how do I get away with it? Because, when I wrote
Murder at the ABA,
for instance, even on the book jacket, it said "an old-fashioned mystery" and I thought, gee, there's the kiss of death. Who's going to read an old-fashioned mystery? Well, enough people read it so that it was reasonably successful. And now my autobiography is, if ever I saw one, an old-fashioned autobiography, because there are no sexual revelations in it there are no deep psychological probings. I don't have any sensational revelations whatsoever. It's just the ordinary story of an ordinary life and yet it's doing fairly well.
Yes, that's right. And then by the time I got to
The Caves of Steel,
there was a robot story in which the detective element was formal. And I did the same with
The Naked Sun
and then it was just natural progression to go to straight mysteries. Which I now enjoy more than I do science fiction it is as though I've discovered what I really like and I can do that even without the science fiction. And, incidentally, this is very old-fashioned. People don't do it anymore even the mysteries, the straight mysteries I write are extremely old-fashioned and I suspect that if I weren't me I couldn't sell them. And this is another thing that constantly puzzles me about my own writing and I hate to talk about it too much for fear that someone else will see that. But to put it as briefly as I can how do I get away with it? Because, when I wrote
Murder at the ABA,
for instance, even on the book jacket, it said "an old-fashioned mystery" and I thought, gee, there's the kiss of death. Who's going to read an old-fashioned mystery? Well, enough people read it so that it was reasonably successful. And now my autobiography is, if ever I saw one, an old-fashioned autobiography, because there are no sexual revelations in it there are no deep psychological probings. I don't have any sensational revelations whatsoever. It's just the ordinary story of an ordinary life and yet it's doing fairly well.
Gunn:
Maybe it's because you have an insight into publishing some publishers don't have, that people have always been willing to read old-fashioned works. There may be a basic kind of appeal there that the publishers are overlooking.
Maybe it's because you have an insight into publishing some publishers don't have, that people have always been willing to read old-fashioned works. There may be a basic kind of appeal there that the publishers are overlooking.
A.:
Well, that could be. In any case, fortunately, my publishers are very pleasant to me and usually let me have my way, in sort of a very fatherly way. You know that's another place where I have been extremely fortunate. Campbell took what I consider to have been a fatherly interest in me. He had a number of writers who came to visit him periodically or corresponded with him and discussed with them in those late 30s and early 40s that first five years in which he was editor, which were the most creative of all. And I think that of all the writers I was the youngest, in years, and still young in outlook. I was naive, unsophisticated, and therefore somehow he felt that I was most malleable, and the most easily molded, and he enjoyed molding me, so to speak. And he was
in loco parentis
he was a father in almost everything but the literal sense of the word, and literally he was a father. And this somehow has been the same attitude that, to a somewhat lesser extent, all my editors, virtually all, have since taken to me, even when, as in recent years, they've turned out to be, say, twenty years younger than I was. Right now my Doubleday editor is a young woman named Kathleen Jordan, who is approximately a quarter-century younger than I am. And yet her attitude toward me is distinctly motherly. I have the feeling in fact it is not something I really had to dig for, because it's quite open and obvious on the surface that she's out there making sure that I don't fall over my own big feet, you know, and she won't let me do things that I shouldn't, because she says no, I'm not going to let you, Isaac, and I know she worries about me. So, I suppose I could say that by the most peculiar coincidence something like a dozen editors with whom I've been close in books and magazines have all just happened to be the fatherly the parental type. But I don't think that that is conceivable. I think that rather what it is that for some darn reason I inspire this in other people, I think largely because I am quite obviously naive and unsophisticated. (Laughter). I don't really think that I am, but that's how I must impress others.
Well, that could be. In any case, fortunately, my publishers are very pleasant to me and usually let me have my way, in sort of a very fatherly way. You know that's another place where I have been extremely fortunate. Campbell took what I consider to have been a fatherly interest in me. He had a number of writers who came to visit him periodically or corresponded with him and discussed with them in those late 30s and early 40s that first five years in which he was editor, which were the most creative of all. And I think that of all the writers I was the youngest, in years, and still young in outlook. I was naive, unsophisticated, and therefore somehow he felt that I was most malleable, and the most easily molded, and he enjoyed molding me, so to speak. And he was
in loco parentis
he was a father in almost everything but the literal sense of the word, and literally he was a father. And this somehow has been the same attitude that, to a somewhat lesser extent, all my editors, virtually all, have since taken to me, even when, as in recent years, they've turned out to be, say, twenty years younger than I was. Right now my Doubleday editor is a young woman named Kathleen Jordan, who is approximately a quarter-century younger than I am. And yet her attitude toward me is distinctly motherly. I have the feeling in fact it is not something I really had to dig for, because it's quite open and obvious on the surface that she's out there making sure that I don't fall over my own big feet, you know, and she won't let me do things that I shouldn't, because she says no, I'm not going to let you, Isaac, and I know she worries about me. So, I suppose I could say that by the most peculiar coincidence something like a dozen editors with whom I've been close in books and magazines have all just happened to be the fatherly the parental type. But I don't think that that is conceivable. I think that rather what it is that for some darn reason I inspire this in other people, I think largely because I am quite obviously naive and unsophisticated. (Laughter). I don't really think that I am, but that's how I must impress others.
Gunn:
To get back for a moment to this question about the mysteries, it seems to me as I look over the stories that there are a couple of basic ways in which one can deal with characters in a story. They can either have a problem to solve or else they themselves can change and in your stories, few of your characters change you talked about that in your 1953 essay "Social Science Fiction," that people are pretty much the
same they don't change, the circumstances change. And of them all, I can only think of one Asimov story where a person changes and that's probably "The Ugly Little Boy." This is probably one of the few stories there may be one or two others which might be called "stories of character." And I wonder whether you ever felt that or ever were aware of the fact that one could deal with stories of character, even within science fiction or thought of it in those terms?
To get back for a moment to this question about the mysteries, it seems to me as I look over the stories that there are a couple of basic ways in which one can deal with characters in a story. They can either have a problem to solve or else they themselves can change and in your stories, few of your characters change you talked about that in your 1953 essay "Social Science Fiction," that people are pretty much the
same they don't change, the circumstances change. And of them all, I can only think of one Asimov story where a person changes and that's probably "The Ugly Little Boy." This is probably one of the few stories there may be one or two others which might be called "stories of character." And I wonder whether you ever felt that or ever were aware of the fact that one could deal with stories of character, even within science fiction or thought of it in those terms?
A.:
Well, I knew that it could be done. I also knew well that it might be too difficult for me to do. I don't know that I have the kind of literary power that is required for that sort of thing. I can deal with rational action, but I'm not sure that I can deal with the inner recesses of being. Now "The Ugly Little Boy" was something I had written on a dare. No one had made it to me, I made it to myself. I got tired of having people tell me that I had no women in my stories. That's true, I rarely have women in my stories, and that's a matter of choice I'm not at ease with women in my stories, largely because I started writing long before I'd had so much as a date with a girl. Women were strangers and aliens to me and I never quite got over that. Even though in real life they are no longer strangers and aliens. But I got tired of hearing people say that, and so, to show myself, I decided to write a story in which a woman was the chief character, but not a woman like Susan Calvin, who is rationality personified, but a woman with emotions. So I sat down to do that, and that's what came out. It's not necessarily what I planned it just worked itself out that way. It's one of the few stories I've written that routinely makes women cry. At least I've received phone calls and letters from people saying that they've read "The Ugly Little Boy" and it made them cry at the end and invariably I answer and say I am pleased because it made me cry when I wrote it which it did. The only other story I've ever written in which I felt that I was deliberately, more or less, reaching for the pocket handkerchief at the end was "The Bicentennial Man," where that, too although I didn't plan it! is a story of character because Andrew, the robot, develops all the way through. He not only forces recognition of himself as a man that is the external change but all through internally he becomes more and more of a man. So, there again I did it. So, I suppose I can do it. I can do it, but I don't necessarily tend to, because what I concentrate on mostly is the problem.
Well, I knew that it could be done. I also knew well that it might be too difficult for me to do. I don't know that I have the kind of literary power that is required for that sort of thing. I can deal with rational action, but I'm not sure that I can deal with the inner recesses of being. Now "The Ugly Little Boy" was something I had written on a dare. No one had made it to me, I made it to myself. I got tired of having people tell me that I had no women in my stories. That's true, I rarely have women in my stories, and that's a matter of choice I'm not at ease with women in my stories, largely because I started writing long before I'd had so much as a date with a girl. Women were strangers and aliens to me and I never quite got over that. Even though in real life they are no longer strangers and aliens. But I got tired of hearing people say that, and so, to show myself, I decided to write a story in which a woman was the chief character, but not a woman like Susan Calvin, who is rationality personified, but a woman with emotions. So I sat down to do that, and that's what came out. It's not necessarily what I planned it just worked itself out that way. It's one of the few stories I've written that routinely makes women cry. At least I've received phone calls and letters from people saying that they've read "The Ugly Little Boy" and it made them cry at the end and invariably I answer and say I am pleased because it made me cry when I wrote it which it did. The only other story I've ever written in which I felt that I was deliberately, more or less, reaching for the pocket handkerchief at the end was "The Bicentennial Man," where that, too although I didn't plan it! is a story of character because Andrew, the robot, develops all the way through. He not only forces recognition of himself as a man that is the external change but all through internally he becomes more and more of a man. So, there again I did it. So, I suppose I can do it. I can do it, but I don't necessarily tend to, because what I concentrate on mostly is the problem.
Gunn:
The puzzle, the mystery?
The puzzle, the mystery?
A.:
Yes.
Yes.
Gunn:
You've often said that you don't know much about writing and I wonder, if I may say so, if this isn't a pose, a bit disingenuous?
You've often said that you don't know much about writing and I wonder, if I may say so, if this isn't a pose, a bit disingenuous?
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