In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  If, however, I remained backward in sex, I rapidly learned, during that summer of experimentation, how to "kid around" with girls—that is 7 how to make playful sexual allusions. Once I overcame my fright at saying anything of the sort (in particular, my fear that the young woman would call the police and do my mother's job for her) I found it a fascinating game, made up of word play and riposte, which I was naturally adept at, and which I have never outgrown.

  There was a girl named Phyllis Roberts in the phase rule class who was short, plump, and very bright. She was married, and was an excellent subject on whom to practice this newfound delight. She didn't

  2 Having learned my lesson, I bought my first condoms ten days later, nerving myself to the task with the greatest difficulty—and then I never got to use them.

  get embarrassed when I wiggled my eyebrows at her and she could, in fact, give as good as she got.

  As the class drew to its close, we decided to work out the final problems together. For that purpose, I took the subway to Queens and found her house (I thought nothing by now of wandering all over New York), and all through the afternoon we slaved away at the problems in scholarly austerity. When we were finished, she invited me to stay for dinner and about that time her husband came home. He wasn't in the least perturbed at my presence and, over dinner, I started the game.

  Phyllis put her fork down and said, "Why is it, Asimov, that all afternoon, when we were alone, you acted like a eunuch, and as soon as my husband comes home, you turn into a goat?"

  I hadn't noticed that, but as soon as she called it to my attention, I suddenly realized that, of course— the game can only be played when it is safe, when there are people around. When you're alone with a girl, the game makes no sense. You are either interested and make some real move, or you're not and you leave her alone.

  It all gave me a peculiar kind of split personality. My writing was at that time and has remained ever since (with very few deliberate exceptions) quite pure. One critic, a young nun, described me in a paper she wrote on my science fiction, as possessing a "sense of decorum," which I do—in my writing.

  In general conversation, however, I have no sense of decorum whatever. I do not use those words generally described as "vulgar" in the dictionary, but I am a sufficient master of polite English to be able to say anything vulgar that I wish to say without descending to the vulgar. It may sound innocent on the surface, but I can always grin or wiggle my eyebrows or both, if anyone is slow on the uptake, and eventually those who know me also know that nothing I say is ever innocent.

  Cyril Kornbluth, however, my fellow Futurian, wrote very ribald stories at times, but in social conversation would not allow anything improper to pass his lips, nor would listen with equanimity to ribaldry from anyone else.

  He particularly disapproved of my artlessly improper conversations, and had no hesitation in making it plain that he disapproved of everything else about me in consequence. I'm afraid I never made any attempt to placate him.

  4 With all this, writing slowed to a crawl. It took me ten weeks to complete "Source of Power," and it was only five thousand words long

  when, finally, on August 17, it was done. I took it to Thrilling Wonder which, about 3^/2 weeks later, rejected it. (I didn't bother showing it to Campbell. I had learned well that Campbell's idea of humor didn't match mine.)

  Something much more important had happened between myself and Campbell in the meantime, however.

  On August 1, 1941, I took the subway to Campbell's office after class was over. On the way down I racked my brain for a story idea. Failing, I tried a device I sometimes used. I opened a book at random and then tried free association, beginning with whatever I first saw.

  The book I had with me was a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan plays. I opened it to Iolanthe— to the picture of the Fairy Queen throwing herself at the feet of Private Willis, the sentry. Thinking of sentries, I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman Empire—of the Galactic Empire—aha!

  The fate of "Pilgrimage" was rankling me. Not only had Campbell rejected it four times, but also Pohl had rejected it twice, and Amazing once. Seven rejections in all. It was a future-historical and I still wanted to write a future-historical. Why shouldn't I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and the return of feudalism, written from the viewpoint of someone in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? I thought I knew how to do it for I had read Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from first page to last at least twice, and I had only to make use of that.

  I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbell's, and my enthusiasm was catching. It was perhaps too catching, for Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do.

  "That's too large a theme for a short story," he said.

  "I was thinking of a novelette," I said, quickly, adjusting my thoughts.

  "Or a novelette. It will have to be an open-ended series of stories."

  "What?" I said, weakly.

  "Short stories, novelettes, serials, all fitting into a particular future history, involving the fall of the First Galactic Empire, the period of feudalism that follows, and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire."

  "What?" I said, even more weakly.

  "Yes, I want you to write an outline of the future history. Go home and write the outline."

  There Campbell had made a mistake. Robert Heinlein was writing what he called the "Future History Series." He was writing various stories that fitted into one niche or another of the series, and he wasn't writing them in order. Therefore he had prepared a Future History out-

  line that was very detailed and complicated, so that he would keep everything straight. Now Campbell wanted me to do the same.

  Heinlein, however, was Heinlein—and Asimov was not Heinlein.

  I went home, dutifully, and began preparing an outline that got longer and longer and stupider and stupider until I finally tore it up. It was quite plain that I couldn't work with an outline. (To this day I cannot—for any of my stories, articles, or books, whether fiction or non-fiction.)

  On August n, therefore, I started the story I had originally intended to write (with modifications that resulted from my discussions with Campbell), and the heck with possible future stories. I'd worry about them when the time came—and if the time came.

  Since the First Galactic Empire was breaking down (in my story), certain scientists had set up a Foundation on a world at the rim of the Galaxy, purportedly to prepare a vast encyclopedia of human knowledge, but actually to cut down the period of feudalism and hasten the rise of the Second Empire. I called the story ''Foundation" (and the stories to which it gave rise have been lumped together, consequently, as "the Foundation series").

  5

  August 15, 1941, was a busy day. Not only was it the last day of class in phase rule, but it was also the day I obtained a copy of the September 1941 Astounding, the one containing "Nightfall." 3 It didn't just contain "Nightfall," it featured "Nightfall." It had taken me over three years but I had finally achieved an Astounding cover. The cover painting was a magnificent scene from the very climax of the story, when the stars finally appeared, and all it said on the cover was " 'Nightfall/ by Isaac Asimov."

  I wasn't aware at the time that the story created any unusual stir. Present in the same issue after all was the last of Heinlein's serial, "Methusaleh's Children," and another Heinlein story under a pseudonym. Also present was Alfred Bester's classic "Adam and No Eve." I suspected that "Nightfall" would be lost in the shuffle.

  And yet—after "Nightfall" appeared, I was no longer a minor writer, hovering about the fringes of science-fiction fame. Finally, after three years of trying, I was accepted as a major figure in the field—and I was still only twenty-one.

  The only catch was that I myself still didn't know it, which was a

  3 See Nightfall and Other Stories (Doubleday, 1941).

  good thing. I continued to strain every nerve, thinking I hadn't made it yet, and years la
ter when it began to dawn on me that I had, I did my best to put it out of my mind. I had decided I was better off running hard; and I liked it better, too. I'm still running hard today.

  Yet in one respect, I must admit, I was dissatisfied with ''Nightfall." Campbell, finding my ending lacking, had inserted a paragraph of his own very near the end that was very effective but simply wasn't me. It has been praised as proof that I could write "poetically," which gravels me, since I don't want to write poetically; I only want to write clearly. Worst of all, Campbell thoughtlessly mentioned Earth in his paragraph. I had carefully refrained from doing so all through the story, since Earth did not exist within the context of the story. Its mention was a serious literary flaw.

  Also on August 15, word reached me that Malcolm Reiss, editor of Vianet, was considering the acceptance of that oft-battered story "Pilgrimage." On the eighteenth, I went to his office to discuss the matter with him and it turned out he wanted a revision (which was to be the seventh the poor story would undergo). What he wanted me to do was to take out the religious angle. It had gone in on Campbell's insistence and it would go out now on Reiss's. I agreed; I had too much invested in the story to let it drop now.

  Finally, on that same August 15, I received my first draft classification. I was 2A. That meant I wasn't subject to immediate draft (that would have been 1A) but was deferred because I was a student. The draft classification was only good for six months and my status would then have to be reviewed.

  I submitted "Foundation" to Campbell on September 8, 4 and on September 17, I received my check—$126. It was smaller than the one I received for "Nightfall," though the two stories were nearly equal in length, because there was no bonus for this one. Campbell did not hand them out lightly.

  Knowing that Campbell wanted me to write a series, by the way, I had employed a little shrewdness in keeping him from backing away. After working up a complicated problem in "Foundation," I had the

  4 By September my panic over the possibilities of a Nazi victory had vanished completely. The Germans were still advancing, but it was clear that the invasion of the Soviet Union was not another blitzkrieg and that they were paying an increasingly serious price. Furthermore, American help to Great Britain was increasing steadily, and I decided that Hitler would not make it.

  hero muse at the end, "—the solution to this first crisis was obvious. Obvious as all hell!"

  And that was the end! I didn't say what the solution was, and Campbell let me get away with it.

  The idea was that Campbell would have to let me write the sequel now, and would, moreover, have to take it. How clever of me!

  What I didn't quite take into account was that the second story would have to be published in the issue after the one in which "Foundation" appeared, making it a kind of two-part serial, meaning that I would have to have the second story done within a couple of months at most, or "Foundation" would be delayed in its appearance. And if that happened, Campbell would be disappointed in me.

  I foolishly anticipated there would be no trouble, but once I set about writing the second story in the series, I quickly became very sorry I had been so infernally clever. When the going became hard, I couldn't abandon the story—I couldn't even put it aside to let it ripen; I just had to keep working.

  I had never painted myself into quite so tight a corner before.

  But "Foundation" wasn't the only bright spot in my writing career at the time. It turned out that Astonishing and Super Science had not been suspended after all, or if they had, the publisher had changed his mind. Pohl was no longer editor, but the magazines continued under another.

  Pohl, out of a job, asked if he might handle some of my stories again, and I agreed on a very loose basis. He could have some stories that I didn't want to bother with anymore; but I just didn't want a regular agent. It was a very uncomfortable arrangement, and very unfair to Pohl, so it didn't last long.

  It lasted long enough, though, to get "Pilgrimage" sold, for it was Pohl who submitted that story to Planet. He also sold my old story "Weapon" (written three years before as my sixth story) to As-tonishing. It was only four thousand words long but he got $20 for it ($.005 a word) and, of course, kept $2.00 as his agent's fee and gave me $18.00. (And he got $18 out of the overall $180 that was paid for "Pilgrimage.")

  Then, in the October 1941 Astounding, "Not Final" 5 appeared. It was my eighteenth published story and I was beginning to take my appearances in magazines for granted. I no longer carried them around to show people.

  On the other hand, I had not said good-bye to rejections alto-

  5 See The Early Asimov.

  gether. Thrilling Wonder sent back "Source of Power" on September 13, and I sent it on to Amazing. Rejections no longer had the power to deject me utterly, however. They were beginning to seem mere way stations to eventual acceptances—which, indeed, they had finally become.

  7

  On September 18, there were colored streamers in the sky over Brooklyn, fading and changing. I guessed they were the Northern Lights making a very unusual far southern appearance, and I was right. Some huge flare on the solar surface had initiated a terrific electric storm in the upper atmosphere, and the auroral streamers were sent record distances southward. It was the only time I had ever seen the aurora.

  It's a pity I lack that simple faith that convinced so many people that the universe is run entirely for the benefit of individual human beings. Looking back on it now I could say that the heavens were celebrating the appearance of "Nightfall" and the initiation of the Foundation series.

  8

  It was registration time again—time to begin my seventh year at Columbia University, and my third as a graduate student. On September 23, I signed up for "food analysis," another branch of chemistry in which I had drawn a zero in my previous attempt at the Qualifyings.

  The cpurse was taught by Professor Arthur W. Thomas, elderly, white-haired, red-faced, and short-tempered. His lectures were rather dull, and once when I spent my time writing comic verses, he caught me grinning, scolded me publicly before the class, and then called me into his office to go into more detailed analyses of my high crimes and misdemeanors. I listened stoically. I had been hearing this sort of thing from my teachers since the first grade.

  Such things made more than dull and repetitious hearing, however. They generally interfered with my much-interfered-with career. In this case, for instance (as I discovered a couple of years later), Thomas ordered the lab assistants to get rid of me. (It was they who told me of it, eventually.)

  That doesn't mean they put out a contract on me. Their way of doing it was to give me difficult objects to analyze. When we were doing fat analyses, everyone else got a liquid oil; I got a solid fat and had to melt it before I could do anything else. (At first I took a sample, melted it partly, and poured off some of the liquid, but the first portion

  was not representative of the whole and I got answers I recognized as ridiculous. I had to get the notion of melting it all, and mixing it, before taking my sample, and the lab assistants were strangely non-helpful when I consulted them.)

  Then, in doing Kjeldahl determinations of nitrogen, everyone else got starchy materials with 1 to 2 per cent nitrogen, and I was given powdered protein with 16 per cent nitrogen. That meant my first attempt drowned the analytic procedure in nitrogen excess and I had to start all over with a smaller sample.

  Yet it all worked out well. In the first place, although I nearly worked myself to death, I managed to hand in good results, which must have impressed Thomas. More than that, I was far too stupid to realize I was being had. Not once did it occur to me that all the complications were not pure accident, so I never complained that I was being mistreated. That was also impressive since I imagine it was attributed to my being a good sport and pukka sahib, rather than to my being grossly stupid.

  Furthermore, not only did I do the analyses, but also (as was my wont) I was ebullient in the lab, cracking jokes, laughing, singing, and this annoyed
some of the more deadpan students, whose concentration was very difficult to keep in being.

  Professor Caldwell, always pro-Asimov from the start, broke the news to me. "I think," she said in her gentle way, "that some of the students in the food analysis laboratory think you're just a little too noisy. Perhaps you should be more careful in that direction, because they're complaining to Professor Thomas."

  (The idiots might have complained to me, but I suspect they didn't want me to stop singing—they wanted me out of the class.)

  I thought it advisable to see Thomas and discuss the matter, and decided to see if I couldn't charm the old fellow. After all, if Elderfield and Urey could be counted on to vote against me, I didn't need any further certain anti-Asimov votes.

  On December 3, I came in to keep the appointment I had made. I said (might as well get to the point), "I understand, Professor Thomas, that you are receiving complaints about my behavior in lab."

  "Yes, I am," he said gruffly. "Why the hell do you sing in lab, Asimov?"

  Good! I was prepared for that question. I said, earnestly, "Because I'm not in chemistry to make a living, sir. It's not my bread-and-butter. I'm going to make money writing. I'm in chemistry because I love it. It's my cakes-and-ale, and I can't help singing when I'm working. I'll

  try to stop, sir, but it will be an effort. It's no effort not to sing for those who complain. I don't imagine they like their work."

  It was a little exaggerated, but not really far off. It was also a calculated gamble, and it worked. Thomas was impressed, and from that moment on we were buddies. It was the case of Professor Lyon all over again, except that this time it was a calculated ploy. I don't often calculate a ploy, alas; I talk first and think afterward, or not at all, as a general rule. It's a shame, because when I can bring myself to think a bit and do things the right way, I generally get the results I want.

  Just the same, I cut out most of the singing in lab and behaved myself thereafter.