Happy Birthday, Isaac Asimov!

 This was going to be a post about January 2, because it’s 2/1/21 (or, to Americans, 1/2/21, also interesting), but really, there was nothing much that interested me which happened on that day in history - in fact, only one book related event, which was Lord Byron completing Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1818. 

Public Domain

But someone special was born on this day in 1920: Isaac Asimov, one of the top SF authors of all time. He was born in Russia, though he came to the US when he was three years old. It’s interesting to note that when he was only a year old, he was one of a bunch of children in his area who contracted pneumonia - and the only survivor. So, we nearly lost him before he ever started writing! 

He started reading SF when he was nine years old and made his first sale at 18, “Marooned Off Vesta”, published in Amazing Stories. 

He wrote or edited about 500 books, both fiction and non fiction. At one stage, he said his first love was non fiction, but he is best known for his fiction.

I discovered his work when I was babysitting for my sister, a passionate Asimov fan. I used to look after my toddler nephew regularly and my sister would leave me a chocolate mousse in the fridge; I’d eat it while raiding her bookshelves. To be honest, I liked his short stories best, and in later years he published some stories that had been rejected when first written. The collection was called Buy Jupiter! The title story was a humorous short piece about a visit from aliens who want to rent Jupiter as an advertising billboard for passing spaceships. In return, they offer power generators that will keep Earth going for a very long time. The offer is accepted, and the people concerned consider offering Saturn to the competition...

Of course, there were classics that are far better known. “Nightfall” was about a world where it only gets dark once in thousands of years. And when it gets dark, the stars appear. And people go crazy.

If you haven’t heard of his robot stories, you will pretty certainly know about his Laws of Robotics, which have become so well known that other science fiction works have used them without necessarily knowing who created them. 

They are: 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

His short story “The Bicentennial Man”(which I read and loved) was developed into a novel, which then became a movie, with Robin Williams as a robot who wants to be human, even though it will cost him his immortality. It was a lovely film; if you haven’t seen it, I do recommend it. 

Probably his most famous work was the Foundation series. I have the first one in ebook and am rereading it before the TV miniseries comes out, later this year, I believe. The trailers look fantastic, though I see that some characters who were originally male have been changed to female. 

I also own a recording of the Foundation story “The Psychohistorians”. It was a gift from a friend, and the story is read by William Shatner. 

Asimov was a Star Trek fan. He said that where it erred, it did so intelligently. I also have a recording of him talking with Gene Roddenberry, saying that.

One Asimov quirk was that this author of all those stories set in a far time with spaceflight  was afraid of flying! He did travel by ship, something he couldn’t do today, except on a cruise.

Anyway, happy birthday, Isaac Asimov!