A luminary of science fiction, and one of the most famous writers of the genre, Isaac Asimov was prolific.
He allegedly wrote 383 short stories, all of them published between 1939—when his career began at 19—and 1995, three years after his death.
Of those 383, only “nine stories were never to be sold and no longer exist.” They were early pieces of work and accompanied a series of memorable rejections. Asimov soon found his stride. “Since February 1941,” he wrote in his autobiography, A Memory Yet Green. “I have never written a piece of fiction that has not seen print.”
That includes at least 19 sci-fi novels, a series of juvenile science fiction novels as Paul French, hundreds of essays and many books of popular science and history. Asimov has written or edited over 500 books in his lifetime. Others estimate he wrote an additional 90,000 letters and postcards (Yours, Isaac Asimov, by Stanley Asimov, 1996)
Put his success aside for a minute and simply look at the man’s work ethic. How many other writers—of any genre—can claim such an achievement?
“[T]he only thing about myself that I consider to be severe enough to warrant psychoanalytic treatment is my compulsion to write … That means that my idea of a pleasant time is to go up to my attic, sit at my electric typewriter (as I am doing right now), and bang away, watching the words take shape like magic before my eyes.”
– Isaac Asimov, 1969
1930s: Early career
It was the pulps that launched his career.
In the 1930s, when Asimov began writing, the pulp magazines were thriving. Dozens of them had turned to science fiction for their bread and butter, and spent many years and truckloads of cheap wood-pulp paper building up an audience of voracious young readers with an appetite for marvels of science and visions of the future.
As a man who aspired to a career in medicine and eventually became a professor of biochemistry, Asimov would eventually prove he had both.
The pulps accepted submissions by mail, paid by the word, and helped catapult countless careers alongside Asimov’s. The magazines all have wonderful names that evoke the era, like Astounding Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Future Fiction, and Super Science Stories.
Readers around the country could subscribe monthly, or buy them at their local newsstand—like the one in the candy store belonging to his family, run by Isaac Asimov’s father, where he first discovered science fiction. He began to write, imitating what he was reading, by the time he was 11 years old.
Asimov’s first published story happened to be the third science fiction tale he wrote. After multiple rejections by editor Joseph W. Campbell, who he’d developed a mentor-like relationship with, Campbell accepted “Marooned Off Vesta” and printed it in the March 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.
Asimov later told a NY Times journalist he’d never forget this experience—not solely because it was his first sale, but because “he got $64 for the 6,400 word story”.
In contrast, $64 in 1939 would be equivalent to $1,306.32 in 2022, at the time of this writing. This year, SFWA Pro rate minimums for short fiction are eight cents per word, or $384 for a story of the same size. That’s how much the market has shifted since Asimov’s time and goes a little way to show how popular the pulps were in that era.
Asimov managed to get two more stories published in 1939, seven more in 1940, and after that there’s hardly a year Asimov didn’t publish a short story, despite evidence that he substantially decreased his fiction output in the 50s and 60s.
No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.
– Asimov, 1980
1940s: Watershed moment
Even though talent was plainly in evidence, Asimov had “created no tidal wave” in the industry.
Until his name and the title of his 32nd story appeared on the cover of Astounding Science Fiction in September 1941. It was with a story inspired by a conversation with Joseph W. Campbell, and a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”
–Emerson
According to Wikipedia, “‘Nightfall’ is an archetypal example of social science fiction, a term he created to describe a new trend in the 1940s, led by authors including him and Heinlein, away from gadgets and space opera and toward speculation about the human condition.” It was the first time he got recognition for exploring social science fiction, an approach he would later continue in the Foundation series and other stories.
In 1964, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted “Nightfall” the all-time best science fiction short story.
Is it his best short story? In Nightfall and Other Stories, Asimov wrote, “I don’t know enough about Writing to be able to tell.”
1950s: Crosswinds and hurricanes
Although he continued to publish between 4 and 10 new short stories per year, in the 1950s Asimov also moved into novels and spent a significant amount of time developing two parallel careers: one as a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine, and the other as a popular science communicator with a growing notoriety and following.
Asimov experienced a decade of tremendous growth as storyteller, while simultaneously bearing up against multiple crosswinds. The ever-present current of science fiction and his success with it fought against gusts from his academic career. Although he eventually made tenure as a professor, Asimov slowly relinquished biomedical research, and then gave up lecturing duties as income from his science fiction books poured in.
An invite to the 13th World Science Fiction Convention swept him up and dropped him smack dab in the middle of the decade, 1955, with a “Guest of Honor” slot.
And he was no doubt caught up in the whirlwind of publishing twelve books under his own name, plus six juvenile novels as Paul French, during those same years.
Notable during this period among his short fiction is “The Last Question,” a story about humankind’s desire to reverse the process of entropy. Asimov called this story a personal favorite, writing:
Why is it my favorite? For one thing I got the idea all at once and didn’t have to fiddle with it; and I wrote it in white-heat and scarcely had to change a word. This sort of thing endears any story to any writer. Then, too, it has had the strangest effect on my readers. Frequently someone writes to ask me if I can give them the name of a story, which they think I may have written, and tell them where to find it. They don’t remember the title but when they describe the story it is invariably ‘The Last Question’. This has reached the point where I recently received a long-distance phone call from a desperate man who began, “Dr. Asimov, there’s a story I think you wrote, whose title I can’t remember—” at which point I interrupted to tell him it was ‘The Last Question’ and when I described the plot it proved to be indeed the story he was after. I left him convinced I could read minds at a distance of a thousand miles.
Finally, late in the decade, the ocean-bound current of popular science communication swept Mr. Asimov into its vast sea.
1970s: Putting the science in SF
I’m really happy only when I’m up here [in my attic office] working.
– Isaac Asimov, New York Times, Aug 3, 1969, “Isaac Asimov: Man of 7,560,000 Words”
If we’re going to talk about Isaac Asimov’s short science fiction, we can’t very well leave out his short science nonfiction.
As with fiction, he wrote at many lengths, but his talents gravitated to the shorter forms: the column and essay.
In 1958, he penned the first of 399 monthly columns for Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He was involved with various SF magazines for many years. In 1977, Asimov lent his name to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (now Asimov’s Science Fiction). He penned an editorial for each issue.
1970s: The mystery period
It is in this period that Asimov wrote more non-SF mysteries for publications such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He wrote as many, or more, mysteries in the 70s as he did science fiction stories.
In 1971 he wrote the first of 66 mysteries 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. He modeled most of the characters after his closest friends.
The 70s were also an important time for Asimov’s short fiction career because he won awards for two short works. A hat trick of awards (Huge, Nebula and Locus for Best Novelette) for “The Bicentennial Man” and a Locus award for Best Reprint Anthology for Before the Golden Age.
1980s and 90s: After the Golden Age
Isaac Asimov continued writing and receiving recognition for his work through the 80s, finding amusement in various oddball projects, like lecherous limericks, in tandem.
One of the last stories he ever wrote was “Gold”, published in Analog Science Fiction, September 1991.
Isaac Asimov died of heart and kidney ailments April 6, 1992 at New York University Hospital, due to complications with AIDS.
Later that same year, “Gold” won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
Asimov sci-fi stories you can read online
Only a limited number of Isaac Asimov’s stories are available to read online and in the public domain. One of them, written in the 50s, is “Youth”. I’ve reprinted it here for you to enjoy.
“Youth” by Isaac Asimov
All Isaac Asimov awards for short science fiction
Here’s a list of all the awards Isaac Asimov won for his short sci-fi works. This list does not include awards for novels, degrees or other honors. See “Awards and Recognition” on his Wikipedia page for the full list.
- 1964 – The Science Fiction Writers of America voted “Nightfall” (1941) the all-time best science fiction short story[104]
- 1975 – Locus Award for Best Reprint Anthology for Before the Golden Age[209]
- 1977 – Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Bicentennial Man[210]
- 1977 – Nebula Award for Best Novelette for The Bicentennial Man[211]
- 1977 – Locus Award for Best Novelette for The Bicentennial Man[212]
- 1987 – Locus Award for Best Short Story for “Robot Dreams“[216]
- 1992 – Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “Gold“[217]
- 1996 – A 1946 Retro-Hugo for Best Novel of 1945 was given at the 1996 WorldCon for “The Mule“, the 7th Foundation story, published in Astounding Science Fiction[219]
- 1997 – The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Asimov in its second class of two deceased and two living persons, along with H. G. Wells.[220]
- 2016 – A 1941 Retro-Hugo for Best Short Story of 1940 was given at the 2016 WorldCon for Robbie, his first positronic robot story, published in Super Science Stories, September 1940[224]
- 2018 – A 1943 Retro-Hugo for Best Short Story of 1942 was given at the 2018 WorldCon for Foundation, published in Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1942[225]
Grand master of science fiction
Isaac Asimov made a mighty big dent in the sci-fi universe.
Many credit him as an influence, and there’s no doubt that many science fiction careers would have suffered or never existed without him.
Truly a model for the genre, a career like his cannot be replicated or reverse-engineered. We won’t insult him by calling him a genius, a term he disavowed time and time again, although by now surely you can see why people say it—his impressive output and consistent recognition through the course of decades.
He’ll always be remembered as an innovative storyteller, a popularizer of science education, and a man who advanced our understanding along with our awe.
References and further reading
- Isaac Asimov (Wikipedia)
- “Isaac Asimov: Man of 7,560,000 Words” (New York Times, 1969)
- Short stories bibliography (Wikipedia)
- Amazing Stories, March 1939 (ISFDB)
- Book Discussion: Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel (the Robot series)
- 3 great sci-fi mystery novels to read
Best bookish quotes by Isaac Asimov
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“Any planet is ‘Earth’ to those that live on it.”
― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“They won’t listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don’t want the truth; they want their traditions.”
― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky
“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel
“Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
“Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“Fifty years,” I hackneyed, “is a long time.”
“Not when you’re looking back at them,” she said. “You wonder how they vanished so quickly.”
― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
“I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing – I went into politics. It’s practically the same thing.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire
“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“Society is much more easily soothed than one’s own conscience.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire
“What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for.”
― Isaac Asimov
There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity. ”
― Isaac Asimov, I. Asimov: A Memoir
“Isn’t it sad that you can tell people that the ozone layer is being depleted, the forests are being cut down, the deserts are advancing steadily, that the greenhouse effect will raise the sea level 200 feet, that overpopulation is choking us, that pollution is killing us, that nuclear war may destroy us – and they yawn and settle back for a comfortable nap. But tell them that the Martians are landing, and they scream and run.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Secret of the Universe
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
― Isaac Asimov
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”
― Isaac Asimov
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
― Isaac Asimov
“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”
― Isaac Asimov
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…”
― Isaac Asimov
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