I. Asimov
Isaac Asimov was one of our most beloved authors, and when he died in 1992 at the age of seventy-two he left behind an unparalleled legacy of thought and imagination. In a career that lasted more than fifty years, he wrote more than 470 books and innumerable articles and short stories, winning the hearts of millions of readers around the world. Perhaps best known as one of science fiction's founding fathers, he wrote the novels that defined the genre and went on to become its all-time bestselling voice. But more than that, Isaac Asimov was one of the most wide-ranging minds of this century, and he earned the nickname the Great Explainer for his nonfiction works on subjects ranging from the nature of the universe to Byron's Don Juan. In these memoirs, he looks back on a long and very full life, and discusses subjects he has never before addressed. Exuberant, topically arranged, and richly anecdotal, I. Asimov shines with the author's incomparable personality. The story of Isaac Asimov's life is an illustrious twentieth-century odyssey. The beginnings of his writing career were the beginnings of science fiction, and he writes of that time - the golden age of pulp fiction - with warmth and candor. As Asimov's fame grew, so did his contacts with other science-fiction writers, and his circle of friends became a veritable Who's Who of science-fiction greats. He reminisces fondly about the people who played important roles in his life, among them Arthur C.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
6mentions
6people
2009–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Reading I, Asimov as a kid immediately converted me from a Southern Baptist to humanist/atheist.
I'm sad that atheist discourse has moved away from Vonnegut/Sagan/Le Guin-style humanism. Starting with Hitchens, prominent intellectuals seem like they hate God more than they believe in people.
Are there any current writers or public figures that have taken up the human-loving atheism of my youth?
- My favorite book of his is actually his Memoir, one of the most memorable books I've ever read -- http://www.amazon.com/I-Asimov-A-Memoir-Isaac/dp/055356997X
- Beautiful quote on writing style from I, Asimov here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=mATFyeVI7IUC&lpg=PT324&ots...
- I enjoyed all of Asimov's autobiographical books: In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt, and the posthumous memoir, I. Asimov. I'm a huge fan of Asimov's non-style literary style (clarity over all), and it works well in autobiography. If you like scifi, at all, Asimov was an eye witness to nearly its entire history from golden age onward, and thus worth reading. He's also perhaps one of the few truly credible witnesses to that history; a number of other genre favorites and stalwarts had psychological issues (Dick), personal feuds and vendettas (Ellison), an aversion to the community (Lem), or were just batshit crazy (Hubbard), and thus their accounts can't generally be taken without large grains of salt.
- >what you speak of is difference between literature and mere communication.
So a novel is not literature unless it uses your preferred writing style?
>But mud fog BLEAKNESS gestures here maybe to social decay, anomie, listlessness, an eternal stupor, impotence of characters and so on.
That passage doesn't introduce any "characters". Perhaps Lord Chancellor will turn out to be one of the novel's characters, but that remains to be seen.
> The painting has a point for the plot AND your pleasure.
There's no need to be so confrontational.
Isaac Asimov is nowhere close to being my favorite writer but I offer this for your amusement. In his autobiography "I, Asimov" he talks about his simple writing style:
>Before Pebble in the Sky was published, Walter Bradbury asked me to do another novel. I did and sent in two sample chapters. The trouble was that now that I was a published writer, I tried to be literary, as I had in that never-to-be- forgotten writing class in high school. Not nearly as badly, of course, but badly enough. Brad gently sent those two chapters back and put me on the right track.
>"Do you know," he said, "how Hemingway would say, 'The sun rose the next morning'?"
>"No," I said, anxiously (I had never read Hemingway) "How would he say it, Brad?"
>Brad said, "He would say, 'The sun rose the next morning.'
>That was enough. It was the best literary lesson I ever had and it took just ten seconds. I did my second novel, which was The Stars, Like Dust-, writing it plainly, and Brad took it.
- "The world is the oyster for Asimov, and for the future there are vague plans for almost everything therein save two. No mysteries are on the schedule, and no books on computers. He has been asked to write his autobiography, but counters this with the remark, "What can I say?" "
Of course, those rash statements were made in 1969, but Asimov's typewriter just kept going.
He eventually published a two-volume autobiography (about 1500 pages!), and then a condensed version called I, Asimov. He also published SF mystery novels (Caves of Steel, et al.), and straight-up mystery short stories (collected in the Black Widowers stories), which are quite enjoyable.
