Background

Isaac Asimov was born on January 2, 1920, to Judah and Anna Rachel (Berman) Asimov, middle-class Jewish parents, in Petrovichi, Russia, then part of the Smolensk district in the Soviet Union. Asimov's family moved to the United States when Isaac was three years old. Since his parents always spoke Yiddish and English with him, he never learned Russian.

Education

Asimov attended Boys High School of Brooklyn, and during that time published his first story, "Little Brothers," in the school newspaper. In 1935 he entered Seth Low Junior College, an undergraduate college of Columbia University.

After Seth Low Junior College closed in 1938, Asimov finished his Bachelor of Science degree at University Extension (later the Columbia University School of General Studies) in 1939. Accepted at Columbia only on a probationary basis, he completed his Master of Arts degree in chemistry in 1941 and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biochemistry in 1948.

In between earning these two degrees, Asimov spent three years during World War II working as a civilian chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station from 1942 to 1945. In September 1945, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served for almost nine months before receiving an honorable discharge on July 26, 1946, being promoted to corporal on July 11.

Career

After serving during World War II, Asimov became an instructor at the Boston University School of medicine. In 1955 he was promoted to associate professor. In December 1957 Asimov was dismissed from his teaching post, because he had stopped doing research, making more money as a writer than from the university. After a struggle which lasted for two years he kept his title, and on 18 October 1979, the university honored his writing by promoting him to full professor of biochemistry.

Asimov's career can be divided into several periods. His early career, dominated by science fiction, began with short stories in 1939 and novels in 1950. In the summer of 1934, Asimov had a letter published in Astounding Stories in which he commented on several stories that had appeared in the magazine. His continuing activities as a fan brought him to the decision to attempt a science fiction piece of his own; in 1937, at the age of seventeen, he began a story entitled "Cosmic Corkscrew." By the time he finished the story on June 19, 1938, Astounding Stories had become Astounding Science Fiction. Its editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., became a mentor to Asimov. “Nightfall” written in 1941, brought him to the front rank of science-fiction writers and is regarded as one of the genre’s greatest short stories.

In 1940 Asimov began writing his robot stories (later collected in I, Robot [1950]).

Notable among Asimov's science fiction works is the "Foundation" series. This group of short stories, published in magazines in the forties and then collected into a trilogy in the early fifties, was inspired by Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was written as a "future history," a story being told in a society of the distant future which relates events of that society's history. The concept was not invented by Asimov, but there can be little doubt that he became a master of the technique. Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation have achieved special standing among science fiction enthusiasts.

In the 1980s, forty years after he began the series, Asimov added a new volume, Foundation's Edge (1982), and eventually linked the Foundation stories with his robot novels in The Robots of Dawn (1983), Robots and Empire (1985), Foundation and Earth (1986), and Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993).

Asimov's first fiction written specifically for a younger audience were his "Lucky Starr" novels. In 1951, at the suggestion of his Doubleday editor, he began working on a series of science-fiction stories that could easily be adapted for television. David Starr: Space Ranger, published under the pseudonym Paul French, introduced David 'Lucky' Starr, agent of the interplanetary law enforcement agency the Council of Science.

During the 1950s, Asimov also wrote some of his finest short stories: “The Martian Way” (1952), an allegory about McCarthyism; “The Dead Past” (1956), about a device that can see into history; and “The Ugly Little Boy” (1958, original title “Lastborn”), about a nurse’s attachment to a Neanderthal child accidentally brought forward to the future.

Asimov's first nonfiction book was a medical text entitled Biochemistry and Human Metabolism, begun in 1950 and written in collaboration with William Boyd and Burnham Walker, two of his colleagues at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Asimov returned to science fiction with The Gods Themselves (1972, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards) concerned contact with advanced aliens from a parallel universe.

Achievements

• Asimov maintained an incredibly prolific writing career, publishing hundreds of books. He wrote non-fiction on biochemistry and many other subjects, in addition to his ever-popular works of fiction. He wrote the film adaptation of "Fantastic Voyage" and founded a best-selling publication, "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine." He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, gaining top honors in the science fiction field. Asimov penned many works that are now considered classics, including "I, Robot" and the "Foundation" series. He has been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall Of Fame in 1997. In 2015 he was selected as a member of the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.
  
  Asimov coined the term "robotics" in his 1941 story "Liar!", the term "spome" in a paper entitled, "There's No Place Like Spome" and the term "psychohistory" in his Foundation stories.
  
  Asimov also received 14 honorary doctorate degrees from universities. In 1986 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named him its 8th SFWA Grand Master.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Foundation and Empire

    (Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Har...)

    1952
  • The Gods Themselves

    (In the twenty-second century Earth obtains limitless, fre...)

    1972
  • Foundation and Earth

    (Councilman Golan Trevize is wondering if he was right to ...)

    1986
  • The Caves of Steel

    (Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, ...)

    1953
  • The Naked Sun

    (A millennium into the future, two advancements have alter...)

    1956
  • The Robots of Dawn

    (Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partne...)

    1983
  • The Currents of Space

    (Only one man can warn the planet Florinia that it is doom...)

    1952
  • Second Foundation

    (After years of struggle, the Foundation lies in ruins—des...)

    1953
  • I, Robot

    (Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots,...)

    1950
  • Pebble in the Sky

    (One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in...)

    1950
  • The End of Eternity

    (Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the...)

    1955
  • Foundation

    (For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled s...)

    1942
  • It's Been a Good Life

    (One-volume autobiography spans Asimov's life for the firs...)

    2002
  • The Stars, Like Dust

    (Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up ...)

    1951
  • In Memory Yet Green

    (The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov)

    1980
  • Prelude to Foundation

    (It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneas...)

    1988
  • I, Asimov: A Memoir

    (I. Asimov is author's personal story—vivid, open, and hon...)

    1979
  • The Foundation Trilogy

Religion

Isaac Asimov was an atheist, a humanist, and a rationalist. He did not oppose religious conviction in others, but he frequently railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science.

"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."

Politics

Asimov was a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party during the New Deal, and thereafter remained a political liberal.

He was opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s and Richard Nixon, considering him "a crook and a liar". During the early 1970s he publicly endorsed George McGovern. He was against what he considered an "irrationalist" viewpoint taken by many radical political activists from the late 1960s and onwards.

Though a Jewish, Asimov stated his opposition to the creation of a Jewish state, on the grounds that he was opposed to the concept of nation-states in general, and supported the notion of a single humanity.

Views

Asimov considered himself a feminist and argued that the issue of women's rights was closely connected to that of population control. Moreover, he believed that homosexuality must be considered a "moral right" on population grounds, as must all consenting adult sexual activity that does not lead to reproduction.

Asimov was a supporter of civil applications of nuclear power and high taxes on the middle class to pay for social programs. His last non-fiction book, Our Angry Earth (1991, co-written with his long-time friend science fiction author Frederik Pohl), deals with elements of the environmental crisis such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer.

Quotations: "Someday they'll come and find me slumped over that electric typewriter with my nose in the keys."

"I type 90 words per minute on the typewriter; I type 100 words per minute on the word processor. But, of course, I don't keep that up indefinitely--every once in a while I do have to think a few seconds."

"When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

"Science-fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."

"Individual science-fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence . . . has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."

"Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?"

"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."

"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."

"One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."

"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die."

"If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster."

"Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once."

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

"To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult."

Membership

In 1963 Asimov became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From 1985 until his death in 1992 Asimov was president of the American Humanist Association. He was a prominent member of The Baker Street Irregulars, the leading Sherlock Holmes society, as well as a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders.

Asimov was also a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, CSICOP (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). He was also a long-time member and vice president of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly.

• American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

  1963

• president

  American Humanist Association , United States

  1985 - 1992

Personality

Asimov was an able public speaker and was a frequent fixture at science fiction conventions, where he was friendly and approachable.

The author was a claustrophile: he enjoyed small, enclosed spaces. He was afraid of flying, doing so only twice in his entire life. He was afraid of needles and the sight of blood. Although he had the highest score on the intelligence test he had the lowest score on the physical-conditioning test. He never learned how to swim or ride a bicycle.

Physical Characteristics: Asimov was of medium height, stocky, with - in his later years - "mutton-chop" sideburns, and a distinct New York accent.

Quotes from others about the person

• David N. Samuelson: "Isaac Asimov is the world's most prolific science writer, who has written some of the best-known science fiction ever published."
  
  Sean M. Carroll: "I met Asimov once, when he visited my undergraduate university. They thought it would be fun to show him around the astronomy department, much to his bemusement (he was trained as a chemist). He used his advanced age as an excuse for shamelessly flirting with every attractive woman within leering distance. I wonder what he was like before his age was so advanced?"
  
  Martin Gardner: "When I first met Asimov, I asked him if he was a professor at Boston University. He said no and … asked me where I got my Ph.D. I said I didn't have one and he looked startled. "You mean you're in the same racket I am," he said, "you just read books by the professors and rewrite them?" That's really what I do."
  
  Simson Garfinkel: "Although he spends many pages writing about his friends in the science-fiction community, the true value of Asimov's insight is his reflections on his life — and, in his mind, Asimov was first a genius, second a prolific writer, and only thirdly a sci-fi writer. Asimov tells the reader repeatedly that his life would have been easier if he had learned to submerge his ego and get along with others. "It really puzzles me as I look back on it that I didn't make a greater effort to placate the powers that be," he writes. Indeed, it was this inability to get along with others that forced Asimov out of academia and into the solitary life of a freelance writer."

Connections

Asimov married Gertrude Blugerman on July 26, 1942. They had two children, David (born 1951) and Robyn Joan (born 1955). In 1970, they separated, Asimov married Janet O. Jeppson on November 30, 1973, two weeks after his divorce from Gertrude.

‌father:

‌Judah Asimov

ex-wife:

‌Gertrude Blugerman

Wife:

‌Janet Opal Jeppson

Janet Opal Asimov (née Jeppson; born August 6, 1926 in Ashland, Pennsylvania), usually writing as J. O. Jeppson, is an American science fiction writer, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst.

‌mother:

‌Anna Rachel

Son:

‌‌David Asimov

(born 1951)

Son:

Robyn Joan Asimov

(born 1955)

Sister:

Marcia Asimov

Marcia Asimov was born Manya in 1922. Marcia married Nicholas Repanes in 1955 and has two sons, Larry and Richard.

Brother:

Stanley Asimov

Stanley Asimov was born in 1929. Stan became a journalist and rose to vice president in charge of editorial administration for Newsday. Stan died of leukemia on August 16, 1995. He and his wife Ruth were the parents of Eric and Nanette, both journalists, and Daniel, a mathematician.

Friend:

Gene Roddenberry

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for creating the original Star Trek television series.

References

• Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Life in Letters For Asimov's younger brother, veteran newspaperman Stanley Asimov, the creation of Yours, Isaac Asimov was truly a labor of love. Completed before Stanley's death in August 1995, the book is made up of excerpts from one thousand never-before-published letters, each handpicked by Stanley for inclusion in this volume.
  1996
• Isaac Asimov: Writer of the Future Describes the life and career of the prolific writer who is known for writing nearly 500 books of both science fiction and non-fiction.
  1999
• Conversations with Isaac Asimov Conversations with Isaac Asimov collects interviews with a man considered to be--along with Robert Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt, and Arthur C. Clarke--a founder of modern science fiction.
  2005