< previous page page_1 next page >

Page 1
1
I, Asimov
Writing about the life of Isaac Asimov is like pouring water into the ocean. Asimov has written more about himself than any living author, and generally with frankness and insight. His autobiographical output began in 1962 with the first of his anthologies, The Hugo Winners, in which he inserted references to his own life in the introductions. Like many of the events in his life, this happened by accident. In his autobiography, Asimov mentions that he had never edited an anthology, thought it would be fun to try, but was not sure of his judgment in choosing the stories. The stories in The Hugo Winners already were chosen (they were the less-than-novel-length stories awarded Hugos by the World Science Fiction Conventions, beginning in 1955), and even the order was evident. All Asimov had to do was to write introductions. Since there was no question about the reason for the stories' inclusion, he decided to deal with the authors, and in a humorous way. The general introduction would be funny too and would deal with the fact that the editor had never won a Hugo. The Hugo Winners, indeed, became a highly personal book, as much about Asimov as about the Hugos or their winners. After that, Asimov went on to edit dozens of anthologies and added comfortably to his nearly five hundred volumes.
The Hugo Winners was a breakthrough for Asimov in another area as well. Up to that point, Asimov says, his attempts at humor had been well received in person but poorly in print. Many readers of The Hugo Winners wrote to tell him that the introductions were the best part of the book. After that, collections of his own stories began appearing with introductions, at first (The Rest of the Robots, 1964) with notes about the stories salted with a few personal comments, and later with full-blown autobiographical detail. This technique reached its grandest expression in Opus 100 (1969), the story of how Asimov came to write one hundred books, with excerpts by category; The Early Asimov (1972), a kind of autobiography with illustrations from his early writing; and Before the

 
< previous page page_1 next page >