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"Go ahead," Silverberg said. He was putting together the first issue of an anthology of original fiction to be entitled New Dimensions. "If you write one that meets my minimum standard of literacy, I'll publish it." |
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This kind of banter was exchanged among Asimov, del Rey, Silverberg, Ellison (see Asimov's two introductions to Ellison's Dangerous Visions), and a few others. In his autobiography Asimov described an exchange of insults with an editor and added, "You can't fool around that way if you don't like a guy." He also described how he was always getting "wiped out" by his friends. Occasionally, however, these exchanges got under the skin. When Asimov described the above conversation with Silverberg in his 1980 autobiography, he inserted the phrase "who knew that very well" between ''Silverberg" and "shrugged it off," but in an early introduction to the 1972 novel Asimov told the story differently. Silverberg did not remember it that way, however, and Asimov, no doubt feeling that the introduction might damage their friendship, had it removed from the later versions of The Gods Themselves. |
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The incident, nevertheless, may have provided the inspiration for what would turn out to be Asimov's only original science-fiction novel in the twenty-five years between The Naked Sun in 1957 and Foundation's Edge in 1982. The Gods Themselves might never have been started if Asimov had conceived it as a novel from the beginning. |
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Asimov described his attitude toward science-fiction writing in the mid-1960s when Harlan Ellison asked him to write a story for Dangerous Visions. Asimov begged off, offering instead to write an introduction because, he said, he lacked the time for a story. (He ended up writing two introductions, one describing the changes in science fiction and why he did not write a story for the collection, the second recounting his first put-down meeting with Ellison.) His real reason was, he wrote in his autobiography, "I couldn't face trying to write a story that could pass muster in the 1960s, when such talent as I had suited only the 1950s. I felt that I couldn't measure up any longer and I didn't want to prove it." |
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Evelyn del Rey helped to dispel some of this feeling when she asked him why he didn't write science fiction anymore. Asimov replied sadly, "Evelyn, you know as well as I do that the field has moved beyond me." And she replied, "Isaac, you're crazy. When you write, you are the field." He returned to writing short stories. |
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A novel, nevertheless, was something different; it may have been for the best that this one sneaked up on him. His story kept growing beyond the five thousand words that he had promised Silverberg until |
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