|
|
|
|
|
|
realized it was being assimilated. A new expedition realizes just as it is about to dock back on Earth that it may be carrying "green patches." The Captain must decide whether to destroy his ship. But he can find no evidence of live "green patches." Ironically, the live creature had been camouflaged as a piece of wiring. That wiring carried current only when the airlock door was opened, and the creature was electrocuted when the ship docked. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was ironic, also, that Asimov realized halfway through the story that he was creating "an infinitely inferior `Who Goes There?'," John W. Campbell's classic horror story of a shape-changer that can imitate any protoplasm it consumes and the basis for two movies titled The Thing. He called Campbell and told him about it. Campbell told him not to worry, that no two stories are exactly the same when written by a competent writer. Asimov continued the story, trying to make it as different as possible from Campbell's "Who Goes There?," but with a broken spirit. To add a final irony, Asimov sent the story to Gold, who had requested it. As Asimov later reported in the collection, the story's acceptance ended "a more-than-seven-year agony of self-doubt." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Further proof of Asimov's new independence came with Galaxy's serialization of Asimov's new novel, commissioned by Doubleday after the success of Pebble in the Sky, the novel that had begun life as "Grow Old with Me." The new novel was The Stars, Like Dust, which Gold, as was his frequent and not always appreciated practice, retitled. Gold published it as Tyrann (January, February, March 1951). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Hostess," Asimov's next story in Galaxy (May 1951), also involved editing problems. Asimov had attended a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association in Newark, New Jersey, and discovered that Ted Sturgeon's upcoming story in Galaxy (perhaps "Rule of Three") shared not only a gimmick with the story that Asimov already had sent to Gold but similar names for the main characters. Eventually, Asimov rewrote the story in Gold's living room, and Gold later changed the name of the woman character. Asimov restored the story to its original form (except for the woman's name) in Nightfall and Other Stories. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Hostess" is a novelette of more than usual interest. It was also the first story Asimov experimented with by dictating it to a machine for his wife to type. The novelette retains the Asimovian stamp of problem-solving. It develops as a series of puzzles: 1) Rose Smollett, a fellow in biology at a prestigious research institute, is at age thirty-five a bride of less than a year and wonders sometimes why her husband, Drake, a member of the World Security Board, married her; 2) Drake opposes welcoming into their home a cyanide-breathing alien, Harg Tholan, |
|
|
|
|
|