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is going to search, but it is going to take an entire novel. I imagine I can do it, but I also have this horrible feeling that I'm no longer in my twenties, that The Foundation Trilogy was coterminus with my twenties. I started writing the stories at the age of 21 and I finished it at the age of 29. And now I can write much more skillfully than I could then. I am technically more proficient, but I also somehow lack some of that energy, you know? And I'm going to end up with a book which reads much more smoothly and somehow grabs people much less, I'm sure. |
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Gunn: You are going to do it? |
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A.: Well, if I ever get around to it, but I dread it. I really dread it. I fear, I fear people saying, "The Foundation Trilogy is great, but don't read that fourth volume." (Laughter) |
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Gunn: Let me get to a particular point of a particular story that seems anomalous in "Green Patches." |
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Gunn: If I read it correctly, the story talks about the little multipliers in the darkness, which apparently are bacteria, green-patch bacteria the attempt to solve the problem has failed. And I wondered that's one of the few cases, I think if that reading is correct where reason and the exercise of common caution and so forth fails in one of your stories. Is that a correct reading? |
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A.: Well, you know, I don't remember. The only thing I remember about that story is that I was demoralized in the middle. I had gotten halfway through and I suddenly realized that I was writing an infinitely inferior what was the name of John's story that I liked so much? oh, "Who Goes There?" I was writing an infinitely inferior "Who Goes There?" And I was halfway through it when I realized it and I called up John and I said what I was writing and I said, John, it's just like your story "Who Goes There?" Oh, well I said, Mr. Campbell now I say John, but in those days I always said "Mr. Campbell,'' to the very end. And he never said, he never said, call me "John," either. He always called me "Asimov" not "Mr. Asimov," just "Asimov." Anyway |
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Gunn: Proper teacher and student relationship. |
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A.: Right. Absolutely, absolutely. Now I say "John," and when I think back, I always describe myself as saying "John" (laughter) but I never said that. As a matter of fact my college professor, Dr. Dawson, whom I always called "Dr. Dawson" I was there at a luncheon celebrating his retirement and I'm his most prominent pupil, and I finally could bring myself to say "Charlie," always with a little hesitation. (Laughter). Anyway, I called up Campbell and told him about this, and he said, "Oh, don't worry about it, Asimov, you go right ahead; no two |
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