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time, effort, and thought in writing it it was not a disgrace but there was no incentive for him to keep it "direct and spare" or for an editor to tell him to do so. Like many of us over sixty (and particularly Asimov, who had had a heart attack and would soon have a triple-bypass operation), Asimov had recognized in recent years that his writing time was limited. Early in a writer's career he feels immortal, and he has time to write everything. Now Asimov realized that writing one book (or spending an excessive length of time on one) meant that he would not be able to write another; his editors knew this as well and would not, or could not, call to his attention anything more than gross errors. One does not edit bestselling authors or institutions, and Asimov was both.
In spite of such cavilings, The Robots of Dawn is an engrossing and well-written novel. Asimov could have been proud of it, and was. It is one of his better novels, if not one of his best, and if it does not add anything to the Robot novels, which still, to me, represent his highest accomplishments in the science-fiction novel, it does not diminish them either. It gave his loyal readers an opportunity to return to a familiar universe, and it did not exploit their affection, as sequels have often done. It gave good measure of fictional pleasure.
The most remarkable fact for me was that Asimov could do it, and even my recognition of the ways in which it could have been better cannot reduce my appreciation of what it achieved.
By the time The Robots of Dawn was published, Asimov had already resigned himself "totally to the writing of novels." He didn't record in his memoir the importunings of Doubleday. Perhaps, as in the case of The Robots of Dawn, Doubleday presented him with another contract before the novel was published; perhaps he notified Doubleday, as he wrote in his memoir, "my pleasure with The Robots of Dawn led me to write a fourth robot novel. In the fourth book, Elijah Baley would be dead, but I had already decided that the robot, Daneel Olivaw, was the real hero of the series, and he would continue to function."
Robots and Empire was not published until 1985. It was delayed by a deteriorating heart condition and a triple bypass operation (in which Asimov insisted that he didn't care what happened to his body, but he wanted plenty of oxygen during the time he was on the heart-lung machine so that his brain would not be affected). Robots and Empire was the novel that Asimov remembered raising doubts about the del Reys purchasing the paperback rights when he told them he wanted to tie his Robot novels and Foundation stories together. Actually, the process seemed well underway in the first two 1980s novels.

 
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