In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  The check representing payment for "Pilgrimage" finally arrived from Planet Stories on October 7, 1941. It was for $162 (minus Pohl's agent's fee). It had taken 2V2 years of trying before I sold it; and it had had seven revisions and ten rejections on the way. No other story I ever wrote had so wild a history. The check was large, only $4.00 less than the record sum I received for "Nightfall," but, considering the amount of work entailed, it was tiny.

  Never again was I to agree to do more than one substantial editorially requested revision. If, after that one revision, I still couldn't make it, then I just waited for a new market—or an old market with a new editor.

  Then, the next day, I received $50 from Amazing for "Source of Power." That was sold on the second try, and it was another of those stories (not many) that I didn't let Campbell see—and with good reason, for it was rotten.

  But I was still making trouble for myself over the second story of the Foundation series. So overconfident was I that I didn't even start it right away. Instead, I coolly cut down the margin of time I would have available for writing it by deciding to shift gears and turn out another positronic robot story.

  This was "Runaround," which, after a few false starts, I began on October 4, 1941. It dealt with the attempt of my heroes to make robots work on Mercury, where the environment put them irritatingly out of order. This story was the first one in which I explicitly stated all three Laws of Robotics and in which I then had the plot depend on their interplay. It took me only two weeks to write. I submitted it to Campbell on October 20, and on that same day he read it and ordered a check. I received $72 in the mail on the twenty-third.

  There was no question that I had Campbell's range at last. It was the sixth successive story I had submitted to him for Astounding that

  he had accepted. (Two stories, intended for Unknown, he had rejected.)

  And all those sales were reflecting themselves in the state of my solvency. My bank account was at $450, an astronomical sum indeed. In an emergency, I could draw out enough money to pay a year's tuition at any time.

  I was becoming a quasi celebrity, too. At least Phyllis, the young woman with whom I worked out phase rule problems, told me she was talking to a chemical engineering student and when my name came up naturally in conversation, he grew very excited. Phyllis suddenly realized she had gained enormously in stature (with him) through knowing me. It was a situation that was to become so common that I ceased noticing it, but this was the first case of it and I glowed with a simple-minded pride.

  Finally, on October 24,* I began the sequel to "Foundation," which I called "Bridle and Saddle." In it I explained how the Foundation had solved the initial problem and went on to describe how they had established a permanent hegemony over the neighboring kingdoms. In the first three days I typed seventeen pages, and I spoke loftily in my diary of "effortless spurts" and said, "Novelettes are so much easier than shorts."

  They had better be, for October 27, when I visited Campbell, his first words were "I want that Foundation story," and at once, as though by magic, "Bridle and Saddle" ground to a halt. On October 30, I said, "my thoughts concerning the yarn have been most depressing. It doesn't seem to go."

  I tried revision and that didn't help. I tried bulling my way forward and it stalled anyway. I grew panicky. I had to have it done. There was no way in which I could fail to get it in to Campbell in November, and I had to have it good enough or I would lose all credibility in his eyes. My wise-guy overconfidence had now rebounded and pinned me to the wall. I was in despair.

  It was Fred Pohl, once again, who came to my rescue. I visited him

  6 During October 1941, the Germans were driving hard toward Moscow, were within sixty miles and were announcing that the war was all but over. They had taken the entire Ukraine and had surrounded Leningrad (and, though I didn't know it at the time, my Uncle Boris, my father's youngest brother, was inside Leningrad during the siege). I didn't believe the German boasts, however. The Soviets had endured four months, when I had (in my heart) only given them four weeks to begin with—and now I was certain they would last forever.

  on November 2. (We visited back and forth constantly, as a matter of course.) We walked across Brooklyn Bridge, I remember, and while leaning against the rail and looking down at the river, I told him of my troubles with "Bridle and Saddle/' 7

  His suggestions were excellent ones, but what they were, I don't remember, and I didn't record them in my diary. In any case, I rushed home, began work again, and found the story moving easily. Without Pohl I don't know if I could have managed, and then what would have happened to the Foundation series?

  I finished "Bridle and Saddle" on November 16, without further trouble, and took it in on November 17. Campbell read it then and there and bought it—but again without a bonus. (How easily one is spoiled. After "Nightfall" an acceptance without a bonus felt like a rejection to me.) Even so, since the story was eighteen thousand words long, as long as "Pilgrimage," I received $180, the largest check yet.

  10

  Although my friendship with Pohl was deep and abiding, my connection with the Futurians generally was increasingly tenuous. I had attended a meeting as late as October 9, but pretty soon I was to drift away altogether.

  Looking back on it now, my connection was always tenuous for I didn't fit the mold.

  Some apparently, drank freely and on a few occasions, some may even have been drunk. I not only did not drink myself, I was also never even aware that they drank.

  Again, there were female members with whom there were naturally, interactions. There were marriages among the Futurians, and less formal liaisons. Not only was I never involved in any of this sexual activity; again, I never even knew it was going on. In fact, I don't even think I knew there were female members.

  I am not surprised, really, at the fact that I was ignorant of all this. There is a hard core of nonobservance in me. My brother, Stan, once told me that in any group, my eyes remained glazed over till my name was mentioned—and I think this rule held true not only for conversation but for all other human interactions as well.

  What does surprise me is that none of the other Futurians ever attempted to corrupt me—to lure me into drinking or into sexual activity. Maybe they did and I never noticed!

  7 The reason we walked across Brooklyn Bridge, I found out decades later, was that his wife, Leslie Perri, detested me and wouldn't have me in the apartment. I don't know why.

  11

  Another sign of adulthood came. I could vote. I had registered (that was the occasion on which I had taken my bachelor's diploma with me and had been scolded for it), and on November 4, 1941, my father and I went gravely down to the voting booth to exercise our franchises.

  It was an off-year election, but New York's mayoralty was up for votes, and I voted for the re-election of Fiorello LaGuardia, the best mayor (in my opinion) and the most colorful mayor (in anybody's) that New York had ever had.

  Two days later, the January 1942 Startling Stories reached the stands. It contained "Christmas on Ganymede," 8 my nineteenth published story, and I read it rather captiously. It had been tampered with editorially, not through the insertion of paragraphs, as was Campbell's wont, but through the general revision of each sentence in the direction of blah. It amounted to assiduous adjustment by a non writer. Heaven knows that the story, as I wrote it, fell short of Tolstoy, but it didn't fall as far short as it did after the editor got to work on it.

  On November 17, the day Campbell took "Bridle and Saddle," he told me of a plan of his for starting a new department in Astounding, one to be called "Probability Zero."

  This was to be a department of short-shorts, five hundred to one thousand words each, which were to be in the nature of plausible and entertaining Munchausen-like lies. Campbell's notion was that, aside from the entertainment value of these things, they would offer a place where beginners could penetrate the market without having to compete quite so hard with established writers. They would form a stair
way to professional status.

  This was a good idea in theory and even worked a little in practice. Ray Bradbury, who was to become one of the best-known and most successful of all science-fiction writers, broke into the field with a "Probability Zero" item half a year later. Hal Clement and George O. Smith also published "Probability Zero" items near the very start of their careers.

  Unfortunately, it didn't work enough. Campbell had to start the department going with professionals, hoping to let the amateurs carry on once they saw what it was Campbell wanted. There were, however, never enough amateurs who could meet Campbell's standards even for

  8 See The Early Asimov.

  short-shorts of an undemanding nature, and after twelve appearances of "Probability Zero" over a space of 2V2 years, Campbell gave up.

  On November 17, 1941, however, he was just beginning, and he wanted me to do a "Probability Zero" for him. I was delighted that he considered me to be at that stage of excellence where he could order me to do something for him according to measure. I promptly sat down and wrote a short-short called "Big Game." On November 24, I showed it to Campbell. He glanced over it, and, rather to my astonishment handed it back. It wasn't what he wanted. 9

  I tried a second time and did a humorous positronic robot short-short called "First Law." I showed it to Campbell on December 1, and he didn't like that either. I was chagrined, and made up my mind to try once more, but only once more.

  9 In The Early Asimov, I included "Big Game" among the list of those stories of mine that disappeared. Not so. I had had it all those years and, without knowing it, had included the manuscript with papers of mine that I had donated to the Boston University library. A young science-fiction enthusiast, Matthew Bruce Tepper, who had prepared an accurate and exhaustive bibliography of my science fiction, went through my papers at BU, uncovered the manuscript, and sent me a Xerox copy. I had the story published in Before the Golden Age (Doubleday, 1974).

  Qualifying Examinations

  All through November 1941, the Germans had been inching forward here and there on the long Russian front, but nobody was talking blitzkrieg any more. On November 22, the Germans took Rostov at the northeastern tip of the Sea of Azov, and then, on November 29, the Soviet forces recaptured it.

  It is impossible to describe now what excitement that bare announcement made. In over two years of World War II, the German Army had never once lost a city it had taken, not once. And now they had! It was the first sign that the Germans could be not merely resisted, not merely slowed down, not merely halted, but actually thrown back.

  And although Germany was still striving toward Moscow and was only forty miles away from that goal, her advance was so slow that it was clear to everyone that the Nazis would have to halt for the winter. Germany would be forced to spend a winter in the Soviet Union with supply lines hundreds of miles long.

  I sat back to enjoy that winter. As far as I could tell, nothing in world affairs concerned me at that moment but the titanic struggle taking place in the steppes and forests of the land of my birth. In all the excitement over events in the Soviet Union, I scarcely mentioned in my diary the fact that there was in late 1941 a profound diplomatic struggle between Japan and the United States.

  I didn't for one moment believe that there would be war between the United States and Japan. The United States had to concentrate on Europe and, as for Japan, what could she do? She was stalled in China and helpless. And even if the United States and Japan were to fight a war, it seemed to me that the American Navy could take care of matters in short order—so I paid no attention.

  On Sunday, December 7, 1941, therefore, I sat down rather grimly to make my third attempt at "Probability Zero." It was a ridiculous story called "Time Pussy," inspired by a remark by one of my classmates in food analysis laboratory. (He was Mario Castillo, a short, round-faced, quick-witted, and pleasant fellow.) He had told me, jokingly, about a man who invented a device that cooled water so quickly that when the ice formed it was still warm.

  It didn't take me long to write the story, and by early afternoon it was safely done, and I turned on the radio to relax. My father was taking his afternoon nap, but it was all right to listen to the radio (low) while he slept. Unlike my mother, he slept soundly.

  But you're ahead of me. Just before 3:00 p.m. the music faded and an excited voice began to read a news bulletin. The Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor. I ran for my father's bedroom. As far as I can remember, I had never before deliberately awakened him in the middle of his nap, but I did now.

  "Pappa, Pappa!" I shook him, madly. He sat up with a start. "What's the matter?" I said, "We're at war. The Japanese have bombed us." It took him a while to gather it in. Then he turned on the little radio near his bed. He never once complained that he had been awakened.

  And even so, life went on. I suppose the dramatic thing to say at this point was that I immediately rushed to the recruiting station to enlist, but I did no such thing. I was ready to go whenever the armed forces demanded my services, but I had no desire to anticipate their needs.

  Instead, on December 8, I took "Time Pussy" to Campbell—and he was there at the same old stand, doing his job. He read the story and took it "none too enthusiastically" (my diary says).

  He had three "Probability Zero" stories now, the other two being by L. Sprague de Camp and Malcolm Jameson, both senior to me in age and writing experience. Campbell wanted one by an apparent newcomer to give amateurs courage. He felt therefore that I should make the sacrifice and publish under a pseudonym.

  I did so, reluctantly. I chose George E. Dale as my pseudonym. I don't know why. The name just popped into my head and I put it down.

  That same day, life went on in the food lab, too. I handed in my analysis of butter fat, and Professor Thomas found my results to be on the nose and said it was an "excellent analysis." He was visibly pleased with the young man who loved chemistry so much.

  And the day after that, the February 1942 Amazing arrived and it had my story "Source of Power" in it, except that Ray Palmer had changed the title to "Robot AL-76 Goes Astray." 1 That was a com-

  iSee The Rest of the Robots (Doubleday, 1964).

  pletely ridiculous title but I never cared enough for the story to bother changing it back.

  But life was not entirely normal. In fact, it grew horrible as the months passed by. There had been the initial rage at Japan's sudden attack and a certain euphoria in the certainty that we would now smash her, but good—something I shared, I think, with just about every other American.

  What very few Americans realized was that our fleet had simply been destroyed at Pearl Harbor and that for a while, we had nothing with which to punish the Japanese. For half a year, the United States had to experience the frustration of falling back continually.

  On December 6, I had looked forward to a kind of grim triumph as I watched the Nazis get their lumps in the Soviet Union. Instead it was a dreadful winter of watching the United States apparently unable to get off the ground in the Pacific.

  Between remaining glued to the radio and trying to fight off the gathering depression of spirits, I was unable even to think of writing. For two months I did not write a word.

  But if December was worthless as far as writing was concerned (except for the $10 I received for 'Time Pussy"), the fact remained that in the course of the year 1941, my fourth as a professional writer, I had sold thirteen stories, better than one a month—as compared with fourteen stories I had sold in the first three years altogether.

  My literary income for 1941 was $1,060 and, frankly, I found it utterly unbelievable. I decided for the first time (but not for the last) that I had reached a peak I might never be able to duplicate. After all, I could scarcely sell more than thirteen stories in any one year, and even if I sold every one of them to Campbell at top rates with a bonus thrown in I couldn't make more than $2,500 dollars perhaps, so that an annual income of $1,000 seemed about the practical limit.

  I wasn't complaining,
mind you; $1,000 a year was good pocket money for something I wanted very much to do.

  3

  Yet I couldn't lose myself entirely in the military defeats of the moment. I was sure that all would straighten itself out in the end. It was impossible for me to suppose that once the United States was finally able to exert its full strength, Japan (or, for that matter, Germany) could stand before it.

  So I had to continue to try to decide what to do with my own life. My second attempt at the Qualifying Examinations was only a couple

  of months away and I had to take into consideration the rather strong possibility that I would be turned down again. That would mean I would have to leave Columbia.

  One alternative would be to find a job, and I had made tentative moves in this direction. For one thing, Columbia University was setting up a special course in explosives. (I rather had a notion this involved uranium fission, but after Urey's reaction to my innocent remark, I knew better than to check on this with anybody.) It was not my sort of thing, for with my lack of skill in the lab, it seemed to me that working with explosives would be suicide. I applied anyway, in order to keep as many options open as possible—and I was relieved when I was rejected.

  I also continued to try various Civil Service examinations, and I announced myself as willing to take jobs in Buffalo, New York, and even in Huntsville, Alabama, where jobs seemed to be available. At one point, I was ready to take a train to Huntsville in order to be on the spot if they wanted me there—but was prevented from doing so (thank goodness) by discovering that in wartime, such trips required reservations, which I didn't have. No jobs came my way, anyway.

  Finally, there was the alternative of continuing my education—if not at Columbia, then elsewhere. The logical elsewhere was New York University. It could start at the level of my master's degree. 2

  On December 20, 1941, New York University accepted me as a graduate student, one who would presumably be working toward his Ph.D. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant. Would I have to retake some courses? Would I have to take a new set of Qualifyings? Would I, on the other hand, be able to start in research at once?