21
I was reviewing books on occasion for the New York Compass, a short-lived liberal paper that I read assiduously. The novelty of reviewing made it enjoyable at first, but it quickly palled on me. It occurred to me that if I didn't like adverse criticism of my writings, however mild that criticism might be, others might not either. And if I couldn't take it, I shouldn't hand it out.
Another source of disillusion arose in connection with Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, which was published that spring. Harper's ran excerpts and touted it tremendously, and I was fooled into thinking that it was an important book.
I got a copy, read it, and found it, although interesting, nothing
5 Yes, I remember his name but if a story reflects unfavorably on a friend, I hope you don't mind if I omit his name as a general rule. The fact of his Gentility is crucial, however, so I mention it.
but a fairy tale and rather a foolish one. I asked the Compass if I might review it, and in this case I had no compunctions about a bad review. I didn't complain about the writing, merely about the content, and I thought it was important to explain that the book was astronomical gibberish and of no value whatever.
I wrote the review and the Compass refused to publish it because its publisher apparently disapproved of its contents. I did not appreciate that sort of censorship and I did nothing more for the Compass.
22
On March 1, 1950, I had another academic disillusionment. One of the three instructors in the department received a promotion to assistant professor and it was not I, although I had been the first of the three to be hired. The young man promoted was an M.D., however, and that pointed out a practical disadvantage of my second-class status.
It depressed me and, to add to the depression, I was hearing nothing from Brad on The Stars t like Dust—.
The only thing to do was to begin putting my robot stories into shape for Marty, making minor adjustments to remove internal inconsistencies.
I decided to include all eight robot stories that Campbell had published over a nine-year period, from "Reason" in 1941 to "The Evitable Conflict," which was soon to appear. Then, too, as a first story, I would include "Robbie," which Campbell had rejected but which Pohl had published in Super Science as "Strange Playfellow." These were quite enough, with some added introductory material, to make up a 70,000-word book, so that there was no need to include "Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" or "Victory Unintentional," which I thought were inferior.
I called the collection Mind and Iron.
2 3
On March 8, my first scientific publication appeared. The February 1950 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society contained, on page 820, a nine-page paper entitled "On the Reaction Inactivation of Tyrosinase During the Aerobic Oxidation of Catechol" by Isaac Asimov and Charles R. Dawson. It was, of course, the short version of my dissertation.
It was not only my first scientific publication, it also was my longest and my best.
Over the next three years I was to publish six papers on research work done in my Boston University laboratory. All of them were in collaboration with others who did the actual work, though I did the supervision and the actual writing. All those papers were unimportant and I enjoyed none of them. After 1953, I never again published a scientific paper involving research.
The trouble was that I hated writing research papers. Even while I still thought of myself as a researcher, I scorned and detested the writing end of it. Writing a research paper is a tedious and stylized job. You cannot write as you wish; you cannot use English; you cannot have fun.
It was even worse than being back in the Navy Yard making certain that no paragraph in a report was anything but a repetition of a paragraph in some earlier Navy Yard report.
Preparing my dissertation with Dawson had been an unsettling experience, but I found that writing papers on my own was no better. Such papers had to pass the eagle eyes of Walker and Lemon and then, on being submitted to a journal, had to undergo the dour glances of nameless reviewers. In the end, nothing got through but well-chewed cud.
I might not have minded, but I felt myself to be a writer, and I hated having my name on such limp and bedraggled material.
2 4
On March 13, Brad called me. He was rejecting the new version of The Stars, like Dust—. It was still too overwritten and I would have to try again. He was sending the copy back, copiously red-penciled. After the glorious beginning of the year, it looked as though I were roller-coasting downward again.
On that same day, however, Fred Pohl wrote me concerning "Little Man on the Subway," the story we had collaborated on ten years before. It was to appear in a little semipro magazine called Fantasy Book. It was a short-lived magazine that only put out about nine copies, but "Little Man on the Subway" appeared in the sixth and eventually I got a copy of that magazine and there was the story in it, and in the lead position, too. 6
The longest story in that issue was "Scanners Live in Vain" by an unknown called Cordwainer Smith. I read it and thought it very unusual but very depressing. It turned out that in later years it was consid-
6 See The Early Asimov.
ered a classic, and Smith (a pseudonym) went on to become what was almost a cult object.
The payment for "Little Man on the Subway" was $10, of which I only got half, of course. It was the first time I had a science-fiction story appear in any magazine but Astounding in eight years.
Fred then sent me word that he had also sold the other story on which we had co-operated, "Legal Rites." This one went to Weird Tales, and the payment was $40 for each of us.
But then I also had the manuscript of The Stars, like Dust— from Brad, and it was torn apart. Fred's news was an upward ripple in a downward avalanche, and the two collaboration sales couldn't even begin to compensate for the double failure of my new novel. As I said in my diary, "I feel like a fired science-fiction writer."
At least I had gone over my robot stories, made the necessary corrections in the printed versions, and left them for Gertrude to type up.
And on April 1, 1950, I started The Stars, like Dust— for the third time, from scratch.
2 5
On April 6, I received the news from Sprague de Camp that Campbell and his wife had separated and that Dona had moved in with George O. Smith. 7 Apparently, Campbell's overwhelming involvement with dianetics had been the last straw for Dona.
That same day Kupchan drove to New York, and on April 7 I went in to see Brad with Chapter 1 of the third version of The Stars, like Dust—. He said he liked it, but I suppressed my enthusiasm. It was only the first chapter.
On the ninth, I went to Philadelphia to attend an American Chemical Society meeting, and there I met with the de Camps. The next day I visited the Navy Yard for the first time in four years, but already there had been enough changes in personnel to make the place strange to me. I never went back again.
On the thirteenth, Sprague and I went over the new May 1950, As-tounding, which, with great fanfare, ran L. Ron Hubbard's 16,000-word article "Dianetics."
Apparently, Hubbard was maintaining that all human beings had their thinking mechanisms distorted by impressions received in the fetal stage. The fetus could hear, be aware, and misunderstand all that
7 There was always the tendency, somehow, for marital musical chairs in the science-fiction fraternity. Dick Wilson, for instance, had married Fred Pohl's first wife.
took place, and these misunderstandings produced all the wronghead-edness that plagued the human species. If each individual could be taken back, mentally, to the fetal stage by having "auditors" question them, and if all these misinterpreted impressions were erased, that individual would become "clear" and a very superior human being.
Neither Sprague nor I were in the least impressed. I considered it gibberish.
Then back to New York, and on April 14, I visited Campbell. He would talk of nothing but dianetics. I didn't argue much; I just remained impervious and said I
didn't believe it. Finally Campbell said, half in anger and half in jest, "Damn it, Asimov, you have a built-in doubter."
"Thank goodness I do, Mr. Campbell," said I.
26
I was back in Boston on April 16, and marked my first test papers. I quickly realized that although I didn't mind giving lectures, I hated giving tests and I loathed marking them. I couldn't stand being responsible for low marks.
Where the questions required short factual answers, the necessity of placing crosses next to some was absolute and not a matter of judgment. I was then spared the feeling of guilt. Questions requiring essay answers, however, were just too much for me, so after my first experience, I always avoided essay questions when I could.
On April 17, I got a letter from Bill Boyd. His job had folded and he would be back at the Medical School in September.
2 7
Occasionally, we would watch television at a friend's home. Even before we had come to Boston, we had watched Milton Berle on two occasions at the Saltzmans. I had not been impressed. My fascination with television on the occasion of my first sight of it had not survived the repetition.
But then on April 22, 1950, we visited the Whipples and, for the first time, we saw Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca in "Your Show of Shows." That was different. To have entertainment like that in your home was a delight. I felt my snobbish antitelevision attitude evaporate, and we began, from that point onward, considering the possibility of getting one for ourselves.
Beyond Campbell
For twelve years, nearly, Campbell had been the center of my literary existence. He had nurtured me, protected me, fostered me, and made me what I was, and there is no way in which I can ever be sufficiently grateful to him.
By 1950, however, I had grown beyond him.
In part, it was because he had taken a wrong turning. He had moved into dianetics and from there into a series of other follies, and there was no way in which I could follow him. Furthermore, he could not separate his personal views from the magazine, but strove to incorporate those views into the stories he elicited from the authors, and many authors were only too delighted to comply and to "press Campbell's buttons." I could not do it any more than I could comply with his penchant for human superiority over extraterrestrials in earlier years.
Second, there were new markets opening up, and I wanted to branch out. I did not want to be a one-editor author. Moving into the book field and being associated with Brad and Doubleday was a major step for me, and on April 28, 1950, something else opened up.
On that day, I got a letter from Horace L. Gold. I had met him once or twice before the war, and a story, "None but Lucifer," by him and Sprague de Camp in collaboration was one of the most powerful lead novels in the old Unknown. His solo short story, "Trouble with Water," also in Unknown, was likewise unforgettable.
Now, it seemed, Horace was starting a magazine of his own, and he was writing to ask me for some stories.
I responded politely and suggested an idea for a story I called "Darwinian Poolroom." I was deep in the third attempt of The Stars, like Dust—, which seemed to have been occupying me forever, and I welcomed the thought of a break.
By May 7, I had once again finished a third of the book, in its third version, and the next day I mailed off one copy to Fred and one copy to Brad. Nothing to do but wait again.
Meanwhile, I could do other writing, and though Horace had been less than enthusiastic about my idea, that didn't bother me. If he didn't
want it, someone else might. It was only twenty-five hundred words long and took me only a couple of days to write.
I made use of the same device I had used in "Super-Neutron" and in "Day of the Hunters/' one in which the story is told in the form of a conversation among congenial spirits. I sent it off to Horace and waited to hear.
I needed some good news, for the weather was warming again, and the attic apartment in Somerville was warming even faster. We dreaded another summer there—and a full one this time. Even a visit to the MIT science-fiction society on May 12, my first contact with Boston fandom, did nothing to cheer me up.
We seized the occasion of Mother's Day on May 14 to call our respective families, and there was news on both sides. Stanley, who was finishing his junior year at New York University, had been working on its newspaper steadily and had been elected co-editor-in-chief for the next year.
And as for Henry Blugerman, he was selling the Henry Paper Box Company. He had owned it five years and it had been a hellish time, for it had been marginal at best during the entire period.
For me, though, the important news came the next day, when I got a telegram from Brad to the effect that he liked the third version of The Stars, like Dust— and this time I was to complete the novel. There was no talk of contract; that would take place with Fred, who was now in business as the Dirk Wylie Literary Agency. (Dirk Wylie, with whom he had started it, was now dead, and Rosalind was a widow.) Fred wrote quickly and told me that The Stars, like Dust-would involve a $750 advance, half again as much as that which Pebble in the Sky had commanded.
In addition to that, he was peddling a short story of mine that I called "Flesh and Metal." It was an attempt on my part to write a robot story that would sell to the slick magazines a la Heinlein. It had a handsome robot in it, a smitten housewife, and a tables-turned Cinderella bit. I thought it couldn't miss.
It had, however been circulating all through 1949 and early 1950 and had been missing every time.
Finally, Amazing decided to turn classy and publish very literary material by paying $.05 a word—an absolutely unprecedented fee. Fred managed to place "Flesh and Metal" with them and got $250 for
merely 5,000 words. And Gold eventually accepted "Darwinian Poolroom/'
To top it off, Gertrude had completed the typing up of the robot collection by May 18. It was a beautiful job and well done. She had worked long and hard.
3
But what about a different apartment? What about one that was not a steambox in the summer?
The trouble was that we were confined to the public transportation lines and decent apartments were invariably nowhere near those lines. The alternative was to buy a car, but neither Gertrude nor I could drive one; and I, for one, was afraid to drive one.
Gertrude was less afraid, and on May 16, 1950, her birthday, she celebrated by taking her first driving lesson. I was rather awed by her courage and I suggested that if she learned how to drive, we could get a car and she could chauffeur me when necessary.
The lessons continued through the month, by the end of which I had completed my first year at the Medical School. The Medical School wasn't bad, all told. It was infinitely more congenial than the Navy Yard had been, and Boston in peace was more colorful and pleasant than Philadelphia in wartime had been. I was not unhappy.
And The Stars, like Dust— was now racing ahead. I was at it every day and it was giving me no trouble.
On May 31, 1950, I celebrated the completion of my first year at the Medical School by being on a local radio talk show. I listened to a tape of myself the next day and was horrified to find that I sounded exactly like Stanley. Everyone, at my urgent questioning, assured me that that was exactly how I sounded. Apparently, my voice, sounding in my own ears through the bone cavities of my skull, sounds much deeper and resonant than it sounds to others.
4
Bill Boyd was back on June 2, 1950. He had not even waited till September. It had, apparently, been a very disillusioning experience, but I think he was humiliated at having once more to come back to the Medical School.
He said to me, "Do you remember, Isaac, when you outlined to me all the unpleasant things that happened at a civil-service job?"
I nodded guiltily. It had only been eleven months ago. I well remembered that time when I hoped I would talk him out of going.
He said, "I wish I had listened to you. Everything you said would happen did happen, and even worse than you said it would."
On that same d
ay I attended the Medical School graduation ceremonies. It was a senior class that I hadn't taught, of course, so I knew no one; and even if I had, I would have found it boring. I avoided graduation ceremonies thereafter.
5
Gertrude finished her driving lessons on June 6, 1950, but her teacher wasn't sure she would be able to pass the test, and Gertrude felt rather disappointed over that. Fortunately, we were slated to go to New York the next day, so there would be time to think it through and decide whether to take more lessons.
On June 8 I visited Fred, got my advance for The Stars, like Dust—, and handed over additional chapters. I also gave him the manuscript of the robot story collection. Martin Greenberg had rejected my notion of calling it Mind and Iron and suggested it be called J, Robot.
"Impossible, Marty," I said. "Eando Binder wrote a short story called 1, Robot' back in 1938."
To which Marty answered, with unassailable logic, "F— Eando Binder."
So I, Robot it was. 1 There is no question that Marty's title was far better than mine and probably helped sell the book.
After that, I went on to see Horace Gold who, as it happened, lived in Stuyvesant Town, so that the visit was an exercise in nostalgia for me.
Gold turned out to be a handsome, talkative fellow who was even balder than my father. (I once casually combed my hair at his mirror and, viewing the process with disfavor, he said, "Do I flex my muscles in your presence?)
His wife, Evelyn, looked rather like Gypsy Rose Lee in my eyes, and seemed quite extroverted.
Horace and I discussed future stories, when suddenly he said, "Pardon me," got up, and left the room. I assumed he had gone to the bath-
1 Years later, some television show put Eando Binder's "I, Robot" on the air, using his title. Many people watched, thinking they were going to see one of my stories, and quite a few of them wrote indignant letters to me about some joker using my title. I had to write to each of them and explain carefully that it was I who was the joker and that Binder was there first.
In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954 Page 72
