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

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  Gertrude sat next to me, much more nearly in focus, smiling and looking very pretty indeed, though unfortunately only half her face showed. I called her on the phone and said, "Gertrude, your picture is in Life magazine."

  I expected disbelief but she just said, with mild puzzlement, "I didn't give them a picture." She didn't even ask why she was in.

  On May 21, 1951, my raise finally came through, retroactive to April 1.1 would be paid now at the rate of $5,500.

  It gave me no satisfaction at all. It was humiliating to have made such a fuss and to have had to go through conferences and pleadings and threats for so little. One good novelette could bring in more than the annual increase and I would have been thanked for it by the editor, praised for it by the readers, and paid additionally for it by anthologists.

  Besides which, there was usually only a small plum in the department budget to divide (if any), and if I got $500 extra a year, someone else in the department, without my ability to make money on the side, might not get it. It seemed improper for me to scrabble for these small sums when I needed it less than the next guy.

  3 See Nightfall and Other Stories.

  As a result, I specifically denied any interest in pay increases from this time onward. Any that I received henceforward came without any move toward it on my part. What I was after was a change in the source of the money, and a promotion in title.

  Nevertheless, I let the increase in salary mollify me to the extent of preventing an instant resignation. I needed some face-saving device to prevent it, for we had just moved into the new apartment and the baby was due soon. However little I feared unemployment I didn't want to have Gertrude facing it at this point. She had enough difficulty without it.

  7

  On May 25, we drove to New York again. The next day I handed the manuscript of Foundation to Greenberg and a new novelette, "Greater Love," to Gold.

  Horace read the story then and there and demanded some changes. I argued about them and gave in on some but held out stubbornly on others. I spent the next day rewriting at the Blugermans' and handed in the revised story on Monday.

  That Monday, the twenty-eighth, I spent four hours with Campbell, who was apparently working in New York again, at least part-time. He told me he was doing an anthology of stories from Astounding and that he wanted to include "Nightfall." I didn't mind getting the money, but I felt it necessary to remind him that it had already been anthologized.

  He said, "That doesn't matter."

  It was the first time I realized a story could be anthologized more than once. 4

  Campbell also told me that he had broken with Hubbard and was out of the dianetics movement. That didn't surprise me, really. I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs.

  I also gave him a little gag-story called "Shah Guido G.," which carefully built up 3,000 words of plot to end on a silly play on words. These days that sort of thing has become rather commonplace in science fiction, at least in submitted manuscripts, if not in accepted ones, but in 1951 it was a daring venture on my part.

  4 It's lucky it can be. To date, "Nightfall" has been anthologized fifteen times that I know of, with more to come, and it has made me considerably more money through anthologizations than it did in the case of the original sale. And "Nightfall" doesn't hold the record for me in anthologizations, either.

  The next day, Gertrude and I had lunch with Brad. The Space Ranger television show was still up in the air, but Brad was ready to have a contract prepared for the juvenile novel.

  May 30 (Memorial Day) I spent at the Blugermans' writing a story called "The Monkey's Fingers," which dealt humorously with a writer and an editor having an argument such as I, myself, had just had with Horace over "Greater Love." In fact, it dealt with the same argument. I had a monkey-brain computer decide the issue.

  On the thirty-first, I discovered Campbell had rejected "Shah Guido G.," which depressed me, for it was the first short story of mine that he had rejected in nine years—but it deserved rejection, I guess.

  Horace, however, accepted the revised "Greater Love" but demanded a new name. In the end, he used "C-Chute," which I thought uninspired—but good enough.

  It wasn't till June 6 that we drove back to Waltham. It was amazing the freedom the car gave us. We could come and go as we pleased depending neither on the goodwill of others nor on the schedules of trains and buses.

  8

  On June 7, 1951, I received a letter from R. R. Winterbotham, the first in about nine years. It was as friendly as ever but there was a business angle to it. He was now editor of a syndicated newspaper page for boys and girls and he wanted an eight-hundred-word short-short for young readers.

  I thought about it and decided to write a little story about school. What could interest children more? It would be about a school of the future, by way of teaching machines, with children longing for the good old days when there were old-fashioned schools that children loved. I thought the kids would get a bang out of the irony.

  I called the story "The Fun They Had," wrote it at a sitting, and sent it to Winterbotham, who sent me an enthusiastic ten dollars for it in August. It wasn't much, of course, only a penny a word for a thousand words. Fred Pohl didn't have anything to do with it, but he was my agent so I sent him his dollar.

  The next time he saw me, he lectured me. I should not have done it for a penny a word. I offered the feeble excuse that Winterbotham was a friend and that by the Code of the Woosters, you don't let a pal down. He told me there was no room for friendship in this business, and since I had no arguments to offer, I just listened meekly.

  Still, I knew that if I were faced with the same situation a second

  time, I would sin again. I felt a little impatient with agents. It seemed to me that if ever Fred Pohl stopped wanting to be my agent, I wouldn't accept any other agent ever. Then, if I felt like obliging a friend, I could. 5

  9

  Other projects were moving ahead, too. On June 10, I began the Space Ranger novel. I wanted a science-fiction-sounding last name for my hero, and that was Starr. We had already decided to name our baby (if a boy) David, so I called my hero David Starr, and the book became David Starr: Space Ranger.

  I needed a pseudonym. I wanted one that was short and colorless so that it would not compete with my own name. At about that time, I read that the suspense-story writer, Cornell Woolrich (whom I admired), faced with the necessity of choosing a pseudonym, decided to use a nationality as the last name and selected William Irish. At once, I selected Paul French, 6 and he became the author of David Starr: Space Ranger.

  10

  We were still working on the textbook, Walker, Boyd, and I, and I continued to fret over being interfered with by two co-authors.

  Whenever I was outvoted on some phrase, or on some method of literary attack on a problem that was near my heart, I would mutter that I would write a biochemistry book of my own someday—and for the general public, not for medical students. Then it would be the way I wanted it and not the way anyone else did.

  Bill Boyd took me seriously. In 1950, he had published with Little, Brown a popular book on genetics that was called Genetics and the

  5 As it was, things didn't turn out so badly. 'The Fun They Had" turned out to be an extremely popular story, and so far I have counted twenty-four anthologizations, with more in the works and no signs of it ever stopping. It has also appeared in science-fiction magazines, in my own collections, in foreign languages, and so on. It has probably earned me several thousand dollars so far—which is too bad in a way. It takes the gloss of nobility off what would otherwise have been an unselfish desire to help a friend.

  6 In time to come there were always some people who knew nothing about either me or science fiction who gathered the impression that I used Paul French as my pseudonym for all my science fiction because I was ashamed to put my real name to it. That irritated me beyond measure. I never used Paul French for any of my writing but the Space Ranger s
tories, and as soon as I could, I put those stories under my real name.

  Races of Man, and it was doing well. His editor there was Angus Cameron, and it seemed to Bill that Cameron might be interested in having me do a popular book on biochemistry. Through his good offices, therefore, I made a luncheon date with Cameron for June 15 at Locke-Ober's.

  There was a pleasant symmetry to this. Bill had long been a science-fiction fan—indeed that was how he came to know me and how I came to get the job at the Medical School. Knowing me personally had activated the urges he had had to write science fiction, and at about this time, he and Lyle together began to turn out stories in collaboration. They wrote under the name Boyd Ellanby (L. and B.), and I gave them strong moral support. They eventually published a dozen stories or more during the next half-dozen years, and now Bill was helping me in the direction of nonfiction.

  My lunch with Cameron was an interesting one and it sounded hopeful at the time. Unfortunately, I wanted a book in which I would progress from the simple to the complex, and he wanted to move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, and I simply wasn't going to do any book unless I could do it my way. My desire to write a popular biochemistry was forced to hang fire, therefore—but I didn't forget about it.

  11

  In any case, the forthcoming baby was taking up more of my time. In June, Catherine de Camp had her second child, another boy; Babbie Whipple had her second child, another girl. Now I could react with camaraderie instead of wistful sadness.

  Gertrude and I took classes for would-be parents and practiced diapering and holding dolls, and we listened to lectures on formulas.

  What's more, we were buying baby carriages, Bathinettes, cribs, and so on. Gertrude, who was in her seventh month, was looking very pregnant indeed.

  12

  On June 17, I listened to a dramatization of Pebble in the Sky on a radio program called "Dimension X." It was the first time anything J had written had ever been put on an electronic medium, and I was absorbed. The radio writer was the young but able Ernest Kinoy. It was only a half-hour show, so it was an enormously altered version. It even had a catastrophic ending rather than my happy one, but I liked it; it was well done.

  There was only one little catch: My name was not mentioned on the program at any point, and I was indignant.

  I called Campbell who was, I understood, technical adviser to the program. He told me he was no longer connected with it. I called Brad but he wasn't home (it was a Sunday). I called Fred Pohl and he was quite short with me and told me to act my age. That one confused me, since agents were supposed to be more understanding than that. I found out from him later (in a letter of apology) that at the time I had called he was having a terrific fight with Judy Merril as his third marriage was breaking up.

  I wrote letters all around and in the end Brad was able to make the "Dimension X" people apologize and mention my name on the next week's program, but that wasn't the same, especially since they mispronounced it.

  Oh well, the galleys of Foundation arrived on June 23, and that gave me something else to think about.

  Then too, Fred told me he had sold "Shah Guido G" to Marvel, which had once published several issues before the war and was now being revived.

  As it happened, magazine science fiction was on the eve of its biggest boom. The success of Fantasy and Science Fiction and of Galaxy was producing a horde of imitators. It became impossible for me to fail to sell a story to someone, even if the story were rather less than average in quality. 7

  *3

  In July, we put in some concentrated work on the textbook, working mostly at Boyd's house. Our ninth wedding anniversary, on July 26, 1951, was therefore rather a pleasant one, for Walker, Bill, and Lyle Boyd, and Gertrude and I all went out to dinner.

  As for David Starr: Space Ranger, I worked on that almost every moment I wasn't working on the textbook. It went quickly, and on July 29, it was done. I sent a copy to Brad and another to Fred the next day.

  Sometime toward the end of August was baby day, and we were rather desperate to have some sort of vacation before that came. We were afraid to get away from the city for too long a period in case of

  7 By now, the Korean War was a year old and, with the failure of MacArthur's bid for victory, extremely unpopular. Truce negotiations were under way.

  emergency, but we managed to go to New York over the July 14-17 weekend.

  We seized at any nondistant, nonlong trip we could make. There was an annual picnic at Dean Faulkner's estate, for instance, and we went to that. The estate was very close to a summer resort, and I managed to eat three lobsters.

  Then on August 4, we made a motor trip to Rockport, which was not very far from Camp Annisquam. Rockport is a quaint old fishing village, carefully designed as a tourist trap, but we liked wandering through its stores, even though we rarely bought anything. We repeated the trip periodically in later times.

  15

  It's not surprising that friends of mine tried to write science-fiction stories. If I could do it, after all, surely anyone could.

  It was pleasant that some of them succeeded. The Boyds were a case in point. Another was Armin Deutsch, then a Harvard astronomer and one of the Decadents. He called me up one day and said he was writing a science-fiction story. Could he read me the beginning?

  "Go ahead," I said, in resignation.

  He read a few paragraphs and I grew excited. "Let me see the rest," I said. "It sounds good."

  The next time we met he gave me the manuscript. I read it, and said, "Send it to Campbell. He'll take it."

  He sent it and Campbell took it. It appeared in the December

  1950 Astounding and was called "A Subway Named Mobius." It was a delightful satire on the Boston subway system and was just a cracker-jack story. Deutsch never wrote another story, as far as I know. 8

  Then, too, I had a friend named Jesse Charney, whom I met through Roy Machlowitz. Charney was a chemist at Sharp & Dohme and visited me on August 9, bringing me the news that Roy had quit the Navy Yard and was now working at Sharp & Dohme also.

  Charney was a fat man, but enormously bright, and he wrote a story that he showed me. Again, I grew excited and advised instant submission. Campbell took that story, too, and it appeared in the May

  1951 Astounding under the title "Success Story." Charney used the pseudonym Julian Chain. He published three more stories and then he quit, too, and that was all.

  8 He was a tall, thin fellow with a peculiar congenital disorder in which cholesterol accumulated in the joints of his extremities. It probably accumulated elsewhere and killed him; he died fairly young.

  David

  On August 19, 1951, Gertrude was in her third day of intermittent cramps, and I was growing increasingly nervous. Gertrude pooh-poohed it, but by nightfall I was frantic. I began to argue in favor of taking her to the hospital, but she was afraid of going there, finding it was a false alarm, having to return, and then going a second time a few days later.

  I kept saying distractedly, "But I don't know how to deliver a baby."

  By midnight, the cramps were pretty regular and I think she got to thinking of what might happen if I were forced to try to deliver a baby. She knew perfectly well how undeft I was at lab work.

  She consented to have me take her, therefore, and I got dressed as any husband would under such circumstances—in a screaming panic. (What if the car didn't start? What if I were so nervous I had an accident?) Then I was ready at last, complete with a packed suitcase, but where was Gertrude?

  "Gertrude!" I called in distraction. "Gertrude!"

  My God, the shower was going.

  "What are you doing taking a shower, Gertrude?"

  It seemed she wanted to be sweet and clean for the medical people.

  "Who cares? It's their job. You think everyone comes in powdered and scented?"

  But she wouldn't listen. We didn't get to the hospital till 3:00 a.m. Gertrude, who had settled down the instant she was in the car, decid
ed the baby wasn't on the way and she grew discontented over my panic having forced her to the hospital. "Why do you have this tendency to panic, Isaac?" she asked.

  I was feeling rather stupid, but at least it meant I could drive slowly and avoid accidents. When I pulled up at the curb at Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, a block from the Medical School, I hopped out of the car and ran around to the other door to help her out. I found her momentarily unable to move—the cramps had started again and they were lulus. Thank goodness we were there.

  I checked her in and then came the wait. A first pregnancy often

  involves a long labor, and by dinnertime, fifteen hours after I had taken her to the hospital, she was still in the labor room.

  I kept walking up and down, leaving for the Medical School, coming back, walking up and down. Theoretically, I should only have been there in the visiting hours, but I wore my white lab coat and everyone in a hospital is conditioned to question no one in a white lab coat.

  Finally, at 7:45 p.m. on August 20, 1951, right in the middle of visiting hours, of course, Dr. Elia came striding out into the hall with his face mask dangling about his neck, a huge smile on his face, his right hand thrust out.

  "Congratulations, Isaac, it's a boy," he said, and the visitors standing about broke into a spontaneous cheer.

  David Asimov had appeared in the world.

  He was a little baby, even though he was full term. He was only five pounds, four onces, and since forceps had had to be used, his head was misshapen.

  Everyone told me not to worry—that this was a common state of affairs and that David's head would round itself out nicely. Eventually, it did.

  We weren't exactly young parents, I was thirty-one, Gertrude was thirty-three. We had been married just over nine years and had given up hope. So when we sent out announcement cards, I scrawled over some of them "They laughed when we sat down to play . . ." That got a grin out of those who, like myself, were old enough to remember the famous old advertisement for a correspondence course on how to play the piano.