by Isaac Asimov
In order to explain this, I’ll have to take the long way round. Please bear with me.
Back in 1952, I began to write a novel called The Caves of Steel. It was finished in 1953, was published in the October, November, and December 1953 issues of Galaxy as a three-part serial, and was published in book form by Doubleday in 1954.
It was a science fiction murder mystery that introduced my characters Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw, whom some of you may have come across in your reading. Toward the end of The Caves of Steel, I needed a second murder for the sake of the plot, and that bothered me, for I don’t like murders and I rarely have them in my mysteries. When I do, there is only one and it is committed offstage, usually before the story begins. (I’m funny that way.)
The first murder in The Caves of Steel had been offstage before the story began, and the second murder would be offstage, also, but I didn’t want to kill a human being, so, instead, I killed a rather simple robot. But, again, I didn’t want to kill him brutally by smashing in his cranium or throwing him into a vat of melted lead. I preferred something more science fictional.
So here is a character in the story, a Dr. Gerrigel, describing the dead robot:
“ ‘In the robot’s partly clenched right fist,’ said Dr. Gerrigel, ‘was a shiny ovoid about two inches long and half an inch wide with a mica window at one end. The fist was in contact with his skull as though the robot’s last act had been to touch his head. The thing he was holding was an alpha-sprayer. You know what they are, I suppose?’ ”
The nature of the alpha-sprayer was then explained for the sake of the reader. It was described as a device that sends out a beam of alpha particles through the mica window. The impingement of the alpha particles on the robot’s positronic brain was drastic. Or, as I put it: “Dr. Gerrigel said, ‘Yes, and his positronic brain paths were immediately randomized. Instant death, so to speak.’ ”
Well, why not? Alpha particles are capable of knocking electrons out of atoms. It is because they do so, leaving electrically charged ions behind, that it was discovered, in 1911, that they could be detected in cloud chambers. The ions, with their electric charge, served as nuclei for tiny water droplets and those droplets marked out the path of the particle.
Positrons, which I use in robotic brain paths in order to make them sound science fictional, are precisely like electrons except for possessing a positive charge rather than a negative one. Alpha particles should shove them out of the way with equal ease, and if positrons make up the brain paths, shoving them away disrupts the brain paths and inactivates the robots.
There’s nothing ingenious about it at all. Perfectly humdrum.
And then a short time ago, I received a letter from a gentleman working with a corporation that deals with computers. It begins as follows:
“This letter is to inform you and congratulate you on another remarkable scientific prediction of the future; namely your foreseeing of the dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) logic upset problem caused by alpha particle emission, first observed in 1977, but written about by you in Caves of Steel in 1957.” [Note: Actually, 1952.]
Apparently the corporation tracked down failures in memory devices and finally decided that:
“These failures are caused by trace amounts of radioactive elements present in the packaging material used to encapsulate the silicon devices which, upon radioactive decay, emit high energy alpha particles that upset the logic states of the semiconductor memory….
“I am writing you about this topic because in your book, Caves of Steel, published in the 1950s, you use an alpha particle emitter to ‘murder’ one of the robots in the story, by destroying (‘randomizing’) its positronic brain. This is, of course, as good a way of describing a logic upset as any I’ve heard.
“I get a great big kick out of finding out that our millions of dollars of research, culminating in several international awards for the most important scientific contribution in the field of reliability of semiconductor devices in 1978 and 1979, was predicted in substantially accurate form twenty years [Note: twenty-five years, actually] before the events took place! You may certainly with great pride add this phenomenon to your collection of scientific predictions.”
Well, you can easily imagine that I was delighted, but truth is mighty and will prevail. I instantly wrote to the gentleman who was so pleased at my prediction that I honestly was not aware that I was making a prediction, and that the whole thing was a tribute, not to my ingenuity, but to the good luck that constantly dogs my footsteps.
A much more intuitive and remarkable prediction was made by the science-fictional father of us all, H. G. Wells. First, a little background.
In 1913, the British chemist Frederick Soddy (1877–1956), advanced the “isotope concept” based on his studies of the elements produced in the course of radioactive decay. He proposed that a particular element might be made up of atoms identical in chemical properties but differing somewhat in atomic weight. Elements, then, instead of necessarily being made up of absolutely identical elements were actually mixtures of several almost identical “isotopes” differing in atomic weight.
This made so much sense, it was quickly accepted and has remained a cornerstone of chemistry and of atomic physics ever since.
But just the other day, I received a reprint of a paper by H. G. Wells, written on September 5, 1896 (seventeen years before Soddy’s suggestion), in which he refers to some work done by a chemist the previous year, before radioactivity had even been discovered, and suggests that to explain that work, it is possible to suppose that “there are two kinds of oxygen, one with an atom a little heavier than the other.” By saying that, he is anticipating and predicting the existence of isotopes.
Furthermore, he points out that “the electric spark traversing the gas has a…selective action. Your heavier atoms or molecules get driven this or that way with slightly more force.” This is a pretty good description of a phenomenon first noted by the British physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856–1940), in 1912, sixteen years after Wells’s suggestion.
How’s that!
Naturally, I would like to point to something of my own that contained a bit of nice intuitive insight, and here it is. In 1966, I wrote a scientific essay, “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover,” which eventually appeared in the September 1966 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
In it I wanted to speculate about the origin of the universe and I was anxious to rebut the favorite comment of some who would ask, “If the universe started as a ‘cosmic egg,’ where did the cosmic egg come from?” The hope was that if I were faced with that question I would have to admit the existence of a supernatural agency of creation.
I therefore postulated the existence of “negative energy” and supposed that energy was created in both negative and positive form so that there was no net creation. I went on to advance what I called “Asimov’s Cosmogonic Principle” and wrote, “The most economical way of expressing the principle is ‘In the Beginning, there was Nothing.’ ”
Well, some ten years later, the theory of the “inflationary universe” was advanced. It was altogether different from anything I had suggested, but in one respect it was identical. The universe was pictured as starting as a quantum fluctuation in a vacuum, so that “In the Beginning, there was Nothing.”
That piece of insight I am really proud of.
Best-seller
In the December 1982 issue of this magazine, you may recall that the first two chapters of my novel Foundation’s Edge were presented as an excerpt, together with an essay of my own on the novel’s genesis and some pleasant comments from my friends and colleagues. I agreed to all this under strong pressure from the editorial staff, who thought it would be a Good Thing and who overrode my own objections that readers would complain that I was using the magazine for personal aggrandizement.
As it happened, my fears were groundless. Readers’ comments were generally friendly, and a gratifying number indicated their
determination to get the book and finish reading it.
It may be that you are curious to know what happened after the book was published. (For those of you interested in Asimovian trivia, it was published on October 8, 1982.) I’d like to tell you, because what happened astonished me totally. The book proved to be a best-seller!
I don’t mean it was a “best-seller” in the usual publisher’s-promotion way of indicating that it didn’t actually sink without a trace on publication day. I mean it appeared on the national best-seller lists and as I write, it is in third place on both The New York Times and on the Publishers Weekly list of hardcover fiction. Maybe by the time this editorial appears, it will have disappeared from the lists, but right now it’s there.
In the past, in these editorials, I have promised to keep you up to date on my endeavors and I will do it now in the form of an invented interview:
Q. Dr. Asimov, is this your first best-seller?
A. For some reason, people find that hard to believe, perhaps because I’m so assiduous at publicizing myself, but Foundation’s Edge is my first best-seller. It is my 262nd book and I have been a professional writer for forty-four years, so I guess this qualifies me as something less than an overnight success.
Mind you, this is not my first successful book. Very few of my books have actually lost money for the publisher and many of them have done very well indeed over the years. The earlier books of the Foundation trilogy have sold in the millions over the thirty years they have been in print. Again, if you group all my books together and total the number of sales of “Asimov” (never mind the titles) then I have a best-seller every year.
However, Foundation’s Edge is the first time a single book of mine has sold enough copies in a single week to make the best-seller lists, and in the eight weeks since publication (as I write), it has done it in each of eight weeks.
Q. And how do you feel about that, Dr. A.?
A. Actually, I have no room for any feeling but that of astonishment. After publishing two hundred and sixty-one books without any hint of best-sellerdom, no matter how many of them might have been praised, I came to think of that as a law of nature. As for Foundation’s Edge in particular, it has no sex in it, no violence, no sensationalism of any kind, and I had come to suppose that this was a perfect recipe for respectable non-best-sellerdom.
Once I get over the astonishment, though (if ever), I suppose I will have room for feeling great. After all, Foundation’s Edge will earn more money than I expected, and it will help my other books to sell more copies, and it may mean that future novels of mine may do better than I would otherwise expect, and I can’t very well complain about any of that.
Then, too, think of the boost to my ego! (Yes, I know! You think that’s the last thing it needs.) People who till now have known I was a writer and accepted it with noticeable lack of excitement even over the number of books I have committed, now stop me in order to congratulate me, and do so with pronounced respect. Personally, I don’t think that being on the best-seller lists makes a book any the higher in quality and, all too often, it might indicate the reverse, but I must admit I enjoy the congratulations and all that goes with it.
Q. Are there any disadvantages to all this great stuff, Isaac?
A. Oddly enough, there are. For one thing, my esteemed publishers, Doubleday and Company, would like me to travel all over the United States pushing the book. (It is, at the moment, their only fiction best-seller and they are as eager as I am to have it stay on the lists forever.) They are putting considerable money into advertising and promotion and it would only be fair that I do my bit as well. However, I don’t like to travel, and so I have to refuse their suggestions that I go to Chicago, for instance. And it makes me feel guilty, and a traitor both to my publisher and my book. I have made a trip to Philadelphia, though.
There is also a higher than normal demand for interviews through visits or on the telephone. This doesn’t demand traveling on my part and I try to oblige (telling myself it’s good publicity for the book), but it does cut into my writing time, and I can’t allow too much of that.
Then, too, there’s an extraordinary demand for free copies. This is a common disease among writers’ friends and relations, who feel that there is no purpose in knowing a writer if you have to help support him. My dear wife ( J. O. Jeppson), who is a shrewd questioner, has discovered the astonishing fact that some people think writers get unlimited numbers of free copies to give out. They don’t! Except for a certain very small number, they have to buy copies just as anyone else does. (Even if they did have unlimited numbers of free copies, giving them rather than selling them would ruin a writer, just as giving meat rather than selling it would ruin a butcher.)
What I have done is to resist firmly any temptation to hand out Foundation’s Edge. I have told everyone they must buy copies at a bookstore. If they insist, I will give them copies of other books, but those sales of Foundation’s Edge must be registered. Every little bit helps.
Q. Do you see any importance in this situation aside from personal profit and gratification?
A. I do, indeed. Soon after Foundation’s Edge was published, Arthur C. Clarke’s new novel, 2010: Odyssey Two was published, and it hit the bestseller lists, too. At the moment of writing it is in fifth place on The New York Times list. Earlier this year, Robert A. Heinlein made the list with Friday and Frank Herbert did so with White Plague.
I think this is the first year in which four different science fiction writers made the lists with straight science fiction books. I also think that in the case of Clarke and myself, this is the first time straight science fiction has landed so high on the lists.
This is gratifying to me as a long time science fiction fan. It indicates to me that, finally, science fiction is coming to be of interest to the general public and not simply to those few who inhabit the SF “ghetto.”
In fact, I wish to point this out to those SF writers who are bitter and resentful because they feel that their books are shoved into the background and disregarded merely because they have the SF label on them. Neither Foundation’s Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two makes any effort to hide the fact that it is science fiction. The publishers’ promotion in each case utterly fails to obscure that fact. In the case of Foundation’s Edge, The New York Times carefully describes it as “science fiction” each week in its best-seller listing. And yet it continues to sell.
To be sure, there is a trace of the “ghetto” just the same. There is one thing that Arthur and I have in common, aside from bestselling books. As of the moment of writing, neither Foundation’s Edge nor 2010: Odyssey Two has been reviewed in The New York Times. I presume the paper hesitates to bestow that accolade on mere science fiction. Oh, well!
Q. And what are your present projects, Isaac?
A. Well, Doubleday has informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I am condemned to write one novel after another for life, and that I am not permitted to consider dying.
So I am working on another novel. This one is to be the third novel of the robot series. Both Lije Baley and R. Daneel will reappear, and will complete the trilogy that began with The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The third novel is called World of the Dawn.
After that, I am afraid that Doubleday expects me to do a fifth Foundation novel; and, apparently, so do the readers. For three decades they badgered me for a sequel to the Foundation trilogy and when I gave that to them, the ungrateful dogs responded by badgering me for a sequel to the sequel.
I’d complain, except that I love it.
Note:
On December 19, 1982, The New York Times finally reviewed Foundation’s Edge, and very favorably too. On that day, the book had slipped to sixth place in the best-seller list (still not bad) but Clarke had climbed to second place.
Pseudonyms
It was quite fashionable, in earlier times, to refrain from putting one’s name to things one had written. The writer could leave himself unnamed (“anonymous”—from Greek words meaning �
��no name”), or else he could use a false name (“pseudonym”—from Greek words meaning “false name”). So common was the practice that a pseudonym is often referred to as a “pen-name,” or, to give it greater elegance by placing it in French, a “nom de plume.”
There were a variety of reasons for this. In most places in the world and at most times, it was all too easy to write something that would get you in trouble. The corruption, venality, and cruelty of those in power cried out for exposure, and those in power had the strongest objections to being exposed. For that reason, writers had to expect all sorts of governmental correction if caught—anywhere from a fine to death by torture.
The best-known example of this type of pseudonym was Voltaire, the eighteenth century French satirist, whose real name was Francois-Marie Arouet.
A second major reason was that any nonscholarly writing was looked upon as rather frivolous, and a decent person guilty of concocting such material might well be looked upon askance by society, and considered as having lost caste. A pseudonym, therefore, preserved respectability. This was especially true of women who were widely considered sub-human in mentality (by men) and who would have shocked the world by a too-open demonstration of the possession of brains. Mary Ann Evans, therefore, wrote under the name of George Eliot, and Charlotte Brontë at first wrote under the name of Currer Bell.
One would think that neither reason would hold for the world of modern American science fiction. Why should anyone fear punishment for writing science fiction in our free land, or why should anyone fear the loss of respectability if convicted of the deed. And yet—
It is conceivable, particularly in the early days of magazine science fiction, that people in the more sensitive professions, such as teaching, would not have cared to have it known that they wrote “pseudo-scientific trash” and so would protect themselves from lack of promotion, or outright dismissal, by the use of a pseudonym. I don’t know of such cases definitely, but I suspect some.
