It's Been a Good Life

by Isaac Asimov

  Sixteen.

  BEYOND LIMITATIONS

  [Isaac began to write science articles, not just for scientific journals, but for other magazines.] I had by now [1954] published five articles in the Journal of Chemical Education [JCE]. All were trivial, but amusing. The fifth was entitled "Potentialities of Protein Isomerism," and ... it dealt with the number of possible ways in which the amino acids in various protein molecules could be lined up. The possibilities were absolutely flabbergasting, since the 539 amino acids in the horse hemoglobin molecule could be arranged in a number of different ways equal to a 4 followed by 619 zeros.

  It occurred to me that this was amazing enough to be of sciencefictional interest, and, after all, the JCE did not pay for an article, while Astounding would.

  I therefore wrote up my protein isomerism article in an entirely different style and shape, made it 5,000 words long, entitled it "Hemoglobin and the Universe," and sent it off to Campbell on July 19, 1954. He accepted it and paid me $150 for it.

  My thiotimoline articles were fiction pieces written in nonfiction style. "Hemoglobin and the Universe" was the first true nonfiction article I had ever sold to a science-fiction magazine.

  It excited me enormously. Writing nonfiction for the science-fiction audience meant I did not have to keep either my science or my vocabulary to the early teenage level, as in The Chemicals of Life, nor did I have to adopt the stylized turgidity of a textbook. In "Hemoglobin and the Universe" I wrote about science in a friendly, bouncy way, and I could tell at once that I had come home. That was the way I wanted to write nonfiction, and from then on I sought out every possible opportunity to do so. Not only friendly and bouncy but, even more so, personal.

  [Later] In fiction, every story has to be different, no matter what. Not so in nonfiction. I could write an article for the Journal of Chemical Education, expand and popularize it for Analog, shorten and simplify it for Science World. Though it remained essentially the same article, the changes were useful and did not represent "cheating," since each article was aimed at a different audience and had to be tailored to suit.

  It also became apparent that I could write all these different nonfiction articles much more rapidly and with less mental turmoil than I could write fiction. Then, too, although a nonfiction article could be rejected, it simply was rejected. Never did I have the long, complicated arguments for revision that I received from Campbell, or the short, brutal ones that I received from Horace Gold. As a matter of fact, the percentage of rejections was less in the case of nonfiction.

  Insensibly, I found myself increasingly drawn to nonfiction.

  Despite my sale of "Hemoglobin and the Universe," I did not totally abandon the JCE, for which I wrote another small paper, entitled "The Radioactivity of the Human Body." In it, I discussed the radioactive atoms that occurred naturally in the human body and pointed out that by far the most important of these and the one that was absolutely bound to have crucial effects upon the body was carbon-14 ... it was published in the February 1955 issue.

  As far as I knew at the time, this was the first occasion on which anyone had pointed out the importance of carbon-14 in this respect. It was an original idea of mine, although I believe Willard Libby, the Nobel Prize-winning specialist in carbon-14, may have had the idea at the same time ...

  Nearly four years later, Linus Pauling published a paper in the November 14, 1958, Science that discussed the dangers of carbon-14 in a careful and systematic way.

  I'm sure Pauling's article played its part in the eventual agreement on the part of the three chief nuclear powers to suspend atmospheric testing, for Pauling was one of the most prominent and influential critics of such tests, and he used the production of carbon-14 in such tests as one of its chief long-term dangers.

  I do not in any way want to dispute priorities with Pauling. I merely had an idea, which I did not develop. Pauling developed it thoroughly on the basis of the work done by Libby.

  Still, I did work up the courage to send Pauling a reprint of my JCE article by way of a mutual friend, carefully stating that I was not disputing priorities.

  Pauling was kind enough to send me the following letter, dated February 11, 1959:

  Dear Professor Asimov,

  I am pleased that ... should have sent on to me the copy of your carbon14 paper ... I now remember that I had read that paper when it appeared (I always read the Journal of Chemical Education) but I had forgotten about it, except that without doubt the principal argument remained in my mind. I am sorry that I did not mention it in the carbon-14 paper that I published recently, a copy of which is enclosed.

  Sincerely yours,

  s/ Linus Pauling Is

  I don't want to arrogate to myself too much importance, of course, but I think it is fair to say that I may indeed have influenced Professor Pauling, and through him I therefore played a very small part in bringing about the nuclear-test ban-and I'm delighted.

  Of all my science-fiction shorts, I enjoy my robot stories most. I almost feel as though I have the patent on the robots. When other writers produce robot stories in which the robots follow the Three Laws (though no one is allowed to quote them except myself), I feel benign about it. When, however, some other writer dares to have his robots defy and disobey the Three Laws, I can't help but feel it is a case of patent infringement.

  I was learning that to a writer, all is useful raw material. I had gone through a student-nurse textbook of chemistry, and two editions of a medical-student textbook of biochemistry, and was working desultorily on a third edition of the latter. The experience, looking back on it, had been a dreary one, but it had its comic parts, and it could be made interesting to a science-fiction audience. I began an article for Campbell, therefore, that I called "The Sound of Panting." (That was the sound that resulted from trying to keep up with the literature.)

  [In 1954] 1 had, as yet, no inkling that the time was to come when what was most interesting about me as a writer was the number of books I had done.

  After my parents sold the candy story, my mother decided to go to night school and learn how to write. She knew, of course, how to write Yiddish perfectly and Russian just as perfectly. but neither used the Latin script. She had to learn that to write English.

  She learned quickly and in a very short time was able to send me short letters in painstakingly formed English writing. One of the teachers at the night school finally nerved himself to ask The Question [as the Asimov family referred to it].

  "Pardon me, Mrs. Asimov," he said, stopping her in the hall, "are you by any chance a relation of Isaac AsimovT'

  My mother, who was four feet, ten inches tall, drew herself up to her full height and said, proudly, "Yes. He is my dear son."

  "Aha," said the teacher, "no wonder you are such a good writer."

  "I beg your pardon," said my mother, freezingly, "no wonder he is such a good writer."

  [In 1954, he and Gertrude had a daughter named Robyn Joan.] The "y" in Robyn was at my insistence, for I didn't want people to think she was a boy, and the Joan was added as a very plain alternative in case when she grew up she decided she disliked Robyn. Fortunately, she did not. She took to Robyn as I had taken to Isaac, and any other name for her is inconceivable.

  [ 19561 Campbell ... proudly showed me his newest toy. It was called the "Hieronymus machine" after its inventor, and it was a device of surpassing idiocy. It contained a meaningless electric circuit inside, one that could (Campbell seriously claimed) even be replaced by a paper diagram of the circuit without impairing its efficiency. (Which is true, I suppose, since you can't impair zero efficiency.)

  To work the machine, you turned a dial while stroking a plastic surface, and at some reading of the dial there would be a change in the feel of the surface. It would become stickier. From the dial reading at this point one could diagnose diseases and so on.

  Campbell insisted I try the machine. Ordinarily, I would have refused, since I lack any desire at all to lend myself to such folly. O
n this occasion, though, I was delivering a manuscript [The Naked Sun] on which thousands of dollars would rest on Campbell's decision and, frankly, since the dianetics thing, I no longer trusted the rigidity and integrity of his judgment.

  So I agreed to play. Naturally, no matter how I turned the dial I felt no change in the feel of the plate; there was no onset of stickiness and I certainly wasn't going to lie to Campbell and say there was so that he could then use me as evidence of the working of the Hieronymus machine.

  So I twisted and stroked, and stroked and twisted, while my fingers grew sweaty with anxiety and began to slip more easily along the plate.

  "Mr. Campbell," I said, hesitantly, but truthfully, "the plate feels slippery."

  "Aha," said Campbell, triumphantly, as he carefully took the reading. "Negative stickiness!"

  And that's how great nonsense discoveries are made.

  I was thinking about writing another story about Multivac ("Franchise," which had been the first, had been written as a direct consequence of my introduction to Univac in the 1952 election).

  I had worked out ever greater developments of Multivac, and eventually I was bound to consider how far I could go; how far the human mind (or, anyway, my human mind) could reach ...

  I sat down to write "The Last Question," which was only fortyseven hundred words long, but in which I detailed the history of ten trillion years with respect to human beings, computers, and the universe.... I wrote the whole thing in two sittings, without a sentence's hesitation ... I knew at the instant of writing it that I had become involved in something special. When I finished it, I said, in my diary, that it was "the computer story to end all computer stories, or, who knows, the science-fiction story to end all science-fiction stories." Of course, it may well be that no one else agrees with me, but it was my opinion at the time, and it still is today.

  [Seeing one of the planetarium versions of "The Last Question," in 1972] 1 was astonished at any own reaction to it. Though I knew the story (of course) and though the narration and dialog suffered by not being handled by professional actors, the effect built and pyramided.

  I didn't write the story with clever attention to technique; my stories work themselves out with no conscious interference from me. Just the same, the six episodes of the story were successively briefer, more sweeping, and more chilling, just as though I had deliberately planned them that way for effect. Then the final episode slows and waits-and the planetarium grew dark and stayed dark for over two minutes while the last paragraphs of the story were recited in a quiet increase of tension, and the audience was absolutely silent.

  Even I, who knew what was coming, waited, scarcely able to breathe, and for the others the final, sudden creation of the universe must have done everything but stop the heart.

  It was a terrific show; in fact, it was that show that finally convinced me that "The Last Question" was the best story I had ever done and (my private conviction) the best science-fiction story anyone had ever done.

  [See appendix for "THE LAST QUESTION"]

  Seventeen.

  LIMITATIONS CAME

  My history, well into middle age, was marked by my inability to get along with my fellows and my superiors. ... I suspect I was not popular with much of the [medical school] faculty and perhaps couldn't be no matter how sweet I might try to be. Being the best lecturer in the place might please me and please the students [Janet's note: my brother, at the medical school, told me I.A. was the best lecturer.], but it would not necessarily win me medals from the other lecturers.

  Furthermore, it was impossible for me to hide the fact that I had an outside career and that I made money out of it. That was another reason for struggling faculty members not to love me. Nor was the range of my writing something to be approved of.... Finally, I had completely abandoned any pretense of doing research and spent all my spare school time writing nonfiction, which could not help but displease the administration.

  I tried to make up for my outside income by never asking for a raise. (It would be ridiculous for me to scramble after a few more school dollars when my writing earnings were steadily increasing.) ... This, which I considered, in my innocence, to be ethical behavior on my part, proved to be another point against me. To be paid so little was interpreted as meaning that that was all I deserved.

  Worse than any of this, of course, was the offense I had given [one member of the administration] ... in abandoning his research. He dedicated himself to the task of getting rid of me.

  [But Isaac had been made an associate professor, which gave him tenure. He was told, however, that he had to do research.] I finally grew angry enough to say, "... as a science writer, I am extraordinary. I plan to be the best science writer in the world and I will shed luster on the medical school. As a researcher, I am simply mediocre and ... if there's one thing this school does not need, it is one more merely mediocre researcher."

  [He was told] "This school cannot afford to pay a science writer. Your appointment will come to an end as of June 30, 1958."

  I was ready for that, too. I said, "Very well ... you may refuse to pay me a salary." (With heroic self-control I refrained from telling him where he could put my salary.) "In return, I will do no teaching for the school. However, there is no way you can take away my title. I have tenure."

  [One faculty member complimented him on his bravery in fighting for academic freedom.] I shrugged, "There's no bravery about it. I have academic freedom and I can give it to you in two words."

  "What's that'?" he asked.

  "Outside income," I said.

  After two years, it finally came to a vote by the faculty senate (or whatever the group was that had to approve the decision).... I kept my title.... In fact, on October 18, 1979, 1 was promoted to full professor.

  Eighteen.

  GOING ON

  As I ended my school career, I was making five times as much money in my writing as in my teaching. What's more, I had now reached the stage of mass production that has characterized my literary life ever since ... in fact, had [the B.U. Medical School officials] been willing to let things be as they were, I would have had to quit on my own within the space of a year or so, or watch my literary career be aborted.

  Indeed, my freedom from the bonds of my teaching position seemed to be joined by a freedom from the bonds of chemistry as the subject of my nonfiction.... [On] the very first day of my new jobless status, I began The Clock We Live On, which was to be entirely on astronomy and chronometry. These were subjects in which I had never taken a single course at any stage in my school career.

  You might say that, having cut free, I could now afford to take my chances. I had no formal academic standing to endanger, no colleagues to offend.

  However, I was not being foolhardy either. I was not blithely launching myself onto a sea of ignorance. The fact is that I had now been reading science fiction for nearly thirty years and had been writing it for twenty. One cannot be a serious reader and writer of science fiction without getting a broad smattering of many aspects of science and a surprisingly deep understanding of some. And astronomy is, preeminently, the science most clearly associated with science fiction.

  The fact, therefore, that I had never taken any courses in astronomy merely meant that I was weak on some of the mathematical aspects of celestial mechanics and on the nuts and bolts of telescopes and other instrumentation.

  On the descriptive and conceptual aspects of astronomy and even on some of the celestial mechanics, I had an iron-bound grip, so that I began work on The Clock We Live On with absolute assurance.

  And, as I went on to discover, each time I wrote a book on some subject outside my immediate field it gave me courage and incentive to do another one that was perhaps even farther outside the narrow range of my training.... I advanced from chemical writer to science writer, and, eventually, I took all of learning for my subject (or at least all that I could cram into my head-which, alas, had a sharply limited capacity despite all I could do).

>   As I did so, of course, I found that I had to educate myself. I had to read books on physics to reverse my unhappy experiences in school on the subject and to learn at home what I had failed to learn in the classroom-at least up to the point where my limited knowledge of mathematics prevented me from going farther.

  When the time came, I read biology, medicine, and geology. I collected commentaries on the Bible and on Shakespeare. I read history books. Everything led to something else. I became a generalist by encouraging myself to be generally interested in all matters.

  Fortunately, I didn't have to approach anything (or almost anything) completely fresh. My avid and generalized reading as a youngster came to my aid, for as the years passed, I discovered (with a great deal of pleasure) that I simply never forgot the trivia I had read. It was all there in my head and required only the slightest jog to spring to the surface.

  This is not to say I wasn't capable of making mistakes through carelessness or through writing overhurriedly or through being misled by my sources-but none of those mistakes (as far as I know) ever betrayed ignorance of the subject. I grew more casually confident of my polymath abilities with each year, and it was that, even more than my prolificity, that has impressed people and led to my gaining a rather unusual reputation for "knowing everything."

  As I look back on it, it seems quite possible that none of this would have happened if I had stayed at school and had continued to think of myself as, primarily, a biochemist ... [so] I was forced along the path I ought to have taken of my own accord if I had had the necessary insight into my own character and abilities.

  [Writing a science column at the suggestion of Bob Mills, first editor of Venture and then of Fantasy and Science Fiction] At the very beginning, Bob made some suggestions, but that stopped very quickly, and it came to be understood that I was to write what I wanted, exactly how I wanted, and that I was to get galleys of each column so I could see to it that it was set in print just as I wanted it to be.