On Isaac Asimov

Probably the most popular author in the SF genre, Asimov has traditionally been considered one of the "big three" of science-fiction, along with British Arthur C. Clarke and fellow American Robert A. Heinlein.

Some writers may have created a better science fiction from a literary point of view, having developed even better plots or better psychologies for their characters, or some of those other features preferred by highbrow critics, most of which were trained in the Schools of Humanities. It is hard, however, to ignore the importance of Asimov in the underrated genre of SF.

 Asimov was one of the leading figures of the Golden Age of SF, which roughly ran from late 1930s to the 1950´s. It was only in 1926, when German- born publisher Hugo Gernsback, from whom the Hugo Awards would take their name, would baptize this new form of fiction. One which would reach a non negligible artistic level in a century, the 20th, marked by Science.

With such authors like Asimov himself, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon or Lester del Rey, Science-fiction works would gradually make their way into the book market, leaving the ghetto of pulp magazines. The publication by Gnome Press in 1951 of Asimov's Foundation, a series of short stories appeared initially in installments in Astounding in the 1940s, was a milestone. 

 The incredibly prolific Asimov would be writing science-fiction on a regular basis until the year 1958.  The Foundations series (Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation, 1951-53), The caves of steel (1953), The Naked Sun (1955), The End of Eternity (1955) and other works all appeared in the 1950´s, perhaps one of the most brilliant periods in the short history of SF. But by the end of the decade, Asimov would shift away from the genre and would pursue other intellectual and literary interests.

He focused on the popularization not only of Science but also humanistic topics such as history, literature and many others, barely leaving untouched a single one. Asimov would return to SF in 1972 with an extraordinary novel, The Gods Themselves, which would win him the Nebula and Hugo awards. In The Gods Themselves, Asimov managed to create one of the most imaginative and impressive science-fiction novels ever written.  The alien creatures described here, as well as the plot, are simply unforgettable for the reader.

But it had been the popularization of science that really brought him substantial income and a considerable personal satisfaction, as he himself confessed. Asimov was a man of a huge capacity for work, who would not care if he had to spend ten or twelve hours a day before the typewriter. He was lucky enough, however, to have a profession identified with his intellectual interests.

 And in the 1980's, under the pressure of his publisher Doubleday, Asimov would accept to write a continuation of his now legendary Foundations saga. Thus, after Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation (whose distant first publications had taken place thirty years before), Foundation´s Edge  was to be released in 1982, to great success. Followed by 1985 Foundation and Earth, and the 1988 prequel Prelude to Foundation.

Asimov´s characters are not completely polished on a psychological level, we get to know them only through quick dialogues focusing primarily on the plots. But then there are the monumental scenarios the author invokes (like the one set up for the Foundations), the exciting adventures and extraordinary visions. Also some of his original findings, such as the laws of Robotics, or Psychohistory, that projects human history into the future in a similar way as a physicist would with gas molecules.

A true Renaissance man, Asimov is one of only a few individuals for whom this cliché really makes sense. His treatment in hundreds of books, of Science as well as of culture topics, makes Asimov a key figure among the precursors of the Third Culture, which will perhaps be the new paradigm to overcome this divide, which many consider artificial, between the Two Cultures: Science and Humanities.