lotus

previous page: 3.4 What is Isaac Asimov's last book?
  
page up: Isaac Asimov FAQ
  
next page: 4.1 What is this "Forward the Foundation" I keep hearing about?

3.5 Of his own work, what were Isaac Asimov's favorite and least favorite novels? What were his favorite and least favorite stories?




Description

This article is from the Isaac Asimov FAQ, by Edward J. Seiler ejseiler@earthlink.net and John H. Jenkins jenkins@mac.com with numerous contributions by others.

3.5 Of his own work, what were Isaac Asimov's favorite and least favorite novels? What were his favorite and least favorite stories?

Asimov's favorite novel was The Gods Themselves , largely because of the
middle section, which was both absolutely brilliant and included
non-humans and sex (Asimov had often been accused of being unable to write
stories with non-humans or sex and therefore leaving them out of his
work.)

His least favorite novel was The Stars Like Dust . It was scheduled for
serialization in Galaxy , then edited by Horace Gold. Gold absolutely
insisted on including a subplot about the characters ransacking the Galaxy
for an ancient document which would utterly revolutionize their political
order. In the end, it turns out that the document is "gur Pbafgvghgvba bs
gur Havgrq Fgngrf" (rot-13 coding added as spoiler protection, as if this
sub-par novel could be truly "spoiled" by giving away plot points).

Asimov loathed the subplot and bitterly resented being forced to add it.
He offered to his editor at Doubleday, Walter Bradbury, to remove it for
the hardcover publication, but Bradbury liked the subplot and insisted it
be left in.

Then to add insult to injury, when the first paperback edition was
published by Ace, they changed the title (for the worse) and totally
gutted the novel, to the point that Asimov could hardly recognize it.

Asimov's three favorite stories were (in order): "The Last Question",
"The Bicentennial Man", and "The Ugly Little Boy" (all found in
The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov , among other places).

Among his least favorite stories were:

"Black Friar of the Flame" (found in The Early Asimov ). The story was
his first attempt at a "future historical" and was bounced around from
editor to editor until it was finally published. It was revised a
half-a-dozen times and rejected ten times in a two-year-period. Asimov
was so bitter over the story's history that he swore never again to revise
anything more than twice, and he would even fight over having to do a
second revision.

(This is his least favorite story among those that most Asimov fans are
likely to have ever read. He also implies in The Early Asimov that it
is his least favorite story of all time, but this is clarified in
In Joy Still Felt .)

His all-time least favorite story was "The Portable Star"
( Thrilling Wonder Stories , Winter 1955). As with "A Woman's Heart,"
Asimov never authorized its anthologization. He describes it as a sleazy
attempt to cash in on the new interest in sex in sf started by Philip Jose
Farmer's 1952 story, "The Lovers."

He also published a story, "A Woman's Heart" in the June 1957 Satellite
which he considered so trivial that he never included it in any of his
collections.

 

Continue to:













TOP
previous page: 3.4 What is Isaac Asimov's last book?
  
page up: Isaac Asimov FAQ
  
next page: 4.1 What is this "Forward the Foundation" I keep hearing about?