A science fiction writer who envisioned the future possibilities for mankind with humanoid robots and galactic empires. He wrote of the spacers who explored and settled the habitable planets in a future time. He created the Three Laws of Robotics.
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| Dr. Isaac Asimov, 1965, *PD |
A = Asimov, Isaac, Author and Professor
Theme: Authors, AtoZ
This theme will highlight various authors that have made an impact on writing or inspired other works, whether by style or subject matter. Hope you find a few authors you know and discover a few new ones as the challenge theme continues throughout April.
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Isaac Asimov, January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992, was a prolific American author and a professor of Biochemistry at Boston University. He is known for his science fiction novels, his popular science books, and for creating some new words. The Oxford English Dictionary credits his science fiction for introducing positronic, psychohistory, and robotics.
Asimov was born in Russia and was brought to New York by his father when he was three years old. His first short story was published when he was 18, and his next work, Nightfall, appeared three years later. In 1964, the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) voted Nightfall as the best short science fiction story of all time.
Along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov was considered one of the 'Big Three' of science fiction writers in his lifetime. He wrote 'hard' science fiction, the most famous being the Foundation Series. He also wrote the Galactic Empire series (set in an earlier time of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series) and the Robot series, from which I, Robot, the movie was developed.
In 1942, Asimov published the first of his Foundation stories. These were later collected in the Foundation trilogy: Foundation-1951, Foundation and Empire-1952, and Second Foundation-1953. These novels tell of the collapse and rebirth of an interstellar empire in the future. His positronic robot stories (many collected to form I, Robot) were first published in 1950. Later, in Foundation's Edge, Asimov linked this distant future with the Robot and Spacer stories, creating a unified future history for his epic tale.
Asimov also wrote a lot of nonfiction. He authored books on general science, physics, astronomy, mathematics, history, chemistry and William Shakespeare's writing. He was a member and vice president of MENSA International, although he thought many were arrogant about their IQs.
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| Telegraph news photo, c. 1992 |
Asimov sported mutton-chop whiskers later in life, wore cowboy boots and an old-style western tie called a bolo. He was eccentric and resigned to being so. He liked to say his success was due to 'a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes'. Indeed.
In 1977, Asimov suffered a heart attack and had triple bypass surgery in December of 1983. When he died in New York City on April 6, 1992, the causes were reported as heart and kidney failure. A larger than life man had reached the end.
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Have you heard of Isaac Asimov or his Foundation series, or the Robot series of books? Do you read or write science fiction?Please leave a comment to let me know you were here, and I'll respond! Thanks for dropping by. Let me know if you're part of the challenge, so I can be sure to visit your blog.
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A to Z Challenge - 2016
It's April again and time for the 2016 Blogging from A to Z challenge This is my 4th year participating in the challenge! (Previous A to Z posts at the top of my blog page tabs are: Art A-Z, French Faves, Paris, Etc.
Thanks to originator Lee (Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out), and the co-hosts and co-host teams who make the challenge run smoothly. See the list of participants, and other important information at the A to Z Blog site. The basic idea is to blog every day in April except Sundays (26 days). On April 1st, you begin with the letter A, April 2 is the letter B, and so on. Posts can be random or use a theme.
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| Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016 - Badge |
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-z-challenge-sign-up-list-2016.html A to Z Blog List
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov Isaac Asimov Wiki
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/10383953/Isaac-Asimov.html Telegraph article
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MENSA = the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world
*** IMAGE: Dr. Isaac Asimov portrait, 1965, *PD
This work is from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.
This photograph is a work for hire created prior to 1968 by a staff photographer at New York World-Telegram & Sun. It is part of a collection donated to the Library of Congress and per the instrument of gift it is in the public domain.
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