The Early Asimov or Eleven Years of Trying (1972) is my second favorite Isaac Asimov collection. The first is Before The Golden Age (1974), an anthology of the stories that inspired him to write. With The Early Asimov we get a guided tour through his junior stories on the path to becoming a full-time writer. Like Before The Golden Age, each story is encapsulated by biography. (A fact that lead to his writing his autobiography.) It’s not every story he wrote. He excludes the earliest like “Marooned Off Vesta” (Amazing Stories, March 1939). He also mentions stories he has lost or thrown away, making rabid completists and archivists froth at the mouth.
The story of the young Asimov trying to find his voice in Science Fiction, is really the tale of two men: Asimov and his editor, John W. Campbell. Asimov’s singular desire to be an Astounding author is quite clear:
Then, in May 1938, the most important magazine in the field. Astounding Science Fiction, changed its publication schedule from the third Wednesday of the month to the fourth Friday.
But, of course, learning to write SF, Asimov was not an instant success with Campbell. This meant his rejects were published elsewhere. In Asimov’s mind, he hadn’t really accomplished anything until he sold “Trends” to JCW. This tunnel vision obscures some facts about Asimov’s early stuff. For instance, his first story appeared in Amazing Stories, only two months after Eando Binder’s “I, Robot”, a title that would be very important to Ike in later years. Ray A. Palmer really was the first publisher of Isaac Asimov.
Another fact that is forgotten is how important Fred Pohl was to the early author. As a desperate editor with no budget he scooped a number of early tales for Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories.
“The Callistan Menace” (Astonishing Stories, April 1940)
“Ring Around the Sun” (Future Fiction, March 1940)
“The Magnificent Possession” (Future Fiction, July 1940)
“Trends” (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1939) This story appeared in the same issue that A. E. van Vogt exploded onto the scene with “The Black Destroyer”. It is understandable if we associate that tale with the magazine first. Asimov admits he wished he could be an instant star the way A. E. van Vogt and Robert A. Heinlein had been. Instead, he had to wait until 1941 and “Nightfall” (Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1941).
In time to come, Van Vogt, Heinlein, and I would be universally listed among the top authors of the Golden Age, but Van Vogt and Heinlein were that from the very beginning. Each blazed forth as a first-magazine star at the moment his first story appeared, and their status never flagged throughout the remainder of the Golden Age. I, on the other hand (and this is not false modesty), came up only gradually.
“The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use” (Amazing Stories, May 1939)
“Black Friar of the Flame” (Planet Stories, Spring 1942)
“Half-Breed” (Astonishing Stories, February 1940)
“The Secret Sense” (Cosmic Stories, March 1941)
“Homo Sol” (Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1940) This story was the first of a series, in fact, Ike includes all three stories from the series. “The Imaginary’ and “The Hazing” were the other two. This first story appeared in Astounding, so Campbell liked it. He rejected the other two. They appeared in Astonishing Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Asimov wanted to please JWC but he also needed to sell stories so he could go to Columbia. (Campbell often congratulated himself for the stories in other magazines, since he had rejected them first.)
“Half-Breeds on Venus” (Astonishing Stories, December 1940) This story was significant because it was the first sequel Ike ever wrote and it got the cover. This was always a big deal back in the Pulps. To get the cover meant your story was the best one in the issue. (The reality was often that story had the most exciting scene, or nudity, out of the collected tales.)
“The Imaginary” (Super Science Stories, November 1942)
“Heredity” (Astonishing Stories, April 1941)
“History” (Super Science Novels, March 1941)
“Christmas on Ganymede” (Startling Stories, January 1942)
“The Little Man on the Subway” (Fantasy Book, V1 #6, January 1950) (with Fred Pohl as James MacCreagh) The other Campbell high-water mark Asimov wanted to hit was inclusion in Unknown. The magazine ended in 1943 because of wartime paper shortages so Ike never made it in.
As it happened, he had written, under that pseudonym, a small fantasy called “The Little Man on the Subway,” which he apparently had hopes for but couldn’t get right. He asked me if I would rewrite it, and the request flattered me. Besides, I was still trying to get into Unknown, and if I couldn’t do it on my own, maybe I could do it by way of a collaboration. I wasn’t proud at least as far as fantasy was concerned.
“The Hazing” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1942)
“Super-Neutron” (Astonishing Stories, September 1941)
“Not Final!” (Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1941)
“Legal Rites” (Weird Tales, September 1950) (with Fred Pohl as James MacCreagh) Another Pohl-Asimov collab that didn’t sell for a long time, this one to the later day Dorothy McIlwraith at Weird Tales. In the 1950s the magazine tried to reestablish itself as a kind of Science Fiction magazine but failed. Asimov achieved a dream of many Fantasy-Horror writers, to be on the cover of “The Unique Magazine”. Ike wrote: “As I’ve mentioned before, I was never a reader of Weird Tales, and its type of fiction did not captivate me.” He seemed a little embarrassed about the appearance though he was happy to get a cover.
“Time Pussy” (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1942)
“Author! Author!” (The Unknown Five, 1964) Asimov did kind of retroactively get included in Unknown, when he was included in Unknown Five (1964) edited by D. R. Benson.
“Death Sentence” (Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1943)
“Blind Alley” (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1945)
“No Connection” (Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1948)
“The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline” (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1948) was a mock article based on pseudo-science. Ike worried the review board for his doctorate would not treat him seriously because of the piece, so he asked JWC tio use a pseudonym. John slipped up and the piece appeared with the Asimov name.
On May 20, 1948, I had my orals. The examining board had seen the article. After I had been on the grill for an hour and twenty minutes, the last question (asked by Professor Ralph S. Halford) was, “Mr. Asimov, tell us something about the thermodynamic properties of the compound thiotimoline.”
He wrote three more over the decades. Personally, I think it is quite dull and self-indulgent. I guess I’m not doctorate material.
“The Red Queen’s Race” (Astounding Science-Fiction, January 1949)
“Mother Earth” (Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1949) This story was an early story set in the same world as The Caves of Steel. Asimov would write many mysteries over the years. His collection Asimov’s Mysteries (1968) kept “Marooned Off Vesta” from appearing in this book.
Asimov ends his apprenticeship with the sale of his last original Foundation story “And Now You Don’t”. At 50,000 words he sold it to John W. Campbell on the first try at two cents a word. His first four figure check. The challenge of meeting JWC’s high standards was no longer in question. Ike had graduated to the big leagues. After eleven years of trying, he had made it.
Another change was coming as well. The relationship between Isaac and John would cool as Dianetics dominated the thoughts of the editor. Asimov would move to other publications like Horace L. Gold’s Galaxy and a long-running relationship with Fantasy & Science Fiction that would include non-fiction in the John W. Campbell mode.
Asimov closes the book with an appendix that lists all sixty of the stories he sold to John W. Campbell. Here we see the classic stories like “Nightfall”, the Robot stories and “Foundation”. The Early Asimov doesn’t include these, of course, but fans can look them up if they need to.
The success of the The Early Asimov spawned several other collections from Doubleday: The Early Pohl, The Early Del Rey, The Early Williamson and The Early Long, but these books were half the size of the Asimov book. (Doubleday was willing to oblige their top author but didn’t want to go bust publishing massive books of other authors.) They are good books but imagine how wonderful they could have been if those authors had been allowed the same latitude.
