Isaac Asimov: The Early Asimov. Volume 2

'Don't take it so hard,' said a mild voice behind Russell Harley. He whirled surlily. Nicholls was coming up the street after him from the courthouse, Wilson in tow.

Nicholls said, 'You lost the case, but you've still got your life. Let me buy you a drink. In here, perhaps.'

He herded them into a cocktail lounge, sat them down before they had a chance to object. He glanced at his expensive wrist watch. 'I have a few minutes,' he said. 'Then I really must be off. It's urgent.'

He hailed a barman, ordered for all. Then he looked at young Harley and smiled broadly as he dropped a bill on the counter to pay for the drinks.

'Harley,' he said, 'I have a motto that you would do well to remember at times like these. I'll make you a present of it, if you like.'

'What is it?'

' "The worst is yet to come."'

Harley snarled and swallowed his drink without replying. Wilson said, 'What gets me is, why didn't they come to us before the trial with that stuff about this charmingly illicit client you wished on me? We'd have had to settle out of court.'

Nicholls shrugged. 'They had their reasons,' he said. 'After all, one case of exorcism, more or less, doesn't matter. But lawsuits set precedents. You're a lawyer, of sorts, Wilson; do you see what I mean?'

'Precedents?' Wilson looked at him slackjawed for a moment; then his eyes widened.

'I see you understand me.' Nicholls nodded. 'From now on in this state - and by virtue of the full-faith-and-credence clause of the Constitution, in every state of the country - a ghost has a legal right to haunt a house!'

'Good lord!' said Wilson. He began to laugh, not loud, but from the bottom of his chest.

Harley stared at Nicholls. 'Once and for all,' he whispered, 'tell me - what's your angle on all this?'

Nicholls smiled again.

'Think about it a while,' he said lightly. 'You'll begin to understand.' He sniffed his wine once more, then sat the glass down gently - And vanished.

As I've mentioned before, I was never a reader of Weird Tales, and its type of fiction did not captivate me. In 1950, though, when 'Legal Rites' finally appeared, Weird Tales was nearing the end of its thirty-year road and I'm rather glad I made its pages at least once before its end, even if only as half of a collaboration. It was the longest story in the issue and it received the cover.

'Legal Rites' and 'The Little Man on the Subway' are the only pieces of fiction I ever wrote in collaboration, and I didn't really enjoy the process. Later on in my career, I had occasion to collaborate on four or five non-fiction books and never really enjoyed that either, nor were any of the collaborations successful. I'm essentially a loner and like to take full responsibility for what I write.

In the case of 'Legal Rites' it seems to me that the beginning is mostly Pohl's rewriting; the trial scene is mostly mine; the ending - I don't remember.

Fantasy was not the only type of story I kept bullheadedly trying, over and over, without much success. Another type was the broadly farcical. I never sold either type to Campbell, but I at least sold the latter elsewhere.

Even while I was writing 'Legal Rites,' I was working on another robot story, but a humorous one - or what I considered humor. I called it 'Source of Power' and at least knew better than to waste time trying it on Campbell. I sent it directly to Thrilling Wonder, and when it was rejected there, I tried Amazing.

Amazing bought it on October 8, 1941 - my first sale to that magazine since those exciting beginning days of the fall of 1938. When it appeared on the stands (two days after Pearl Harbor) in the February 1942 issue, I found that Amazing had retitled it 'Robot AL-76 Goes Astray.'

Although 'Robot AL-76 Goes Astray' was a 'positronic robot' story, it didn't really fit in with the other three I had thus far written. When 1, Robot, my first collection of 'posi-tronic robot' stories, was put together, in 1950, I did not include 'Robot AL-76 Goes Astray' in that volume. When, however, in 1964, The Rest of the Robots was put together, I felt honor-bound by the title, if nothing else, to include all the remaining robot stories published till then, and therefore 'Robot AL-76 Goes Astray' was included.

August 1, 1941 ('Robot AL-76 Goes Astray' was then still working its slow way through the typewriter, because the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union distracted me) was another important day in my writing career. I went to see John Campbell that day and, not liking to come to him without an idea, I thought hard on the subway ride there.

The fate of 'Pilgrimage' (soon to become 'Black Friar of the Flame') was still rankling, and I wanted to write another future-historical. I therefore suggested to him that I do a short story against the background of the slow fall of the Galactic Empire (something I intended to model quite frankly on the fall of the Roman Empire).

Campbell caught fire. We spent two hours together, and by the time it was over it was not going to be a short story at all, but an indefinitely long series of stories dealing with the fall of the First Galactic Empire and the rise of the Second.

I submitted the first story of the series, 'Foundation,' to Campbell on September 8, 1941, and it was accepted on the fifteenth. It appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding.

Over the next eight years I was to write seven more stories of what came to be called the 'Foundation' series, and these were finally collected into three volumes, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, which collectively were called The Foundation Trilogy.

Of all my science fiction, these books were most successful. First published in 1951, 1952 and 1953, respectively, they have been in print constantly as hard-covers ever since, despite the appearance of numerous soft-cover editions. And in 1966, at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention, in Cleveland, the 'Foundation' series received a Hugo (science fiction's equivalent of the Oscar) as the 'Best All-Time Series.'

After 'Foundation' I was ready to try a serious positronic robot story for the first time in half a year. This one, 'Run-around,' was submitted to Campbell on October 20, 1941, and he accepted it on the twenty-third. It appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding and was eventually included in I, Robot.

I then had to get to work at once on a sequel to 'Foundation.' 'Foundation' had been brought to an inconclusive ending on the assumption that a sequel would be forthcoming, and I had to come through. On November 17, the sequel, 'Bridle and Saddle,' which was the second story of the 'Foundation' series, was submitted to Campbell, and he accepted it the same day -a record in speed. What's more, it was the longest story I had yet written - eighteen thousand words - and even though I received no bonus, the check, for $180, was the largest single check I had yet received. 'Bridle and Saddle' was eventually included in Foundation.

Now, at last, I had a series of long stories going, together with my 'positronic robot' series of short stories. I was feeling quite good.

On November 17, 1941, the day I submitted and sold 'Bridle and Saddle,' Campbell told me his plan for starting a new department in Astounding, one to be called 'Probability Zero.' This was to be a department of short-shorts, five hundred to one thousand words, which were to be in the nature of plausible and entertaining Munchausen-like lies. Campbell 's notion was that, aside from the entertainment value of. these things, they would offer a place where beginners could penetrate the market without having to compete quite so hard with established writers. It would form a stairway to professional status.