[WikiEN-l] The Bewildering Stories Quote

Thu Feb 13 11:40:22 UTC 2003

Although I disagree with stating that many people feel Nightfall is the bestest sci-fi short story ever (as it leads to a ridiculous degree of redundancy where every article will assert its importance and popularity) I do think the quote should more or less remain, although perhaps it should be somewhat modified given the above-mentioned re-quoting:

Asimov met editor Frederik Pohl, who discussed Asimov's rejections and 
> later printed a number of stories in Astonishing Stories and 
> Super-Science Stories (Clute and Edwards 56; Asimov, "Letters" 12). 
> These stories led to the publication of some of the most famous 
> science-fiction stories of all time: the positronic robot stories, the
 Foundation stories, and "Nightfall."

Certainly there is no need to restate the whole paragraph, but note that the robot stories are ALL short stories, with Nightfall being a standalone of note. 

I would rewrite the relevant section as so:

Asimov began contributing stories to science fiction magazines in 1939; his short story "Nightfall" (1941) is described in Bewildering Stories, issue 8, as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time" [1], along with his robot stories. 

The robot stories, many of which were collected in I, Robot (1950), promulgated a set of ethical rules for intelligent machines (see Three Laws Of Robotics), an idea which greatly influenced other writers and thinkers. One such short story, The Bicentennial Man has been made into a movie.

In 1942 he began the Foundation stories, later collected in the Foundation Trilogy: Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953), which recount the collapse and rebirth of an interstellar empire. Years later, he continued the series with Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986) and then wrote the prequels, Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1992). 

He also wrote a spoof science article The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline in 1948 which he feared would affect the obtaining of his degree. 

My version, no longer refers to the empire of foundations as being vast (as certainly there have ben sci-fi empires in comparison to which this one was small and insignificant) nor does it refer to Foundations as Asimov's most famous work. (Which begs the question of whether Nightfall or Foundations is more famous and popular) It also fails to note that Robin Williams was the star of Bicentennial Man, as that seems to be information which belongs on the page for Bicentennial Man, and is hardly directly relevent to the topic at hand. My version also mentions the word "robots" a little less and does not note that the effects of the Rules of Robotics were mostly limited to people writing in the same field as Isaac Asimov, that being somewhat obvious. My version also does not describe the empire of Foundations as being "futuristic", as talk of an interstellar empire and science fiction is inherently futuristic. Even Star Wars, despite being technically in the past, is still so clearly futuristic that to mention it is over-stating and redundant.  

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