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Page 67
4
The Short Stories
Asimov's two great literary inventions the Foundation galaxy with its future history and psychohistory, and the realistic, production-model robot should not obscure his creation of an even more substantial body of individual stories and novels that are not linked by common characters or common themes, even though most of them fit into the same future history as The Foundation Trilogy. In this chapter and in Chapter 6, I discuss Asimov's non-series stories and novels. That means a return to the beginning of his science-fiction career.
Asimov had been writing science fiction for three years and seeing his stories published for two when, on March 17, 1941, he entered the office of the editor of Astounding Science Fiction as he had done many times before. As usual he had an idea for a story to discuss with Campbell, but this time Campbell brushed it aside. Campbell had his own idea to present.
As Asimov recalled in his autobiography:
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He had come across a quotation from an eight-chapter work by Ralph Waldo Emerson called Nature. In the first chapter, Emerson said: If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God. Campbell asked me to read it and said, "What do you think would happen, Asimov, if men were to see the stars for the first time in a thousand years?"
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I thought, and drew a blank. I said, "I don't know."
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Campbell said, "I think they would go mad. I want you to write a story about that."
After discussing the idea with Campbell and providing answers to such Campbell questions as "why should the stars be invisible at other times?," Asimov went home to write the story. He started it the next evening.

 
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