< previous page page_190 next page >

Page 190
f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif
I read it [the Trilogy] with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and conversation. No action. No physical suspense.
f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif
What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? To be sure, I couldn't help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I finished the book, and that I wanted more, but I was the author for goodness' sake. You couldn't go by me.
f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif
I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the money when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series said, "Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is invisible but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas."
f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif f9a522f89232d5b7d27e9f2bbc694306.gif
Oh well, if what was needed were "permutations and reversals of ideas," then that I could supply. Panic receded, and on June 10, 1981, I dug out the fourteen pages I had written more than eight years before. . . .
Asimov finished the novel on March 25, 1982, after a difficult nine months for himself and his wife, as his lack of confidence in what he was doing (and his inability to take on large non-fiction projects) left him moody and depressed. His title for the novel was Lightning Rod, but Doubleday insisted that it have "Foundation" in the title, and Foundation's Edge was published in September. Immediately it appeared in twelfth place on The New York Times' best-seller list, rose to third, and spent twenty-five weeks on the list.
Its success, however, set off a small alarm in Asimov's mind: now Doubleday would never let him stop writing novels. And it never did. Foundation's Edge was followed by The Robots of Dawn in 1983, Robots and Empire in 1985, Foundation and Earth in 1986, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain in 1987, Prelude to Foundation in 1988, Nemesis in 1989, and Forward the Foundation, published posthumously in 1993. Meanwhile, his Norby collaborations with his wife Janet were also appearing, as well as the expansions of his favorite short stories by Robert Silverberg, Nightfall in 1990, The Ugly Little Boy in 1992, and The Positronic Man ("The Bicentennial Man") in 1993.
The Robots of Dawn made the best-seller lists, but for fewer weeks than Foundation's Edge. Robots and Empire made Publisher's Weekly's best-seller list but not that of The New York Times. Foundation and Earth, however, returned Asimov to both lists. Nemesis also was, in Asimov's words, "quite successful."
He still found time for other books. After 1979, he published 21

 
< previous page page_190 next page >