And Then There Was One (Well, Three)…

I’m a long-time member of the Science Fiction Book Club. I’ve been a member at least four times over the course of my life—you sign up, get your cheap books, fulfill your obligation, then wrestle with the hassle of all the books they send you “accidentally” because you didn’t get your reply card back to them in a timely fashion until you can’t take any more and quit. It was quite a scam, really. I don’t know how many books I ended up paying for because it was less bother than sending them back.

Nowadays, it’s not nearly so bad, since it’s all online. I get an email telling me that there are new featured selections and I go at once to their Web site to say that I don’t want them. Getting books I don’t want is a thing of the past, and I’m content to stay a silent customer until something I’m really interested in comes along.

I do check periodically to see what they’ve got by Asimov, just to keep an eye on what’s out there. (I do the same with bookstores.) Over the weekend, I did one of my periodic sweeps and was rather disheartened to see that they actually have only one: a Foundation Trilogy omnibus.

(Ironically, since it contains just the first three books, the cover is artwork by Michael Whelan for a paperback edition of Foundation’s Edge.)

That’s sad, really—not because Asimov published 500+ books and most of them are unavailable, even the really good ones. A lot of those books are science books, after all, and science books have a limited shelf life, and a lot of Asimov’s books are anthologies which also have limited shelf lives (but for different reasons). That’s OK. Nor is the problem that Asimov wrote a lot of really good science fiction which is out of print. His heyday was some fifty to sixty years ago, after all, and not much from that far back is still around, not even the good stuff.

No, the problem is that Asimov wrote some truly seminal books and they’re being neglected by the current crop of science fiction readers, at least, if the SFBC is any indication. I mean, lacking Nemesis is probably a good idea, lacking The Gods Themselves is plausible, lacking Nine Tomorrows seems inevitable, and lacking The End of Eternity is on the disappointing side yet acceptable—but no I, Robot? Seriously?

This is particularly unfortunate since there is considerably more Asimov currently in print from Dobuleday, which was historically one of the big firms responsible for the various book clubs out there, as a way of boosting sales of the books in their catalog albeit with cheap editions.

For the record, Robert A. Heinlein has three books in the SFBC catalog, two of which are omnibus editions of some of his juveniles from the 1950’s and the third of which is Stranger in a Strange Land—a nice sampling, really, of his work. As for Arthur C. Clarke, he’s down to one, too, and that one is a late collaboration with Stephen Baxter and not one of his really important solo efforts (e.g., Childhood’s End), so he’s even worse off than Asimov.

Scott on Asimov on Cable

Thanks to that Neil guy for pointing out to me the announcement that Ridley Scott will be doing a series for the Science Channel called Prophets of Science Fiction. According to the full press release (available on io9), “ PROPHETS OF SCIENCE FICTION explores legendary figures; including Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, and examines how their work often inspired future discoveries decades before they took place.”

One hopes that Scott is better at making television documentaries than his press agent is at punctuation. (And who the heck are Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, anyway?)

Happy Birthday, Dr. A!

And what better way to celebrate Asimov’s 91st birthday than to read a copy of his 91st book, The Near East? If you happen not to have a copy—all too likely, I’m sorry to say—alternate suggestions are:

Obviously, there are some of these I would recommend over others, but any of them would make a fine celebratory read.