Today I was reading an article on Lifehacker listing books that should be dropped from reading lists for high schoolers and some that should take their place. I definitely disagree about Dante’s Divine Comedy being dropped—I first read it when I was in junior high, myself. At the same time, I was surprised to see Foundation on the list (or at least the first two sections).

After I finished jumping up and down, I stopped to think. That’s really a rather odd choice. It’s not the best of the original Foundation  “novels,” although it makes sense not to read the other two until you’ve read it. (Personally, I read Foundation and Empire first and am none the worse for the experience.) Still, not my first choice.

When I was in high school, one of my English teachers decided to have a student-taught module on science fiction. I was among the students who got to run the show. We had a reading list, and the one Asimov piece we put on it was “Reason.” On the whole, I still think it’s a reasonable choice, although now I’d more likely be lazy and put “The Last Question” in its place.

What would my choice be for a book by Asimov to put on a reading list for modern high schoolers? One of the chief things to keep in mind is that you need something that a modern high schooler could reasonably get a copy of, which leaves out Nine Tomorrows or Chemistry and Human Health.

On the whole, I’d have to go with one of three: I, Robot, The Caves of Steel, or The End of Eternity. All three are still in print. I, Robot is probably the most influential of the three and is probably the best choice to pique a high schooler’s interest. The other two, on the other hand, are (I believe) Asimov’s best novels.

Any other suggestions?

According to io9, Wikipedia says that January 2 is National Science Fiction Day. I’m including a link to the io9 article because (a) that’s where I ran across this tidbit, and (b) they have a very nice picture of Asimov accompanying the article.

In celebration of what would have been the Good Doctor’s ninety-fifth birthday, I’d like to recommend the following:

• #95 Photosynthesis
• #190 The Key Word and Other Mysteries
• #285 Wizards
• #380 Encounters
• #475 What is an Eclipse?

There is really no contest here. Despite my fondness for Larry and his almost Encyclopedia Brown-like powers of deduction, The Key Word is pretty slight, and What is an Eclipse? even more so. Of the two anthologies, I’d go for Encounters over Wizards; but I’m loathe to recommend an anthology at all. Photosynthesis, on the other hand, is a solid and not particularly outdated science popularization written at Asimov’s peak as a science writer; and for those of us plagued with cold and snow, it’s a good reminder of what will be in just a few months’ time.

The award, then, clearly goes to Photosynthesis.

io9 added an article yesterday of advice entitled “Twelve quotes from authors to remember when starting your first book.” Quote number 11 (“It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.”) is from Asimov, but the article makes up for this low position on the list by illustrating the article with a very nice painting from the 1980’s of Asimov at his Selectric typewriter working his magic. Share and enjoy.

In honor of what would be the Good Doctor’s 94th birthday, we have the following book choices:

• #94 Words from History
• #188 Mars, the Red Planet
• #282 Thirteen Horrors of Halloween
• #376 Other Worlds of Isaac Asimov
• #470 Christopher Columbus: Navigator to the New World

There really isn’t much of a contest this year. What with Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and the innumerable other Mars probes which have been working hard for the past decade or so, Mars, the Red Planet is definitely showing its age. Thirteen Horrors of Halloween is fine—but not in January. Christopher Columbus: Navigator to the New World—not if you’re over seven.

So that leaves Words from History and Other Worlds of Isaac Asimov. Both are good choices, but if reading a book to honor Asimov, Other Worlds of Isaac Asimov is definitely the better choice, if a bit much to do in one day. It would be almost perfect if it were an ebook.

From IO9 today: Forty minutes of the Good Doctor talking to the camera—the edited version of an unsuccessful TV pilot—is available to watch this weekend.

Slate published an article yesterday (which I didn’t see until this morning) in celebration of National Science Fiction Day. It’s tied in with Asimov’s birthday and even includes a classic photograph of Asimov from the 1950s—the one that often appeared in hardback editions of his books and is presumably the most public-domainy of the pictures of Asimov on the Web.

The article, called “Celebrate National Science Fiction Day by Learning To Live in the Future,” argues that we should be using the new technologies available to us to explore the universe more deeply. I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I don’t understand what this “Facebook” thing is the article mentions.

The Good Doctor would have turned 93 today. For reading purposes, that gives us:

Book #93: Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume One

Book #186: The Hugo Winners, Volume Three

Book #279: Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 10, 1948

Book #372: Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 17, 1955

Book #465: How Did We Find Out About Pluto?

Of the five, How Did We Find Out About Pluto? is easily the least worth re-reading. There isn’t anything particularly bad with it, but it was published nearly a quarter-century ago, and that’s a long, long, long time in astronomy. Our understanding of Pluto has not unnaturally—well, let’s say changed in the interval.

The three anthologies are solid enough, but nothing spectacular. That leaves the Guide to the Bible as the book of choice. It’s perhaps a bit much for one day, but definitely worthwhile. (And forty-four years is not nearly as long in Bible studies as a quarter century is in astronomy.)

The best thing is that the Universe is joining in the celebration this time around. The Earth reached perihelion this morning at 4:38 a.m. (UT). This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, but a nice bit of lily-gilding nonetheless.

It was one of those moments that sticks with you.

Not one of the big ones, mind, the ones that everybody is supposed to remember: Martin Luther King’s assassination, Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk, the Columbine shootings, Challenger exploding. No, this was one of the little ones, the ones that mean something to only a few people, or even only one.

In my case, I was popping into the Burger King on El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, and something in a newspaper vending machine caught my eye. There it was, on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News: Isaac Asimov had died.

His death wasn’t entirely a surprise by any means. He had been ill for quite some time. Forward the Foundation was being serialized in Asimov’s Science Fiction with the understanding that he might die before it was finished, and he had given up his essay column in F&SF. Still—

I think what I miss most is his science writing. Of all the things he wrote, his explanations of science have proven the most ephemeral, because science moves ever forward. New things become known, and old perspectives change. The past twenty years have seen enormous advances, particularly in astronomy. Why, we even have a space probe orbiting Vesta, the setting for Asimov’s first sale. (No word from NASA on whether or not the wreck of the Silver Queen has been spotted.) How wonderful it would be to settle in to an easy chair and read the Good Doctor waxing eloquent about string theory or Uranus, the rings of Saturn in all their incredible complexity, or small robots indefatigably working their way across the Martian sands.

As for me, I’m grateful: grateful to have been enlightened and entertained; grateful for brief, fleeting contacts; grateful for endless summer days, cat in lap and book in hand; and grateful to have my life improved by this remarkable man.

Let me then propose a toast as we all raise our glasses of Martian Jabra water: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the irreplaceable author we used to have.

I do have interests other than Asimov, one of them being the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for the writing of English derived by my 19th century forebears. In the interest of promoting experimentation with the Deseret Alphabet, I’ve converted Asimov’s short story “Youth” to the Deseret Alphabet in the usual haphazard way I go about such things.

The plain text version is available, but at the moment it isn’t being shared, so if you want it you’ll have to ask first.

A PDF version is available at http://bit.ly/jNMlun. This uses a sans serif Deseret Alphabet font I made using Deja Vu as a starting point, and I’m playing around a bit with the letter shapes, so it does’t look like the Deseret Alphabet you’ll see on Wikipedia.

As for why “Youth,” it’s the only thing by Asimov in the public domain, or so Project Gutenberg thinks. I haven’t proofed it yet, so it probably has misspellings galore. I’m going to revise my program to convert text to the Deseret Alphabet to try to get it to do a better job. When I do, I may or may not revise this.