“They’re all original, Tom,” I said. Lifting the four other boxes from behind a desk, I said, “These are the carbons.”

  The book was four hundred thousand words long, considerably longer than the Svirskyized version of The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science and the longest book I had yet written.

  Tom rose to the occasion, though. In fact, he suggested that since I had gotten so near a thousand biographies, I ought to add enough more to make it 1,001. He said that would look good in the advertising. It meant several months’ more work, off and on.

  My own title was The Biographical History of Science and Technology. Tom Sloane vetoed that, though. He said the word “history” was poison at the box office and that “encyclopedia” was a better selling point. Furthermore, the salespeople had by now recognized that my name carried weight and they urged that it be included in the title.

  The book therefore became Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

  It was the first one of my books to have my name in the title (but not the last). In view of my persona as a person of cheerful self-appreciation, I always insist that I don’t mind having my name in the title, but I think I do mind a little bit. At least, I always refer to the book, when I must, as the Biographical Encyclopedia.

  14

  One of Carl Sagan’s devouring interests is the question of extraterrestrial life, and some of the papers he had written took up that question in fascinating ways. I had seen those papers and it seemed to me I ought to write an F & SF essay on the subject, translating his ideas into my style and for my audience. I did that on April 7, 1963, and called the essay, “Who’s Out There?”

  Eventually I took it in to show to Carl himself, since I had taken his name in vain at the start of the article where I described our meeting, stressing his youth and presentability. He passed the article without trouble but, rather embarrassed, asked that I take out the personal description of himself.

  I did, of course, but I was sorry. I don’t know whether he felt that the accent on his youth would harm his credibility or that the accent on his good looks would harm his modesty, but he has become very well known to the public since, and his youth (modified by time, of course) and presentability are now public property, so why would it have hurt?

  In any case, the article appeared eventually in the September 1963 F & SF, as my fifty-ninth essay in the series. “Who’s Out There?” was the last of the seven F & SF essays never to be included in one collection or another. Partly this was because by the time it appeared I was engaged in doing a whole book on the subject treating the matter from a slightly different standpoint, but partly it was because I was a little sad over having had to change the beginning.

  15

  Ever since Gertrude had visited Canada in 1943, I had been promising to take her to Toronto someday so that she could visit her old childhood friends as a wife and mother, with husband and children in tow. Twenty years’ waiting was long enough, and on April 13, 1963, off we went.

  We spent the first night at a motel in Rochester, and on April 14 we reached Buffalo, and I crossed over into foreign soil for the first time since my arrival in the United States forty years before (and the first time ever for the children).

  It was a case of nostalgia at secondhand. I drove around sections of Toronto in which Gertrude had lived as a child before her arrival in the United States at the age of nineteen. Those sections were still recognizable to her, though Toronto itself had expanded and grown both outward and upward out of all recognition since World War II. We also visited some of Gertrude’s girlhood friends, as well as her cousin, Albert.

  On April 15, we drove north of Toronto to the resort town of Belle Ewart, where she had spent summers as a teen-ager. It had changed and, try as she might, she could not identify the particular house in which she and her family had lived.

  On April 16, we visited Niagara Falls on the way home. I’m not sure if Gertrude had ever seen them before, but the rest of us certainly hadn’t. I kept being afraid that I would somehow fail to find them, knowing my own capacity to get lost under even the most favorable conditions, but once in the town, I turned a street corner and there they were, immediately in front of me.

  I rather lost my breath, for the Horseshoe Falls are extraordinarily beautiful. We had come to the end of a long, cold winter and even though it was mid-April, there were still chunks of ice going over the lip. It was the last of the ice, though, for the next day there was none to be seen.

  We went through the entire tourist routine. We went up in a tower to see the falls by artificial light at night. We visited the museums, read all the memorabilia, went under the falls in rubber clothing. Gertrude and the children even went over the rapids in an aerocar and went up in a helicopter. It was the children’s first airborne experience and may have been Gertrude’s as well.

  Finally, on April 18, we crossed the bridge and were back on American soil after a hundred-hour absence. The next day we were back home, and I celebrated by putting on a final burst of speed and finishing A Short History of Biology, which I was doing for Doubleday and its soft-cover division, the Natural History Press. (It was an easy book to do since I used the Biographical Encyclopedia as my major source.)

  16

  Almost immediately after, I took another trip, this time without the family, and made my way into Pennsylvania Dutch country for the first time in my life.

  I left on April 23, dropped off A Short History of Biology at Doubleday, then went on down to Pennsylvania. I was at Lancaster the next day, and there I was going to talk at Millersville State College, at the urging of one Professor Lingenfelter, whom I had met at my stay at Breadloaf thirteen years before. He had changed considerably in that time.

  I drove back on April 25 through the Amish country, and that was worthwhile. I had never seen the Amish before and it was pleasant to be in a cultural enclave. And, of course, I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. I was home again on the twenty-seventh.

  17

  On April 30, I turned down an offer of a full-time job as science writer at eighteen thousand dollars a year. Each time something like that happened I ached with renewed pain at all the years I had spent scrounging unsuccessfully for jobs paying far less than that. And always Keefer’s remark that the school couldn’t afford to pay sixty-five hundred dollars a year for a science writer would echo in my ears. Of all the events in our long fight, it was that remark, and that remark alone that I found I could neither forgive nor forget.

  18

  During May, my main writing project was the book on physics I was doing for Mac Talley. I could see already that it was going to be another example of my being unable to stop.

  What Mac had in mind, I’m sure, was a ninety-thousand-wordbook entitled Understanding Physics, another book of the same length entitled Understanding Chemistry, then Understanding Paleontology, and so on, until either the list of sciences or I wore out—whichever came first.

  I could see, however, that by the time the ninety thousand words were up I was going to be only about one third through with Understanding Physics, and this time I had no intention of bringing in a swollen manuscript. I would simply do three books: Understanding Physics Volumes 1, 2, and 3, each with some appropriate subtitle. I would have to get Mac to go along with that, but I would present him with a fait accompli and hope for the best.

  Meanwhile, on May 23, I received a letter from Jason Epstein of Random House. A book called Habitable Planets for Man had been written by Stephen H. Dole of RAND Corporation, and Jason wanted to put out a popularized version of the book, one that was cut and simplified. He wanted me to do the job.

  It was something that, on the face of it, I did not want to do. I wasn’t going to vet someone else’s book. The subject matter, however, as described by Jason, was interesting, just interesting enough for me to ask to see the book.

  It was a mistake, for when the book came I found it fascinating and I was hooked. As I read I decided that I didn’t want anyone else doing the popularization. I agreed to do it, therefore, on condition that I share author’s billing and get 50 per cent of the royalties. This was readily agreed to by Dr. Dole, and between June 20 and July 6, I did the revision.

  I didn’t want to keep the same title for the simplified book, but I didn’t want to depart too widely either, for Dole’s title was exactly descriptive. I suggested Planets for Man and that was accepted, too.

  19

  On May 26, 1963, after the family had spent some time in New York, I was preparing to leave for West Newton. We had a problem parking at the Blugermans’. It had never been easy, but it had grown severely worse of late. High-rise apartments had been built in the area, increasing the automobile density to the point where parking spaces simply could not be had, so that we had parked (as we always had to, now) several blocks away.

  It meant getting the kids and the baggage and dragging everything the several blocks to the car, or else leaving everything and everyone on the sidewalk, and then my getting the car and driving it to where everyone and everything was waiting, and double-parking temporarily.

  On this occasion, though, it was raining, and we didn’t want to walk blocks in the rain with baggage, nor wait in the rain till I got the car.

  The alternative was to drive into the parking lot to a point just outside the back door of the Blugermans’ apartment house. The trouble with that was that the parking lot was now fenced in, with an attendant standing guard over it, and it was for the use of tenants only.

  Gertrude said, “‘Let’s see if they’ll let you into the parking lot temporarily.”

  I explained to the attendant that my mother-in-law lived in one of the buildings and that I just wanted to park in the lot long enough to load the car and then I would leave. Being a human being, he said, “Sure.”

  I got the car, brought it into the parking lot, right to the door, and in fifteen minutes we were loaded up and took off—driving slowly through the parking lot to the other end, where the exit was located.

  As we did so, a car, parked diagonally, pulled out in reverse. The idiot at the wheel was waving to someone on the sidewalk and did not bother to look and see whether anyone was behind him.

  He hit our rear door, caving it in somewhat but not damaging it enough to prevent it opening and closing. It was a purely cosmetic dent. Naturally, I stopped and he stopped, and I frothed at the mouth a bit and expressed a clear interest in whether it was his usual custom to look north when driving south. He responded quietly and told me to send him the bill and his insurance company would pay. He didn’t have his insurance company card on him, but his name and address were so-and-so.

  I gave him my own name and address, though it was clear his car had suffered no damage at all, and off we all went.

  The next day, at home, I drove my car into my garage and asked for a written estimate as to what it would cost to beat out the damage, describing what happened. I said, “Don’t inflate it for the insurance company. Give me the honest figure.”

  The garage did. It came to roughly $135. I reported the entire incident to my insurance company, and then sent a Xerox copy of the estimate by registered mail to the idiot who hit me, and asked him politely to have his insurance company send me a check.

  On May 29, I received a letter from the idiot’s lawyer, accusing me of negligence, and threatening a lawsuit. My own registered letter was returned. The idiot had refused to accept it.

  Well!!!

  I might have remained cool since it seemed to me that the idiot, fearing that I would try to make a big fuss and sue him for his total estate plus his left arm, put the whole thing in the hands of his lawyer, who reacted in the normal legal fashion of instant attack.

  But I didn’t. The trouble was that Gertrude recalled that once when she was a high-school student, she had asked her father to drive her to school and he had gotten into a slight collision at a time when his insurance policy had lapsed. Even though it was all the other guy’s fault (Gertrude said) it had come to a court case and her father had lost and had had to pay out money he could ill afford and it had been Gertrude’s fault because he had been driving her to school. And now it was her fault again because she had asked me to drive into the parking lot.

  That was it! I wasn’t going to allow anyone to send Gertrude into a tailspin if I could help it.

  I told her first that whereas her father had let his insurance lapse, I had not. I was fully insured.

  Second, even if I were not fully insured, her father had been hard up at the time, but I was not and could well afford to pay any losses.

  Third (and by now I was breathing flame), I was not her father, and we’d see who would pay.

  I instantly saw my own insurance people, who urged me to calm down and put the whole thing in their hands. I refused. I told them I would handle it and that their only task was on no account to suggest compromise or offer to do anything but accept payment in full on my behalf.

  I then wrote a letter to the lawyer telling him, after a detailed description of the incident, to go to hell and do his worst. I told him I wanted no further communication from him unless he were ready to start a lawsuit, in which case I would countersue for damages plus costs. I never heard from that lawyer again.

  I next wrote to the Motor Vehicle Bureau in Albany to find out the idiot’s insurance company. When the Bureau wrote in order to demand fifty cents, in advance, for the information, I sent them a check for fifty cents. By July 16, I had the name of the insurance company. (By then, Gertrude had given up. In fact, on June 21, she said she wanted a divorce, as she sometimes did in times of depression.)

  I wrote to the insurance company, again detailing the entire incident in as furiously eloquent a manner as I could manage, and denounced the idiot for daring to accuse me of negligent driving, I said that undoubtedly, knowing himself to be at fault and unable to risk the results of a very likely bad record, he had probably not informed his insurance company of the event.

  The insurance company wrote back and said that the accident had indeed been reported (something I did not believe, but that was not the point at issue) and further said that I was in a private parking lot reserved for tenants only and that I was not a tenant. For that reason I had no case. Nevertheless, out of the kindness of their benevolent hearts they would offer me half the money I asked for and if I did not accept that offer within a certain number of days, they would withdraw the offer.

  Whereupon I wrote instantly, and quite a long letter. I told them not to bother waiting the certain number of days, because they could wait forever and I would not accept half the money or any reduction in the payment by as little as one rotten penny.

  I asked them if they doubted my story or thought that I would in any way deviate from the truth for the sake of half of $135. I told them who I was, urged them to look me up in Who’s Who, and to judge for themselves whether my word would not bulk larger before any judge and/or jury than that of the knave and rascal whom they represented.

  I asked them if they by any chance realized that my wife’s mother did indeed live in one of the apartment houses and that we had the permission of the parking attendant to enter the lot, and stay only long enough to load up and get out.

  And I asked, finally, if it was their intention to face a judge and/or jury and make the claim that, since I was in the parking lot illegally, their client had the legal right to ram me. I had two children in the back seat of the car, I said, and if I received any more in the way of idiot letters, I would investigate the psychological damage done them in the collision and add that to my claim.

  Therefore, I concluded, either pay me every cent or be prepared to go to court, and all the way up to the U. S. Supreme Court, for that matter, for I was well heeled and would spend any amount of money on a matter of principle.

  The next thing I got from them was my money. Every cent!

  Financially, it was not worth it. The time I spent in writing letters, the hours of sleep I lost in brooding over injustice were worth far more than the piddling little $135 that was at stake. It wasn’t even as though the bump were a serious one. I never even bothered fixing it.

  But I had to show Gertrude that whatever else I might be, I was not a fellow to be pushed around—and the suggestion concerning divorce was dropped.

  There was an odd postscript. After it was all over, I got a breathless letter from the secretary of the fellow at the insurance office with whom I had been arguing.

  “Dear Dr. Asimov,” it said, “it was such a thrill receiving your letters. I am one of your greatest fans and I told my boss who you were and that a person like you certainly wouldn’t lie . . .”

  I wrote to the young woman (at her home address, of course) and assured her earnestly that every word I had said in every letter I had written had been the truth.

  20

  On June 12, 1963, I took the bus to New York to attend a three-day session on creativity at New York University.

  Bad luck dogged me a second trip in a row. I managed to lose a two-hundred-dollar wad of cash I had carried as an emergency store. This was the largest sum of money I have ever literally lost—I just dropped it somewhere.

  It took me a little time to recover.

  Or maybe it took me more than a little time, for I remember very little about the conference. Just two items, in fact:

  1. There was some discussion about how to detect creativity in youngsters. I said at once, “Keep an eye peeled for science-fiction readers,” but no one took that very seriously.

  However, two days after I got home, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists asked me to do an article on science fiction for them. I chose for my theme the use of science fiction in selecting out the creative youngster. I called it “The Sword of Achilles” and it appeared in the November 1963 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.129