A very pretty twenty-five-year-old girl named Ruth Landis attended that convention. It was her first. She looked, to my dazzled eyes, exactly like Grace Kelly. Dave Kyle saw her first and, like a fool, told her to wait at the elevator while he ran an errand somewhere. When he came back, she was gone, for I had seen her waiting there and had spirited her off. Thereafter, Randall Garrett, Forrest Ackerman, and I (and, I imagine others, when we weren’t looking) kept squiring her here and there. On the night of Saturday, September 3, Randy and I found an all-night diner and we sat up all night with Ruth between us, talking all sorts of gibberish and loving it.

  Dave Kyle had the last laugh, however. Though he was completely helpless during the convention, he managed to grab Ruth after the convention and eventually he married her.

  On the whole, the Cleveland convention may have been small (only three hundred attended as compared with one thousand at some earlier conventions and four thousand at some later ones), but it overflowed with Gemütlichkeit. Randy and I saw to that single-handedly. Wherever we went, a comet tail of noise and laughter followed us, much of which we created ourselves.

  At one point (I think it was at this convention, though it may just possibly have been at another) the program was delayed in the morning, and the audience was restless. Randall suggested he and I get up on the platform and engage in some snappy patter. We did and for a while we stood there (of approximately equal height and girth) and did well, I thought—until Harlan Ellison appeared at the back of the hall and called out, “There they are—Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

  And I called out, “Come up here, Harlan; stand between us and be the hyphen.” (That got the bigger laugh, I’m glad to say.)

  The most characteristic joke (if you can call it that) of the convention arose accidentally. Judy Merril was there, glooming over an unhappy break in her relationship with a certain writer, and I did a lot of the arm-on-the-shoulder-buck-up-old-girl routine.

  Then came the awarding of the Hugos—and I’ll have to explain about those.

  The annual award of the movie Oscars has inspired annual awards of all kinds of named figurines for all kinds of activities, and science fiction did not lag behind.

  The idea first occurred to a gentleman by the name of Hal Lynch, who passed on the idea to the fans who were organizing the eleventh convention, in Philadelphia in 1953. Several awards were manufactured by Jack McKnight of Lansdale, Pennsylvania. They were small stainless-steel rocket ships, finned at base and center and set on a cylindrical wooden base on which an appropriately inscribed plaque was set.

  There was no feeling at the time that such an award ought to be repeated; it was just a feature of the eleventh convention. At the twelfth convention, held in San Francisco in 1954, there were no awards. At the thirteenth, though, the awards were presented again, and this time a new design was worked out by Ben Jason of Cleveland. It was larger than the earlier one, lacked the central fins, and was set on a cubical base. It could be mass-produced.

  These awards were, very naturally, named Hugos (for Hugo Gernsback), and from the thirteenth convention on, they have been a feature of every World Science Fiction convention. The banquet at which they were awarded has always been the convention’s high point.

  At Cleveland, it was Tony Boucher who was toastmaster, and it was Tony who handed out the Hugos in his own gentle way. The room was not air conditioned, and it was warm; Tony therefore began by suggesting that those gentlemen who felt that the warmth was excessive might feel free to dispense with the usual formality and—

  About halfway through his hesitant suggestion, I got the drift, stood up, and took off my jacket. Since, as guest of honor, I was at the dais and conspicuous, everyone else did, too, but, as I recall, Tony didn’t.

  One of the Hugos was awarded to the very same science-fiction writer over whom Judy Merril was mooning, and he was not present to accept the award. Tony noted that and said, “In his absence, the award will be accepted by Judy Merril, by whom he has been so often anthologized.” No one could have thought of a more graceful way of putting it.

  However, I turned to the person next to me and said, jokingly, “Anthologized?—Always euphemisms.”

  It was a bit of mockery I need not have voiced, but I did whisper it. I did mean it to be just a quick, private joke. What I didn’t know was that the microphone in front of me was live. The statement boomed out, and the entire banquet audience burst out into laughter. Judy Merril walked up as the waves of merriment parted before her and accepted the award—while I sat stricken on the dais. I think I was the only person in the room not laughing.

  It wasn’t just that I was horrified at having perpetrated so heartless a joke. It was that I was certain that as soon as Judy could get her hands on me, she would kill me.

  She didn’t. The next time I saw her, I noted that she looked sweet and gentle. I therefore sidled up to her (making sure my line of retreat was clear) and began a kind of incoherent apology. She thrust the whole thing aside. “It’s okay, Isaac,” she said. “It was a good thing. When I heard everyone laughing, I thought: What’s the use of carrying a torch when no one else can possibly take it seriously? So I quit. I feel much better now.”

  She apparently meant it. Even though everyone in the place was shouting “Anthologize you!” and “Go anthologize yourself,” Judy returned good for evil. On Monday the fifth, when I felt low because the convention was coming to an end, Judy dragged me off, fed me coffee, patted my shoulder, and made like a mother hen until I brightened up again.

  I took the train back on the evening of the fifth and got home Wednesday afternoon.

  It had been a hundred very unusual hours. I had never spent so long a time being idolized and lionized and made much of. When I got on the train and walked its length with nobody looking at me or whispering, “There’s Asimov,” I felt as though I couldn’t bear the workaday world again.

  7

  The November 1955 F & SF contained my story “Dreamworld.”15 It wasn’t much of a story, only five hundred words ending in a terrible pun, but it marked my mastery of one more science-fiction variety. I had tried to do it with “Shah Guido G.” four years before, but it wasn’t till this time that I did it right.

  I was hitting F & SF regularly now. The December 1955 issue contained “A Hundred Million Dreams at Once,” which Tony had retitled “Dreaming Is a Private Thing.”16 I was proud of that story, and because it ended with a poignant few paragraphs that could easily be applied by writers to themselves, several of my writer friends wrote to me at once to praise the story. Heinlein, more jokingly, wrote to tell me that I was clearly making money out of my neuroses.

  The February 1956 F & SF had “The Message,”17 another short-short story that was all ending.

  8

  Dr. J. Franklin Yeager of the National Heart Institute in Washington arrived at the med school on September 29, 1955. He had read my science fiction and my science writing, particularly “The Sound of Panting,” and he was anxious to have me do a book on cardiovascular research, one that would serve to publicize the kind of work in which the National Heart Institute was interested. It was not, however, to be a propaganda piece. I would write whatever I wanted and could publish it commercially as another one of my books.

  I told Yeager that I didn’t really know anything about cardiovascular research, and he said I could learn. When I said that that would take time and that I had my duties, he spoke of sabbaticals, fellowships, grants, and of visits and stays in Washington.

  It was all very exciting for me and I was delighted that this was happening in full view of the department, for Yeager also spoke to Walker, for instance. I had no objection whatever to being made to seem important to them.

  On October 4, I traveled to Washington for the first time (as opposed to passing through when I was in the Army just ten years before), and I did so at government expense. I took the overnight sleeper.

  I was shown around the National Heart Institute and I spent the evening and night at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Yeager, where I was, according to my diary, “treated like a king. Room and private bath, good meal, books and music.”

  I stayed three days altogether, and when I got back to school, I discussed the matter with Walker. He approved but thought I could easily do it without abandoning any school duties. At his advice, I saw Robert W. Wilkins of the school’s Department of Medicine. He was a pleasant gentleman who impressed me favorably (he was also the first to introduce the use of tranquilizers into the United States). He advised me to write a memo on the subject to Keefer, and I did. Eventually, on October 25, Keefer approved.

  I had touched all bases and all seemed well.

  9

  On October 11, 1955, Stanley called to say he was getting married about Thanksgiving and he had already bought a house.

  I was a little nervous about it. Ruth was seven years older than Stan, and she had an eight-year-old son who was as headstrong as David. Did Stan know what he was doing? I didn’t discuss the thing with him, of course, since I had no right to interfere—and if I had, I’m sure Stanley would have shut me up in half a second—but I worried.

  But at least the news inspired Gertrude and myself to get to house-hunting with renewed vigor. If Stanley could find a house, surely we could.

  10

  Lloyd Roth of my prewar days at Columbia was passing through Boston, and on October 19 we had lunch together. I hadn’t seen him for seven years. He had an M.D. now as well as a Ph.D.

  11

  On October 19, Robyn was eight months old. She could sit if you sat her up and stand if you stood her up, but she didn’t enjoy either position.

  As for myself, I had started The Naked Sun, a new novel that was to be a sequel to The Caves of Steel. I had also started Building Blocks of the Universe, the new science juvenile on chemical elements for Abelard-Schuman.

  12

  Past events are not easily forgotten when you keep a diary. On November 1, 1955, I carefully noted that ten years ago that day I was inducted into the Army.

  And on that tenth-anniversary day I was doing my best to induct myself into something else—Yeager’s project. I called him and suggested that I receive a grant that would include fifteen hundred dollars to the school (as overhead, something that usually accompanied all grants, to the school’s great satisfaction), two thousand dollars to me, fifteen hundred dollars for a secretary (Walker’s suggestion), and two thousand dollars travel expenses. The next day I wrote a letter adding five hundred dollars for an electric typewriter, making the payment to me twenty-five hundred dollars in all.

  13

  On November 18, Dr. Yeager visited me. We discussed the details of the grant application, and over the next few days I worked it out in full, got the necessary signatures and covering letters, and took the whole thing over to Keefer’s office on the twenty-first.

  On November 23, I got a letter from Keefer, and for the first time I was subjected to what I had heard described as “Keefer’s sneer.”

  Keefer wrote that he wouldn’t approve the book deal if I got royalties for it. So far, so good. He then added a final and entirely unnecessary sneer to the effect that many faculty members would be willing to write books if they were paid to do so and could collect royalties in addition.

  My impulse, of course, was to answer at once, but I knew that I might as well wait and let the first slam-bang fury die down. I had a good excuse to do so since we were all about to attend Stanley’s wedding in New York, which was scheduled for the twenty-sixth.

  We did attend. Marcia and Nick were there, too, and we drove them back to their place in Queens afterward. Marcia was pregnant.

  Naturally, I had plenty of time in the course of the trip to New York and back to write imaginary letters in my head, and I had no trouble batting one out once I got back to the med school. The fury, however, hadn’t settled, and if Keefer’s letter was a sneer, mine was haughty.

  I pointed out that I didn’t need a grant to write a book; that I had been a professional writer for seventeen years; that I had published sixteen books in six years; that my writing earnings were higher than my school salary, and that no other faculty member could match this—nor could they do so merely by getting a grant.

  Furthermore, I went on, growing more angry as I wrote, unless I could collect royalties, I would certainly not apply for the grant, but would write the book on my own. And if I did so, I would get my royalties just the same, but the school would not collect its overhead.

  I checked the letter with Walker, who approved it, glad, no doubt, to have someone talk tough to Keefer. I took it in to Keefer’s office on November 29, and the next day, Keefer’s reply came. He backed down; I could have royalties.

  The first round was to me. What I didn’t quite see was that it was only the first round. Keefer hadn’t given up; he was merely preparing to shift the ground of battle.

  14

  I had three books published in 1955:

  14. The Martian Way and Other Stories (Doubleday)

  15. The End of Eternity (Doubleday)

  16. Races and People (Abelard-Schuman)

  Races and People, which had appeared in November, was a collaboration. It was “by William C. Boyd and Isaac Asimov.” However, I had done every bit of the writing, using, to be sure, Bill’s book on the subject as my reference.

  I was already establishing my book career as something that was to be characterized by both quantity and variety. My books had now been appearing for six years, and in no year had there been fewer than two. In one year, 1952, there had been four.

  What’s more, among these sixteen books were science-fiction novels for adults, science-fiction novels for youngsters, collections of science-fiction short stories, textbooks at the professional level, and science for the general public.

  I was pleased. I felt that the increasing number of nonfiction books dealing with science at various levels, combined with my associate professorship, had made my position at school unassailable. And since the director of the institution was clearly my enemy, I needed unassailability.

  My earnings were disappointing. My school income was six thousand dollars, but my writing income had shrunk to less than eighty-nine hundred dollars, only three quarters what it had been the year before. It was not unexpected. The science-fiction magazine field was fading, as I had known it would, from its peak in the early 1950s, and I had failed to make a magazine sale for The End of Eternity, which had cost me nearly three thousand right there.

  My total income was still nudging fifteen thousand dollars, and it was the fourth year in a row where it was either that or more than that, so really, there was nothing to worry about. Besides which, I had three books in press and three more in preparation, so surely there was nothing to worry about—I hoped.

  15

  With the end of 1955, I had been keeping a diary for 18 years—half my life.

  On January 2, 1956, I was 36, and David, now nearly 4½, could sing “Happy Birthday” to me. There was no surprise party for me this year, but there was a devil’s-food cake and a box of bow ties (for some years I had been wearing clip-on bow ties on all but the most stately occasions). All of us but Robyn had some of the cake and milk and were cheerful.

  A week later, a more prosaic birthday present came. My Doubleday statement appeared on January 9, quite early, and totaled thirty-eight hundred dollars. It was much better than the year before, got me off to a flying start, and represented as much as I had made for the first five months of the previous year.

  Money isn’t the primary reason I write, of course (I write for the love of it), but it is a strong secondary reason. Besides, if I were going to have showdowns with Keefer now and then, I preferred to do my arguing with money in my pocket.

  16

  For some months, Gertrude had been taking driving lessons once more, picking up where she had left off nearly six years before. She didn’t take them in solid, concentrated fashion, unfortunately, so she had trouble gaining the kind of confidence that comes with driving a car every day, but by Friday, January 13, 1956, she felt she could take the test.

  Friday the thirteenth lived up to its stereotype this time, however. I had remained home, taking care of the children, but when the door was unlocked downstairs and I heard Gertrude sobbing, I knew what had happened. I got her into bed, and disregarding her statement that she would give up, I called the driving teacher and arranged for additional lessons for her. I told her, quite firmly, that if I could learn to drive a car, anyone could. Then I took David out to a local restaurant and kept him there for quite a while, giving Gertrude a chance to recover.

  By evening, her confidence had returned.

  17

  On January 15, 1956, David and I drove to New York, and on the next day I made my rounds.

  I visited Abelard-Schuman and handed in the manuscript of Building Blocks of the Universe.

  I also visited Larry Shaw, an old-time fan, who was now editor of a new science-fiction magazine that was bucking the tide of failure among other magazines. The new magazine was Infinity Science Fiction. Larry, a short fellow with thick glasses, a big pipe, and a very quiet voice, wanted stories from me and I submitted one called “Someday” about a little mistreated story-telling machine. He read it and accepted it on the spot.