Foundation THE STORY BEHIND THE “FOUNDATION”

By ISAAC ASIMOVThe date was horrible 1, 1941. World struggle II had been raging for cardinal eld. France had deliveren, the Battle of Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had ofttimes all over been invaded by Nazi Germ both. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was four months in the future.But on that daylight, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler seemingly falling over all the world, what was chiefly on my mind was a meeting toward which I was hastening.I was 21 years old, a ammonium alum student in chemistry at Columbia University, and I had been assoil-up science fabrication professionally for third years. In that time, I had assortment five stories to John Campbell, editor of Astounding, and the 5th bill, Nightfall, was ab come in to appear in the September 1941 issue of the magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him the plot of land of a new story I was planning to put reveal, and the catch was that I had no plot i n mind, not the trace of atomic number 53.I in that respectfrom tried a device I sometimes use. I assailable a word of honor at random and set up set d avouch association, beginning with some(prenominal) I first saw. The book I had with me was a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan plays. I happened to open it to the picture of the Fairy tycoon of lolanthe throwing herself at the feet of Private Willis. I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman conglomerate of a Galactic Empire aha wherefore shouldnt I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return of feudalism, create verbally from the viewpoint of some hotshot in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I had lease Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not once, only twice.I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbells, and my extravagance must have been catching for Campbell blazed up as I had n constantly seen him do. In the course of an hour we built up the notion of a immense serial of connected stories that were to deal in intricate point in time with the thousand-year period between the First and Second Galactic Empires. This was to be illuminate by the science of psychohistory, which Campbell and I thrashed out between us.On August 11, 1941, therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it substructure. In it, I described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of root words at opposite ends of the Universe under such rive as to make sure that the forces of history would bring about the second base Empire after one thousand years instead of the cardinal thousand that would be required otherwise.The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what he said about a serial, I ended stand on a cliff-hanger. Thus, it seemed to me, he would be forced to buy a second story.How perpetually, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had out smarted myself. I quickly wrote myself into an impasse, and the metrical unit serial would have died an ignominious death had I not had a discourse with Fred Pohl on November 2 (on the Brooklyn Bridge, as it happened). I dont remember what Fred actually said, further, what invariably it was, it pulled me out of the hole. tooshie appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding and the win story, Bridle and S extendle, in the June 1942 issue.After that there was only the routine stir up of writing the stories. Through the remainder of the decade, John Campbell kept my nose to the grindstone and make sure he got additional tail stories.The Big and the Little was in the August 1944 Astounding, The Wedge in the October 1944 issue, and Dead Hand in the April 1945 issue. (These stories were written while I was operative at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia.)On January 26, 1945, I began The Mule, my personal favorite among the base of operations stories, and the longest yet, for it was 50,000 words. It was printed as a two-part serial (the very first serial I was ever responsible for) in the November and December 1945 issues. By the time the second part appeared I was in the army.After I got out of the army, I wrote straight extraneous You See It which appeared in the January 1948 issue. By this time, though, I had grown tired of the radix stories so I tried to end them by setting up, and solving, the conundrum of the location of the Second stem. Campbell would have none of that, however. He forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I would do one more stand story.Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote one more infrastructure story, vowing to myself that it would be the last. I called it ?And now You Dont, and it appeared as a three-part serial in the November 1949, December 1949, and January 1950 issues of Astounding.By thus, I was on the biochemistry aptitude of Boston University School of Medicine, my first book had equitable been published, and I was opinionated to move on to new things. I had spent eight years on the Foundation, written nine stories with a count of about 220,000 words. My total earnings for the series came to $3,641 and that seemed enough. The Foundation was over and done with, as furthest as I was concerned.In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence. I had no objection to earning a dinky more money by having the Foundation series reprinted in book form. I offered the series to Doubleday (which had already published a science-fiction wise by me, and which had under charge for other) and to Little-Brown, but both rejected it. In that year, though, a small issue firm, Gnome Press, was beginning to be active, and it was prepared to do the Foundation series as three books.The publisher of Gnome felt, however, that the series began too abruptly. He persuaded me to write a small Foundation story, one that would serve as an introduct ory section to the first book (so that the first part of the Foundation series was the last written).In 1951, the Gnome Press edition of Foundation was published, containing the introduction and the first four stories of the series. In 1952, Foundation and Empire appeared, with the fifth and sixth stories and in 1953, Second Foundation appeared, with the s level(p)th and eighth stories. The three books together came to be called The Foundation Trilogy.The mere fact of the existence of the Trilogy jocund me, but Gnome Press did not have the financial jabbing or the publishing knowhow to get the books distributed properly, so that few copies were sold and fewer motionless nonrecreational me royalties. (Nowadays, copies of first editions of those Gnome Press books sell at $50 a copy and up?but I still get no royalties from them.)Ace Books did dictate out soft-cover book editions of Foundation and of Foundation and Empire, but they changed the deeds, and used cut versions. Any mo ney that was problematic was paid to Gnome Press and I didnt see much of that. In the first decade of the existence of The Foundation Trilogy it may have bring in something like $1500 total.And yet there was some foreign interest. In beforehand(predicate) 1961, Timothy Seldes, who was then my editor at Doubleday, told me that Doubleday had received a gather up for the Portuguese rights for the Foundation series and, since they werent Doubleday books, he was passing them on to me. I sighed and said, The heck with it, Tim. I dont get royalties on those books.Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about acquiring the books away from Gnome Press so that Doubleday could publish them instead. He paid no attention to my loudly channeled fears that Doubleday would lose its shirt on them. In August 1961 an agreement was reached and the Foundation books became Doubleday property. Whats more, Avon Books, which had published a paperback version of Second Foundation, set about obtaining th e rights to all three from Doubleday, and put out nice editions.From that moment on, the Foundation books took off and began to earn change magnitude royalties. They have sold well and steadily, both in hardcover and softcover, for two decades so far. Increasingly, the letters I received from the readers spoke of them in towering praise. They received more attention than all my other books put together.Doubleday in any case published an omnibus(prenominal) volume, The Foundation Trilogy, for its Science legend Book Club. That omnibus volume has been continuously featured by the Book Club for over twenty years.Matters reached a climax in 1966. The fans organizing the World Science Fiction Convention for that year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award a Hugo for the best all-time series, where the series, to qualify, had to consist of at least three connected novels. It was the first time such a category had been set up, nor has it been reiterate since. The Foundation serie s was nominated, and I felt that was going to have to be glory enough for me, since I was sure that Tolkiens Lord of the Rings would win.It didnt. The Foundation series won, and the Hugo I received for it has been sitting on my bookcase in the livingroom ever since.In among all this litany of winner, both in money and in fame, there was one annoying side-effect. Readers couldnt help but notice that the books of the Foundation series covered only three hundred-plus years of the thousand-year hiatus between Empires. That meant the Foundation series wasnt blocked. I got innumerable letters from readers who asked me to shade it, from others who demanded I finish it, and still others who threatened dire vengeance if I didnt finish it. worsened yet, various editors at Doubleday over the years have pointed out that it world power be wise to finish it.It was flattering, of course, but irritating as well. geezerhood had passed, then decades. Back in the 1940s, I had been in a Foundation -writing mood. Now I wasnt. Starting in the late 1950s, I had been in a more and more nonfiction-writing mood.That didnt mean I was writing no fiction at all. In the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, I wrote two science-fiction novels and a mystery novel, to say nothing of well over a hundred short stories but about eighty percent of what I wrote was nonfiction. genius of the most indefatigable nags in the matter of finishing the Foundation series was my dandy friend, the nifty science-fiction writer, Lester del Rey. He was constantly telling me I ought to finish the series and was just as constantly suggesting plot devices. He even told Larry Ashmead, then my editor at Doubleday, that if I refused to write more Foundation stories, he, Lester, would be willing to take on the task.When Ashmead mentioned this to me in 1973, I began another Foundation novel out of sheer desperation. I called it Lightning Rod and pull offd to write fourteen pages before other tasks called me away. The fourt een pages were put away and additional years passed. In January 1977, Cathleen Jordan, then my editor at Doubleday, suggested I do an important book a Foundation novel, perhaps. I said, Id rather do an autobiography, and I did 640,000 words of it.In January 1981, Doubleday apparently lost its temper. At least, Hugh ONeill, then my editor there, said, Betty Prashker wants to see you, and marched me into her office. She was then one of the senior editors, and a odorous and gentle person.She wasted no time. Isaac, she said, you are going to write a novel for us and you are going to sign a conjure to that effect.Betty, I said, I am already working on a big science book for Doubleday and I have to revise the biographical Encyclopedia for Doubleday and It can all wait, she said. You are going to sign a contract to do a novel. Whats more, were going to give you a $50,000 advance.That was a stunner. I dont like large advances. They put me under too great an obligation. My average advan ce is something like $3,000. Why not? Its all out of royalties.I said, Thats way too much money, Betty.No, it isnt, she said.Doubleday will lose its shirt, I said.You keep telling us that all the time. It wont.I said, desperately, All right. mystify the contract read that I dont get any money until I notify you in writing that I have begun the novel.Are you weirdo? she said. Youll never start if that clause is in the contract. You get $25,000 on subscribe the contract, and $25,000 on delivering a completed manuscript.But suppose the novel is no good.Now youre being silly, she said, and she ended the conversation.That night, Pat LoBrutto, the science-fiction editor at Doubleday called to express his pleasure. And remember, he said, that when we say novel we mean science-fiction novel, not anything else. And when we say science-fiction novel, we mean Foundation novel and not anything else.On February 5, 1981, I signed the contract, and within the hebdomad, the Doubleday accounting dust cranked out the check for $25,000.I moaned that I was not my own buffer anymore and Hugh ONeill said, cheerfully, Thats right, and from now on, were going to call every other week and say, Wheres the manuscript? (But they didnt. They left me strictly alone, and never even asked for a advance report.)Nearly four months passed while I took care of a vast number of things I had to do, but about the end of May, I picked up my own copy of The Foundation Trilogy and began reading.I had to. For one thing, I hadnt read the Trilogy in thirty years and while I remembered the general plot, I did not remember the details. Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel I had to immerse myself in the style and atmosphere of the series.I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a zillion words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No action. No physical suspense.What was all the f uss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? To be sure, I couldnt help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I consummate the book, and that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness sake. You couldnt go by me.I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible break 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 inter-group communication 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 almost concealed but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas.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 and reread them. They sounded good to me. I didnt remember where I had been headed back then, but I had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending now, and, starting page 15 on that day, I proceeded to work toward the new ending.I found, to my infinite relief, that I had no trouble getting back into a Foundation-mood, and, fresh from my rereading, I had Foundation history at my finger-tips.There were differences, to be sure1) The original stories were written for a science-fiction magazine and were from 7,000 to 50,000 words long, and no more. Consequently, each book in the trilogy had at least two stories and lacked unity. I intended to make the new book a single story.2) I had a particularly good chance for development since Hugh said, Let the book find its own length, Isaac. We dont mind a long book. So I planned on 140,000 words, which was nearly three times the length of The Mule, and this gave me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add all sorts of litt le touches.3) The Foundation series had been written at a time when our knowledge of astronomy was primitive compared with what it is today. I could take advantage of that and at least mention black holes, for instance. I could also take advantage of electronic computers, which had not been invented until I was half through with the series.The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, I began final copy. I brought the manuscript to Hugh ONeill in batches, and the low-down fellow went half-crazy since he insisted on reading it in this broken fashion. On March 25, 1982, I brought in the last bit, and the very next day got the second half of the advance.I had kept Lightning Rod as my working title all the way through, but Hugh finally said, Is there any way of putting Foundation into the title, Isaac? I suggested Foundations at Bay, therefore, and that may be the title that will actually be used. *You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the plot of the new Foun dation novel. Well, naturally. I would rather you buy and read the book.And yet there is one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to tie up all the loose ends into one neat little bow-knot at the end of my stories, no matter how complicated the plot office be. In this case, however, I noticed that when I was all done, one tangible little item remained unresolved.I am hoping no one else notices it because it intelligibly points the way to the continuation of the series.It is even possible that I inadvertently gave this away for at the end of the novel, I wrote The End (for now).I very much fear that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at my throat again, as Campbell used to be in the old days. And yet what can I do but hope that the novel is very successful indeed. What a quandary*Editors note The novel was published in October 1982 as Foundations Edge.