"Founding Father" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the October 1965 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction , [1] [2] and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories . It was inspired by a cover painting of a space-helmeted face backed by several crosses, provided by the magazine's editor, Frederik Pohl.
The story was nominated for the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. [3]
An exploratory spacecraft of the Galactic Corps, charged with opening up planets for human colonisation, sometimes by terraforming, crash-lands on an alien planet. They find that the ecology is heavy in ammonia, making the atmosphere unbreathable by humans, and the soil unsuitable for the Earth-type plants they have brought for colonisation.
As they are unable to take off again, the crew spend their time trying to adjust the environment to make it suitable for possible future human colonists, by cultivating Earth plants which will create oxygen. Although they spend many years at this task, they fail and, one by one, they die of ammonia poisoning.
As the last man dies, the flesh of the buried crew feeds the plants and finally helps them to flourish, providing the catalyst that alters the environment to become more Earth-like.
Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
Nemesis is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history of his Robot Series, Empire Series, and Foundation Series, into which Asimov attempted to integrate his science fiction output. This novel is connected to Asimov's other works by several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient astronomical bodies ("Hallucination"), and rotor engines.
The Stars, Like Dust is a 1951 science fiction mystery book by American writer Isaac Asimov.
"Blind Alley" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the March 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and later included in the collection The Early Asimov (1972).
"Mother Earth" is a science fiction novella by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written from September 1 to October 10, 1948, and published in the May 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was republished in Asimov's 1972 short story collection The Early Asimov.
This is a bibliography of the books written or edited by Isaac Asimov, arranged alphabetically. Asimov was a prolific author, and he engaged in many collaborations with other authors. This list may not yet be complete. The total number of books listed here is over 500. Asimov died in 1992 at age 72; a small number of his books were published posthumously.
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and in the anthologies in the collections Nine Tomorrows (1959), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), Robot Dreams (1986), The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986), the retrospective Opus 100 (1969), and in Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1 (1990). While he also considered it one of his best works, "The Last Question" was Asimov's favorite short story of his own authorship, and is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac. Through successive generations, humanity questions Multivac on the subject of entropy.
"The Deep" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written in July 1952 and first published in the December 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. The story subsequently appeared in the Asimov collections The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955) and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973). In In Memory Yet Green, Asimov wrote that his motive in writing the story was to deliberately test whether one could do anything in science fiction, so he invented a society in which mother love was considered obscene.
"Not Final!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published in the October 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and included in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. Its sequel, "Victory Unintentional", is a robot story. These are two of the few stories by Asimov to postulate non-human intelligences in the Solar system.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
"Black Friar of the Flame" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the Spring 1942 issue of Planet Stories and reprinted in the collection The Early Asimov (1972). "Black Friar of the Flame" was the thirteenth story written by Asimov, and was among his least favorite, though this was due more to the multiple rewrites and rejections the story suffered than to its admittedly modest intrinsic merits.
Sucker Bait is a science fiction novella by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first serialized in the February and March 1954 issues of Astounding Science Fiction, and reprinted in the 1955 collection The Martian Way and Other Stories. It has also been adapted as an episode of the BBC anthology television series Out of the Unknown.
"Green Patches" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1950 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction under the title "Misbegotten Missionary", and reprinted under that title in the 1952 anthology Tomorrow, the Stars. It was retitled "Green Patches" in Asimov's 1969 collection Nightfall and Other Stories.
"Homo Sol" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. It deals with the proposed acceptance into a galactic federation of hominid civilizations of the hominids of newly discovered Earth.
"The Weapon Too Dreadful To Use" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories and reprinted in the August 1965 issue of Amazing and the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. "The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use" was the eleventh story written by Asimov, and the second to be published.
"No Connection" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the June 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.
"What Is This Thing Called Love?" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story was requested by Cele Goldsmith Lalli, editor of Amazing Stories, as a satire of an article in Playboy called "Girls of the Slime God" which had suggested that pulp science fiction stories were concerned with aliens and sex. The story appeared in the March 1961 issue of Amazing as "Playboy and the Slime God", but Asimov later retitled it "What Is This Thing Called Love?"
"Each an Explorer" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written in June 1956 and first published in issue #30 of Future Science Fiction. It was also reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories.
In a writing career spanning 53 years (1939–1992), science fiction and popular science author Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) wrote and published 40 novels, 383 short stories, over 280 non-fiction books, and edited about 147 others.
Depending on the counting convention used, and including all titles, charts, and edited collections, there may be currently over 500 books in Isaac Asimov's bibliography—as well as his individual short stories, individual essays, and criticism. For his 100th, 200th, and 300th books, Asimov published Opus 100 (1969), Opus 200 (1979), and Opus 300 (1984), celebrating his writing.