Isaac Asimov (Not Azimov): Life, Books and Films

Isaac Asimov (spelled with an S, not Azimov) was a Russian-born American writer and Boston University biochemistry professor who died in 1992. He wrote or edited more than 500 books, is best known for the Foundation series and the Robot stories, and is one of science fiction's 'Big Three' alongside Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.

This guide covers the spelling, his life in short stages, his books by series, the screen versions and his later years. Plot points are kept light; where a twist matters, only the premise is named. For where to begin, our guide to classic science fiction books to start with pairs well with this one.

Who was Isaac Asimov?

Asimov was an American writer and a professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He shares the 'Big Three' label with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, the trio often named as the pillars of twentieth-century science fiction.

The numbers are striking. He wrote or edited more than 500 books and more than 380 short stories, and is estimated to have sent some 90,000 letters and postcards. He also wrote the Lucky Starr juvenile novels under the pen name Paul French.

His lasting mark is on the genre itself. He moved away from the old space-adventure formula towards something more scientific, social and political, and his work helped make robotics and the galactic empire central conventions of science fiction.

Why is it spelled Asimov and not Azimov?

Plenty of people type 'Azimov', and it is an easy slip to make. The name has a family history behind it. His original name is given as Isaak Iudich Azimov, and the family name is said to come from the Russian azimy khleb, meaning 'winter bread'.

The spelling changed to Asimov when the family's name was written in the Latin alphabet in 1923, the year the family arrived in the United States. They became American citizens in 1928.

So the S is the correct form. Asimov is the spelling used in the reference sources consulted for this guide, so a search for 'Azimov' is a misspelling of his name rather than a different name.

His life in short stages

Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia. Wikipedia says his birth date is uncertain, placing it between 4 October 1919 and 2 January 1920, while other sources give 2 January 1920. He celebrated on 2 January. He taught himself to read by the age of five and finished high school at 15.

He earned a BS in 1939, then an MA and a PhD at Columbia. In 1949 he joined the Boston University School of Medicine, and in 1955 he was hired as an associate professor of biochemistry. During the Second World War he worked at the US Naval Air Experimental Station alongside L. Sprague de Camp and Robert Heinlein.

In 1958 he left the university to write full time, keeping his title but never teaching again. His first published short story, 'Marooned Off Vesta', appeared in Amazing Stories; sources give 1938 and 1939 for it, so the year is uncertain here. His first book was the novel Pebble in the Sky (1950).

His main series and where to start

The Foundation books are the obvious door. Published between 1951 and 1953, they deal with the end of a galactic empire and a science called psychohistory. The first three books won a one-time Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966. I, Robot (1950) collected his robot stories and introduced the Three Laws of Robotics.

The robot novels The Caves of Steel (1954) and The Naked Sun (1957) are detective stories, following Lije Baley and his robot partner R Daneel Olivaw. Later, Foundation and Earth (1986) linked the Robot and Foundation series into a single future history.

For short fiction, 'Nightfall' (1941) is often described as his most famous story, and the SFWA voted it the best short science fiction story of all time in 1964. The Gods Themselves (1972) won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. If you are unsure whether you prefer physics-led stories or sweeping adventure, hard SF versus space opera will help, and a reader's map of science fiction shows other places to branch out. You can also browse free reads in our Free Library.

Which Asimov films and TV shows exist?

The best-known film is I, Robot (2004), with Will Smith in the lead. Be warned: it is only distantly connected to Asimov's stories, and it is unrelated to a 1978 screenplay for I, Robot by Harlan Ellison, which was published in 1994. Some of the Robot stories were also adapted for the BBC series Out of the Unknown.

The main TV version is Apple TV+'s Foundation, an Apple Original available only to subscribers. It was due to premiere on 24 September 2021, with two episodes first and the rest weekly. The cast named at launch included Jared Harris as Hari Seldon and Lee Pace as Emperor Brother Day, with David S. Goyer as showrunner.

Goyer said the story could be told over 80 episodes. The sources used here date from 2021 and do not confirm later seasons, so the show's current status is uncertain. Check Apple's own listings before planning a binge.

Non-fiction, later years and death

Asimov was as busy outside fiction. He wrote popular science, including The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science (1960) and The Human Body (1963), plus guides to the Bible and to Shakespeare in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He also launched Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Magazine in 1977 and wrote several memoirs, among them In Memory Yet Green (1979) and I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994).

He received the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1987 and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1997. His second marriage, in 1973, was to Janet Jeppson.

He died on 6 April 1992 in New York City, aged 72, from heart and kidney failure. One source reports that he had privately dealt with an AIDS diagnosis, contracted from a blood transfusion during bypass surgery. He was survived by Janet and his two children.