Word: asimov
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...describes himself, on dust jackets and in introductions, as "devilishly handsome." The description is as fantastic as his novels. Isaac Asimov is a stocky man with a shock of unruly, graying hair, twinkling blue eyes and a grin that turns into a satyr's leer at the sight of an attractive woman. He is a self-acknowledged and thus thoroughly affable egotist. But then, he has a lot to be egotistical about...
...Asimov is a genius according to any of the tests by which intelligence is measured, a prodigy who manifests his abilities in a tsunami of words. In the four decades since he published his first story, Asimov has written more science fiction than Kurt Vonnegut's legendary Kilgore Trout. A compilation of Asimov's other works includes several volumes of detective fiction (Tales of the Black Widowers, Murder at the ABA); books on chemistry, astronomy and religion; The Intelligent Man 's Guide to Science ("The title refers to the author, not the reader"); the novelization...
...since he looked up from a laboratory bench at Boston University and decided that his future was at the typewriter, not the microscope. "I realized that I would never be a first-rate scientist," recalls Asimov. "But I could be a first-rate writer. The choice was an easy one: I just decided to do what I did best...
What he does best is simplify science for those who have little or no scientific training. But he also does well with specialists. Astronomer-Author Carl Sagan considers Asimov "the greatest explainer of the age." Says a Harvard research physicist: "Frankly, I read the man so that I can explain my own work to friends." Martin Gardner, an editor of Scientific American, calls Asimov "one of the top science writers in the business simply because, like all good novelists, he knows how to dramatize...
...natural-born worker. He never has fewer than three projects going simultaneously, sits down seven days a week at a cluttered desk in his Manhattan apartment and writes at least eight hours a day, banging out manuscripts at a phenomenal 90 words a minute. Unconcerned with literary style, Asimov concentrates instead on clarity. The result is a manuscript that can usually be taken from the typewriter to the typesetter. His publishers, who know a good thing when they see it, welcome his work, from which they have made millions over the years...