Isaac Asimov Dies: Byrne and Asimov Genealogy and Family Histories

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Title	Isaac Asimov Dies
Date	7 Apr 1992
Date Viewed	10 Apr 2025
Page	8
Periodical	New York Newsday
Place	Melville, Suffolk, NY USA
Source Type	Newspaper
URL	https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday-obituary-for-isaac-asimov/169964653/
Source ID	S1585
Text	Isaac Asimov Dies Sci-fi writer of 477 titles By Sidney C. Schaer STAFF WRITER Isaac Asimov, one of this century's most influential science fiction writers, whose talent allowed him to write on almost any subject that interested him, died yesterday. He was 72 and lived in Manhattan. Asimov, perhaps most famous for a series of books set in the very distant future, had been in ill health for the past year, and died at New York University of heart and kidney failure. At his own count, he had published 477 books, and according to his family had at least a half dozen in various stages of preparation including a another installment of the best-selling "'Foundation Trilogy. A prolific producer of words, Asimov once estimated that he had more than 20 million words in print, and that he had trained himself to type at 90 words a minute. In his autobiography published over a decade ago, and contained in two installments totaling 1,500 pages, he wrote that he believed his work required only one revision. "If after two typings the result proves unsatisfactory, it has always seemed to me it is better abandoned. There is less trouble and trauma involved in writing a new piece than in trying to salvage an unsatisfactory one." Asimov, who was born in Russia on Jan. 2, 1920, came to this country with his family when he was 3 vears old, and grew up in Brooklyn, where his father owned a series of candy stores. Asimov, precocious as a youngster, claimed he convinced his father that it was acceptable for him to read "pulp" magazine fiction by claiming that it really was about science, glossing over the fiction part. As a teenager he began experimenting with writing, but sought a career in the sciences. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University in 1939 and earned a master's degree in 1941 in chemistry from the same school. World War II interrupted his college career, but eventually he earned his doctorate in chemistry from Columbia. He moved to Boston where he began teaching biochemistry at Boston University Medical School, and stayed at this job for nearly a decade until his writing could support him and his family. "Isaac really changed Page the face of science fiction," said Robert Silverberg, a longtime friend who with Asimov last year converted Asimov's famous 1940s short story, "Nightfall," into a novel. "Before Isaac, most of science fiction was just pulp magazine mumbo jumbo, but he wrote with clarity and logic he used to say that he couldn't begin a story unless he knew it," Silverberg said. Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein are considered the three giants of science fiction. Their efforts shaped it and ultimately influenced a generation that converted science fiction into science fact with the evolving world of computers, miniaturization and space travel. He would always claim that the most important influence on his writing was John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction. In 1938, Asimov he hand-delivered his first short story to Campbell, who rejected it. Campbell offered him a lot of advice, and eventually they became close friends and collaborators. In recent years Asimov collaborated on a series of children's science fiction books with his second wife, Janet Jeppson, a psychiatrist he married in 1973. His first marriage, to Gertrude Blugerman, ended in divorce. He is survived by a son, David, of California, a daughter, Robyn of Manhattan, a sister, Marcia Repanes of Maspeth, Queens, and a brother, Stanley of Roslyn Heights, L.I., who recently retired as Newsday's vice president for editorial adminstration. His brother said a memorial service was planned but a date had not been chosen. The body was cremated.
Linked to Individuals: 1	ASIMOV, Isaac

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Isaac Asimov Obit Newsday

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