"Asimov, Isaac - The Best of Isaac Asimov" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

Naturally, anyone who writes is going to reveal the world in which he is immersed, whether he wants to or desperately wants not to. I've never tried to avoid letting my personal background creep into my stories, but I must admit it has rarely crept in quite as thickly as it did in this one.
As an example of how my stories work out, consider this--
I had my protagonist interested in Carthage because I myself am a great admirer of Hannibal and have never quite gotten over the Battle of Zama. I introduced Carthage, idly, without any intention of weaving it into the plot. But it got woven in just the same.
That happens to me over and over. Some writers work out the stories in meticulous detail before starting, and stick to the outline. P. G. Wodehouse does it, I understand, and I worship his books. But just the same I don't. I work out my ending, decide on a beginning and then proceed, letting everything in-between work itself out as I come to it.
(9) 'The Dying Night' is an example of a mystery as well as a science fiction story, I have been a mystery reader as long as I have been a science fiction reader and, on the whole, I think I enjoy mysteries more.
I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps it was that after I became an established science fiction writer I was no longer able to relax with science fiction stories. I read every story keenly aware that it might be worse than mine, in which case I had no patience with it, or that it might be better, in which case I felt miserable.
Mysteries, especially the intellectual puzzle variety (ah, good old Hercule Poirot), offered me no such stumbling blocks. Sooner or later, then, I was bound to try my hand at science fiction mysteries and 'The Dying Night' is one of these.
(10), Anniversary' was written to fulfill a request--that I write a story for the March, 1959, issue of Amazing Stories as a way of celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the March, 1939, issue, which had contained my first published story, 'Marooned Off Vesta', So (inevitably) I wrote a story dealing with the characters of 'Marooned Off Vesta' twenty years later. The magazine then ran both stories together, and I was sure someone would send me a letter saying that my writing was better in the first story, but no one did. (Perhaps a reader of this book will decide it would be humorous to do so, but if so, please restrain yourself.)
(11) 'The Billiard Ball' comes, in this collection, after an eight-year hiatus and is an example of my 'late' style. (That is, if there is such a thing. Some critics say that it is a flaw in my literary nature that I haven't grown; that my late stories have the same style and aura of my early stories. Maybe you'll think so, too, and scorn me in consequence--but then, I've already told you what some people think of critics.)
The reason for the hiatus is that in 1958 I quit the academic life to become a full-time writer. I at once proceeded to write everything under the sun (straight science, straight mystery, children's books, histories, literary annotations, etymology, humor, etc., etc.) except science fiction. I never entirely abandoned it, of course--witness 'The Billiard Ball'.
(12) 'Mirror Image' is a particularly recent science fiction short story I've written for the magazines and, unlike the first eleven stories, has not yet had time to be reprinted.
One of the reasons for writing it was to appease those readers who were forever asking me for sequels; for one more book involving characters who have appeared in previous books. One of the most frequent requests was that I write a third novel to succeed The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, both of which dealt with the adventures of the detective, Elijah Baley, and his robot-assistant, R. Daneel Olivaw. Unable to find the time to do so, I wrote a short story about them--'Mirror-Image'.
Alas, all I got as a result were a spate of letters saying, 'Thanks, but we mean a novel.'
Anyway, there you are. Turn the page and you can begin a representative, and possibly a more or less 'best', 115,000 words or so out of the roughly 2,000,000 words of science fiction I have written so far. I hope it amuses you. And if it doesn't, remember that I have also written about 7,500,000 words of non-science-fiction, and you are at least spared any of that.

ISAAC ASIMOV


Marooned Off Vesta

"Will you please stop walking up and down like that?" said Warren Moore from the couch. "It won't do any of us any good. Think of our blessings; we're airtight, aren't we?"
Mark Brandon whirled and ground his teeth at him. "I'm glad you feel happy about that," he spat out viciously. "Of course, you don't know that our air supply will last only three days." He resumed his interrupted stride with a defiant air.
Moore yawned and stretched, assumed a more comfortable position, and replied. "Expending all that energy will only use it up faster. Why don't you take a hint from Mike here? He's taking it easy."
"Mike" was Michael Shea, late a member of the crew of the Silver Queen. His short, squat body was resting on the only chair in the room and 'his feet were on the only table. He looked up as his name was mentioned, his mouth widening in a twisted grin.
"You've got to expect things like this to happen sometimes," he said. "Bucking the asteroids is risky business. We should've taken the hop. It takes longer, but it's the only safe way. But no, the captain wanted to make the schedule; he would go through"--Mike spat disgustedly--"and here we are."
"What's the 'hop'?" asked Brandon.
"Oh, I take it that friend Mike means that we. should have avoided the asteroid belt by plotting a course outside the plane of the ecliptic," answered Moore. "That's it, isn't it, Mike?"
Mike hesitated and then replied cautiously, "Yeah--I guess that's it."
Moore smiled blandly and continued, "Well, I wouldn't blame Captain Crane too much. The repulsion screen must have failed five minutes before that chunk of granite barged into us. That's not his fault, though of course we ought to have steered clear instead of relying on the screen." He shook his head meditatively. "The Silver Queen just went to pieces. It's really miraculously lucky that this part of the ship remained intact, and what's more, airtight."
"You've got a funny idea of luck, Warren," said Brandon. "Always have, for as long as I've known you. Here we are in a tenth part of a spaceship, comprising only three whole rooms, with air for three days, and no prospect of being alive after that, and you have the infernal gall to prate about luck."
"Compared to the others who died instantly when the asteroid struck, yes," was Moore's answer.
"You think so, eh? Well, let me tell you that instant death isn't so bad compared with what we're going to have to go through. Suffocation is a damned unpleasant way of dying."
"We may find a way out," Moore suggested hopefully.
"Why not face facts!" Brandon's face was flushed and his voice trembled. "We're done, I tell you! Through!"
Mike glanced from one to the other doubtfully and then coughed to attract their attention. "Well, gents, seeing that we're all in the same fix, I guess there's no use hogging things." He drew a small bottle out of his pocket that was filled with a greenish liquid. "Grade A Jabra this is. I ain't too proud to share and share alike."
Brandon exhibited the first signs of pleasure for over a day. "Martian Jabra water. Why didn't you say so before?"
But as he reached for it, a firm hand clamped down upon his wrist. He looked up into the calm blue eyes of Warren Moore.
"Don't be a fool," said Moore, "there isn't enough to keep us drunk for three days. What do you want to do? Go on a tear now and then die cold sober? Let's save this for the last six hours when the air gets stuffy and breathing hurts--then we'll finish the bottle among us and never know when the end comes, or care."
Brandon's hand fell away reluctantly. "Damn it, Warren, you'd bleed ice if you were cut. How can you think straight at a time like this?" He motioned to Mike and the bottle was once more stowed away. Brandon walked to the porthole and gazed out.
Moore approached and placed a kindly arm over the shoulders of the younger man. "Why take it so hard, man?" he asked. "You can't last at this rate. Inside of twenty-four hours you'll be a madman if you keep this up."
There was no answer. Brandon stared bitterly at the globe that filled almost the entire porthole, so Moore continued, "Watching Vesta won't do you any good either."
Mike Shea lumbered up to the porthole. "We'd be safe if we were only down there on Vesta. There're people there. How far away are we?"
"Not more than three or four hundred miles judging from its apparent size," answered Moore. "You must remember that it is only two hundred miles in diameter."
"Three hundred miles from salvation,'~ murmured Brandon, "and we might as well be a million. If there were only a way to get ourselves out of the orbit this rotten fragment adopted. You know, manage to give ourselves a push so as to start falling. There'd be no danger of crashing if we did, because that midget hasn't got enough gravity to crush a cream puff."
"It has enough to keep us in the orbit, " retorted Brandon. "It must have picked us up while we were lying unconscious after the crash. Wish it had come closer; we might have been able to land on it."
"Funny place, Vesta," observed Mike Shea. "I was down there two-three times. What a dump! It's all covered with some stuff like snow, only it ain't snow. I forget what they call it."
"Frozen carbon dioxide?" prompted Moore.
"Yeah, dry ice, that carbon stuff, that's it. They say that's what makes Vesta so shiny."
"Of course! That would give it a high albedo."
Mike cocked a suspicious eye at Moore and decided to let it pass. "It's hard to see anything down there on account of the snow, but if you look close"--he pointed--"you can see a sort of gray smudge. I think that's Bennett's dome. That's where they keep the observatory. And there is Calorn's dome up there. That's a fuel station, that is. There's plenty more, too, only I don't see them."