In his essay “The Wall and the Books,” the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges marvels over an analogous conjunction, the fact that Shih Huang Ti, the first emperor of China, ordered both the construction of the Great Wall and the burning of all the books written before his time. These two numbers might seem very different, but both are central to Asimov’s legacy. The number of such incidents is unknown, but it can be plausibly estimated in the hundreds, and thus may match or exceed the long list of books that Asimov wrote. Within the science fiction community, this is common knowledge, and whenever I bring it up in a room of older fans, the response is usually a series of nods. Over the course of many decades, Asimov groped or engaged in other forms of unwanted touching with countless women, often at conventions, but also privately and in the workplace. In the end, however, another number might turn out to be equally meaningful. He kept close track of his publications, most of which were nonfiction, and confessed that he was generous when it came to including borderline cases, such as anthologies, in his total of nearly five hundred books: “We all want to be known for something, and I was beginning to see that there would be a good chance that if for nothing else, I would be known for the vast number of books I would publish.” He was born a century ago this month, and when he died, in 1992, he was both the most famous science fiction writer in the world and perhaps the most prolific author in American history.

Asimov's best books