No literary genre lets individuals explore mind-bending concepts quite like science fiction does, encouraging imaginations to plumb the darkest and most unexamined corners of the earth. Science fiction lets creative minds roam with abandon while simultaneously questioning society.
Today is National Science Fiction Day—and it is also the birthday of the grandfather of sci-fi: Isaac Asimov.
Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, was considered a pioneer of science fiction as a result of his enormously popular science books, including the Foundation series, the Galactic Empire series, and the Robot series. His short story “Nightfall” was voted the best short science fiction story of all time in 1964 by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Asimov wrote or edited over five hundred books—many of them on topics in science and history—as well as an estimated ninety thousand letters and postcards. He has published works in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System.
The popular magazine Asimov’s Science Fiction is of course named after Isaac Asimov and has featured many notable sci-fi writers throughout the years, including Robert Silverberg, Octavia E. Butler, Allen Steele, Ian R. MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Jane Yolen, Alan Dean Foster, and John Shirley.
So today, tip your hats to the heavens above as we celebrate all that science fiction has given us throughout the years!