If he were alive, Isaac Asimov would have celebrated his 94th birthday today.  I never had the privilege of meeting Dr. Asimov, but I grew up reading his works.  I’ve not read everything he wrote, but I’ve read quite a bit.  I’m speaking of his science fiction here, not his total output.  Wikipedia says he wrote over 500 books.

It’s also National Science Fiction Day, which I think is quite appropriate.

Asimov was one of the first science fiction authors I read when I graduated to adult science fiction.  This would have been in junior high.  (I’ve always been ahead of my time.)  I think I came across one of his robot stories in an anthology edited by Robert Silverberg that was in the school library.  It wasn’t long before I was hunting down his short fiction (in addition to his robot stories), the Foundation series, and some of his other novels.  His later Foundation novels were among the first science fiction I purchased new in hardcover that wasn’t a book club edition.

It’s been quite a while since I read any of Asimov’s work.  As I stated in my reading goals post, I want to get back to basics  this year and reread some of the works and authors that first attracted me to science fiction.  I picked up a paperback copy of The Winds of Change a few months ago in a second hand shop.  It’s a later collection, and I haven’t read it.  I’ve loved the colors on the cover for years and finally gave in to temptation and bought it.  I think I’ll spend some time this evening reading it and raising a glass to the legacy of Isaac Asimov.