Pohl on Asimov

Frederik Pohl has posted about his experiences with Isaac Asimov. This is a chance to hear an intimate portrait of one sf legend by another. Needless to say you won't want to miss it. Pohl's blog is full of indispensable insights into the galactic bulge of sf, especially the Golden Age. If you're like me, you've spent many an hour raptly reading his reminiscences. And now that he's discussing the Good Doctor, I'm doubly interested.

Like most of us in the New York area, Isaac’s first clue that there was a way to join others came from reading Hugo Gernsback’s magazine, Wonder Stories. In an effort to improve sales, Gernsback had started a correspondence club, the Science Fiction League, and allowed some members to charter local chapters. One, the Q (for Queens) SFL, was in the New York area and was the point of first contact for most of the area’s newbies because they’d read about it in the magazine.

So the QSFL was where Isaac first showed up, but we Futurians kept an eye on their new blood. Anyone who turned up with an interest in writing sf as well as reading it, we kidnapped; that was one of the reasons the QSFL’s heads, James Taurasi, Will Sykora and Sam Moskowitz, weren’t real fond of us. And Isaac made it clear that he was definitely going to become an sf professional writer, as soon as he figured out how.

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