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ISSAC ASIMOV continued

Asimov started writing stories at an early age. He was eleven years old when he began writing The Greenville Chums at College. After writing only eight chapters about the adventures of boys living in a small town, he gave up after realizing that he did not know what he was talking about. After writing the first two chapters, he read the chapters written so far to a friend at school during lunchtime. When he stopped, his friend demanded that he continue. When Asimov explained that he had told him all that he had so far, the friend asked to borrow the book when he was finished reading it. Asimov was astonished to discover that his friend thought that he was retelling a story that he read. From that day on Asimov took writing very seriously. Amazing Stories published his first book on January 10, 1939. The story was called "Marooned Off Vesta." His career took off from then on and he won many Hugo and Nebula awards for such books as "Bicentennial Man," and "The Gods themselves."

* Asimov was presented a special Hugo award in 1963 for "adding science to science fiction" for his essays in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
* The Foundation Series was awarded the Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award, in 1966.
* The Gods Themselves won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for best novel in 1973.
* "The Bicentennial Man" was awarded the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for best novelette in 1977.
* Foundation's Edge was presented with the Hugo for best novel in 1983.
* In 1987, he was awarded the special lifetime Nebula Grandmaster award.
* "Gold" was presented with the Hugo for best novelette in 1992.
* I. Asimov: A Memoir won the Hugo Award for best nonfiction in 199.
* "The Mule", the seventh Foundation story published in Astounding Science Fiction (which appeared in book form as part two of Foundation and Empire), was awarded a 1946 Retro-Hugo for Best Novel of 1945 at the 1996 WorldCon.
* He was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1997.
* He won the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Award in 1957 for his book Building Blocks of the Universe.
* He was awarded the Howard W. Blakeslee Award from the American Heart Association in 1960 for his book The Living River.
* He received the James T. Grady Award of the American Chemical Society in 1965.
* He was presented with the Westinghouse Science Writing Award in 1967.
* He was awarded fourteen honorary doctorate degrees from various universities.

Isaac Asimov was one of the world's most renowned science fiction writers. In his illustrious seventy-two year life, Asimov wrote over 470 books and came up with the Three Laws of Robotics (1942), which are still being used as a character platform for robots in many stories. These three laws were:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the 1st law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the 1st or 2nd law.

Asimov applied these laws to many of his stories that contained a robot. A Hollywood example is Robbie the Robot, from "Forbidden Planet," who refused to turn his ray gun on another human therefore obeying the 1st law of Asimov's Laws of robotics. Asimov also did not follow the stereotypes of villainous robots with raspy monotone voices that wanted nothing more than to rule the world, which was set in that time. He instead wrote stories that contained more sympathetic robotic characters.

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