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crucial moment and the scientists tried to hold them off long enough to get
their task done.
No, it wasn t plagiarism. For one thing I wrote it entirely differently.
However, the scene fit both stories and
having been impressed by it in Jack s story, I drew from memory, and used it
in my own story automatically--never for one moment considering that I wasn t
making it up out of nothing but had earlier read something very like that
scene.
I suppose that any thoroughgoing scholar who was willing to spend several
years at the task could trace almost every quirk in Nightfall to one story
or another that appeared in the science fiction magazines in the 1930s.
(Yes, I read them all.) Naturally, he could do the same for any other story
written by any other author.
Here s something even more curious. In a note dated June 27, 1985, a reader
sent me an enclosure--a photocopy of a short article from the October 1937
issue of the magazine
Sky
(now known as
Sky and Telescope, I
believe).
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The article is entitled If the Stars Appeared Only One Night in a Thousand
Years. It begins with the
Emerson quotation and it is by M. T. Brackbill. The author describes what it
might be like if the night on which the stars appear were coming. There might
be prostellarists who believe the stars are coming; and antistellarists
who dismiss the whole thing as a fable. And then the night comes and everyone
stares entranced at the stars and finally watches them disappear with the
dawn, sadly realizing that for a thousand years they will never be seen again.
It s rather touching, and about the only thing Brackbill misses, that I could
see, was the certainty that on that particular night there was bound to be a
heavy night-long overcast in various parts of the world, so that millions of
people would invariably be disappointed.
The person who sent me the photocopy accompanied it with this note: Dear Mr.
Asimov--I happened to spot this article. I wonder if it was an inspiration for
one of the greatest short stories ever written!
Just an inspiration ? If the article and Nightfall were carefully studied
and compared, how many events and phrases in the story might seem to have been
inspired or hinted at in the article. I haven t the heart to do this myself
and I hope no one else does.
Unfortunately, neither the name nor address of the person who sent me the
article was on the note, and the envelope the whole thing had come in had not
been saved. (Please, everyone, if you want an answer, put your name and return
address on your letter and not just on the envelope. I frequently discard
envelopes without glancing at them except to make sure they are addressed to
me.)
In any case, I couldn t answer him. So I must use this editorial as the only
way of reaching him.
The truth is that I never saw the article; never had a hint that it existed
until the day I received the note and enclosure from my unknown correspondent.
It had not the slightest iota of direct influence on my story.
But
John Campbell presented me with the Emerson quote and the request that I
reverse it, only three years after the article had appeared. Had he seen it?
I wouldn t be surprised if he had, and if, as soon as he had come across it or
had had it drawn to his attention, copied down the quote and then waited for
the first unwary science fiction writer to cross his threshold.
(How thankful I am that it was I. )
Were he still alive (he would only be seventy-five today, if he were), I would
ask him about it. I am quite sure, though, what his answer would be. It would
be, What difference does it make?
So there arises the question: If it is impossible to be completely original,
how can you tell permissible influence from plagiarism?
Well, it depends on the extent and detail of the borrowing. Based on that, it
is possible to tell! It may not always be provable in a court of law, but,
believe me, it is possible to tell!
BOOK REVIEWS
I HAVE NEVER MADE ANY SECRET OF THE
fact that I dislike the concept of reviews and the profession of reviewing. It
is a purely emotional reaction because, for reasons that are all too easy to
work out, I strongly dislike having anyone criticize my stuff adversely.
I don t think I m alone in this. From my close observation of writers (almost
all my friends are writers) they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed
copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and
secretly at any bad review.
I m class one. Most of my friends aim at class two and don t quite make it and
aren t quite aware that they don t make it.
Unfortunately, there s no way in which one can get back at a reviewer. I have
sometimes had the urge to do some fancy horsewhipping in the form of a mordant
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letter designed to flay the reptilian hide off the sub-moron involved; but,
except in my very early days, I have always resisted. This is not out of
idealism but out of the bitter knowledge that the writer always loses in such
a confrontation.
Instead, then, I take to muttering derogatory comments about reviewing and
reviewers in general.
But I m in a bad spot here. This magazine (which is the apple of my eye) not
only has a regular book review column, but has other items, less regularly
included, that review one or another of the facets of the science fiction
field. If I really despise reviewing so, why is it I allow reviewing in the
magazine?
Because I
don t really despise reviewing and reviewers. That is an emotional reaction
that I recognize as emotional, and therefore discount. I am a rational man; I
like to think; and in any disagreement between my emotions and my rationality,
I should hope it is rationality that wins out every time.
Now let s get down to cases.
A publisher to whom I was beholden asked me to read a book by an important
writer and to give them a quote that could be used on the cover. I tried to
beg off, but they insisted that I at least read it, and give it a chance.
So I did. I
tried to read it--and the gears locked tight long before I finished. It seemed
to me so unsuccessful a book that there was no way in which I could give it
the quote that was wanted. I felt awful, but I had to call the publisher and
beg off.
Now, then, assuming my judgment was correct, should that book be reviewed? Why
say unkind things about it?
In the case of an ordinary bad book, one might wonder. At the most, it might
only be necessary to say, This is a bad book because-- with a few
unemotional sentences added. You don t crack a peanut with a sledgehammer.
An unsatisfactory book written by an important writer, however, requires a
detailed review to explain why it seems to have gone wrong and where and how.
This is not so much to warn off readers, who will probably have bought the
book in great numbers anyway by the time the review comes out. It is because
even a flawed book by a good writer can be an important educational
experience.
Its failure can be used as a way of sharpening the general taste for the
literary good. It will educate (properly reviewed) not only the reader, but
the writer as well, the veteran as well as the neophyte.
And yet despite the value of such a review, I could not in a million years
review the book myself.
There are emotional objections. How can I say unkind things about someone else
when I detest having someone say unkind things about me? If I can t take it, I
have no right to dish it out. Then, too, how can I review a book by a friend
(or, possibly, a rival) and be sure of being objective?
If that isn t enough, there are technical objections. Even if everyone were to
grant that I am a whizz at writing science fiction, that does not necessarily
mean that I m a whizz at understanding what makes science fiction good and
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