Isaac Asimov: Contemporary American Mythmaker

Isaac Asimov: Contemporary American Mythmaker

Isaac Asimov was the twentieth century's most popular and prolific science fiction writer. He was predominantly praised for the variety of his writing. Asimov produced hundreds of books on every conceivable aspect of sci-fi, from short stories about robots to longer novels about planetary settlements, from introductory guides to genetics to scholarly tracts on biochemistry. He also published an autobiography, a short history of biology, historical studies of Roman and Egyptian culture, a guide to Shakespeare, an analysis of Milton's Paradise Lost, a two-volume examination of the Bible (plus a supplement, Animals of the Bible), three collections of rude limericks, several books of essays, several volumes of American history, an academic edition of Gulliver's Travels, a handful of quiz books, a television play called Unseen World and an annotated guide to the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He once explained this by saying: "I never had a thought that I didn't put down on paper." If anyone could possibly doubt Asimov's legitimacy of being considered mythmaker, then they obviously haven't examined his background. A man that consumed with such a deep love of knowledge and the desire to relate that knowledge in stories seems an obvious mythmaker. He truly loved being alive and wanted to share that passion and understanding with his fellow man. Myths not only teach a variety of lessons regarding the world that surrounds us, they can also be a celebration of existence. His many diverse writings, from science to religion to humor and lastly to opera are testament to his status as a creator myths.

Arthur C. Clarke commented in The Guardian, "Isaac Asimov must have been one of the greatest educators; with almost half a thousand books on virtually every aspect of science and culture. He stood for knowledge against superstition, tolerance against bigotry, kindness against cruelty -- above all, peace against war. His was one of the most effective voices against the 'new age' nitwits and fundamentalist fanatics who may now be a greater menace than the paper bear of communism ever was. Isaac's fiction was as important as his non-fiction, because it spread the same ideas on an even wider scale."

Asimov had the ability to make arcane and difficult scientific concepts popular, entertaining and hugely exciting. He could easily be called a mythmaker when considering myth as expressing and codifying belief, as Bronislav Malinoski defines it. Terry Matheson also says that a culture's mythic stories reflect their concerns, preoccupations, and also the things they fear (285). In Asimov's novels, the concerns and preoccupations are of truth and knowledge over superstition and false belief. The main fears seem to be the loss of knowledge and planetary annihilation. These are clearly evident in Asimov's novels Nightfall and Fantastic Voyage.

Fantastic Voyage also unmistakably contains the journey motif.

Both novels present us with doomsday scenarios that reveal a fundamental myth - that the world is going to be punished for its hubris and/or "sins." In Nightfall, a group of Scientists at a University on a distant planet discover that a total eclipse will occur. This is of great concern because the planet's six suns always have some combination visible. The planet will be exposed to total darkness for the first time. The scientists announce their findings and warn mankind about the potential psychological repercussions, but are mocked and scorned by the media. A fanatical religious cult predicted the end of the world on the same day that the scientists predicted the eclipse. They believe that is the day that God is going to punish mankind for their sins and offer sanctuary to anyone who will join them. When the day arrives, the scientists are holed up in an observatory, knowing that when darkness falls, the people will all become insane and set anything they can on fire to maintain light. This does, indeed, occur and the angry mob storms the observatory and kills every scientist or person of knowledge that they can find, blaming them for this horrifying event. During the days after the event, even though light has returned, civilization has become total chaos. People are still senselessly killing the educated and the religious cult is rebuilding the world according to their beliefs and with their leader having absolute power. There were many similarities between this novel and Walter Miller's A Canticle For Leibowitz. In both books, science is believed to be the cause of a cataclysmic event. Also, in both situations, religious groups are the ones responsible for rebuilding the world, either for better or worse.

In Fantastic Voyage, the potential end of the world is nuclear annihilation as a result of the cold war. Both the U.S. and Russia are on a level playing field until Russia's leading scientist decides to defect and promises to give the U.S. his advances on how to maintain unlimited miniaturization. Upon reaching the U.S. safely, an attempt is made on his life which results in a serious blood clot in his brain that is inoperable from the outside. A crew is assembled to undergo miniaturization on a molecular level and go after the clot from the inside. The crew can stay miniaturized for no more than sixty minutes, only the unconscious scientist knows how to extend that. This knowledge is critical to the safety of mankind because if it falls into the wrong hands, a nuclear attack would be imminent. A nuclear attack and its resulting counterattacks would destroy the future of all mankind.

It seems that the doomsday scenario of the world has both its believers and its skeptics. Despite mounds of evidence, skeptics provide counter-evidence that the cataclysmic event isn't truly happening while believers counter with their own data. It is impossible not to see how we package new ideas and new information in the form of myth. Regardless of whether you're taking a religious or an ecological point of view, the myth remains of global disaster brought on by humanity's overabundance of pride or misuse of science and knowledge. Who brings this global disaster could be Zeus, Yahweh, Mother Nature, or man himself. In any case, such events signal the end times in which a new world order must be initiated. We're stuck in a monomyth in which a "god" is going to punish us by destroying the earth.

The fear of losing knowledge is also clear in both novels. In Nightfall, the scientists learn that the eclipse has been occurring for several millennia. At an archaeological dig, a hill is unearthed and sliced into. It reveals layer after layer of previous civilizations all separated by a charred layer of