It's amazing that in the late 1930's, someone with his academic credentials and intellect decided his life would be best spent writing science fiction.

▲

triceratops 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

He had an academic career too, becoming a tenured professor at age 35 at Boston University. Writing just paid better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Education_and_car...

▲

us-merul 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I looked this up on Wikipedia. It seems that he was working as an instructor (not a professor) of chemistry; since he was making more money as a writer during that time, he slowed down or stopped his research. Doesn’t seem to have been an intentional choice so much as how things happened to turn out.

▲

triceratops 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> he was working as an instructor (not a professor)

No he eventually became a full professor too.

"He began work in 1949 with a $5,000 salary(equivalent to $68,000 in 2025), maintaining this position for several years. By 1952, however, he was making more money as a writer than from the university, and he eventually stopped doing research, confining his university role to lecturing students.[g] In 1955, he was promoted to tenured associate professor. In December 1957, Asimov was dismissed from his teaching post, with effect from June 30, 1958, due to his lack of research. After a struggle over two years, he reached an agreement with the university that he would keep his title and give the opening lecture each year for a biochemistry class. On October 18, 1979, the university honored his writing by promoting him to full professor of biochemistry."

	▲	us-merul 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes that’s true, but I was referring to the line where it said he was making more money as a writer, which was before he became a tenured professor. In any case, we’re both addressing the point that he did have an academic career aside from writing.

▲

BeetleB 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've read his biography. It was definitely intentional - and of course making a living by writing was a big factor. But he just didn't like the academic environment or his colleagues.

▲

wat10000 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Per Wikipedia, he published 40 novels and over 280 non-fiction books. He's best known for SF but he certainly didn't spend his whole career on it.

	▲	triceratops 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> He's best known for SF but he certainly didn't spend his whole career on it. Indeed after becoming a giant of the field in the 1940s and 1950s, when he wrote most of the novels and short stories we know him for (Robots, Foundation and Empire) he took a long hiatus. In the 1960s and 70s, as far as I can tell, his meager sci-fi output consisted of some short stories, a couple of novelizations of sci-fi movies, and a standalone novel (The Gods Themselves). After Sputnik he focused on science writing, believing that to be more widely useful. He only returned to writing more Foundation, Robots, and Empire novels in the 1980s.