Can you remember where you were?

[AE35Unit]

On the day in April 1992 when the good Doctor passed away? I was in a newsagents looking for a magazine and came across one called Focus. Not a SF mag but one on science and technology. I saw an item about him dying and I was shocked! I just stopped still to take it in. I bought the mag and because I had get to know the man so well thru reading all his memoirs and bios I was moved to write a small poem. It was like losing a close friend!Don't know what happened to that poem!

 

[J-Sun]

I don't remember where I was when it happened, but I remember very vividly when I found out about it. I was in a bookstore and read about it on the blurb of a book. I believe it was the paperback of Forward the Foundation (I wasn't very "plugged in" then and didn't get the book until May 1994). As you say, I was struck almost as if a family member or close friend had died. I don't think I ever wrote a poem about him but, for many years, I wished to become a writer because of him so everything I wrote came from him in a sense.

He was an incredibly knowledgeable and industrious man who was endlessly entertaining and informative and, while many fail to appreciate it these days, he was possessed of extraordinary style. It is very hard (and, these days, apparently impossible) to write with perfect clarity and transparency and to use language as a precise instrument for revelation as opposed to obfuscation.

I still miss him - his direct works and his contributions to the field. While not everything he wrote was a masterpiece, he wrote a number of them and it's dismaying to realize (over and over) that there won't be any more.

 

[AE35Unit]

Thinking back to all the time I spent reading about his life and getting to know him helps me to realise that you don't have to like all of a persons works to like the person!

 

[mosaix]

it's dismaying to realize (over and over) that there won't be any more.

That's the thing that I find difficult as well.

 

[Ghost Of Gernsback]

Thinking back to all the time I spent reading about his life and getting to know him helps me to realise that you don't have to like all of a persons works to like the person!

Yeah thats a good point, when he passed, it was like loosing a mate. He wrote so much about his life etc, you could not help to get to know him

I recall the night he died, our local news channel did an interview outside the a science fiction book shop with a local author Terry Dowling. He simply said, "without Asimov, this shop would not exist, he just inspired that many people."

 

[AE35Unit]

He was such a character wasnt he! Refused to fly anywhere and so was unable to attend his father's funeral. Was the first person to use the word robotics, and had an unspoken deal with A C Clarke. He could invent a story about anything. Someone would suggest something for an idea and he would disappear upstairs and come down next day with a story-amazing guy!

 

[Connavar]

Despite i enjoy his books and respect him alot i never felt the loss of Asimov.

I read Foundation for the first time in 2003, 11 years after his death. It was a normal fact that he died in 92. So when you know a legendary author is death before you even read him then you are used to the idea.

Same with Heinlein,PKD who are even bigger favorites of mine. Despite i feel so much for them they died in the 80s. Heck PKD died a few months before i was born.

But i know the feeling because when David Gemmell died i was chrushed. I was depressed by the idea of never reading anything new from him that i couldnt even look at any book for a week.

 

[AE35Unit]

The thing with PKD too is his birth and death dates are just rearranged. 1928-82. Its almost as if he planned it that way!

 

[steve12553]

I don't remember specifics about either Asimov's or Heinlein's death, although I had been reading them for quite a few years. That was back in the days before internet and all the instant communication and even well catigorized electronic data. I probably happened to read about it in a newspaper and in both cases, I'm sure I felt the universe get just a little smaller.

 

[neopeius]

On the day in April 1992 when the good Doctor passed away? I was in a newsagents looking for a magazine and came across one called Focus. Not a SF mag but one on science and technology. I saw an item about him dying and I was shocked! I just stopped still to take it in. I bought the mag and because I had get to know the man so well thru reading all his memoirs and bios I was moved to write a small poem. It was like losing a close friend!Don't know what happened to that poem!

I think I still have the newspaper with his obit.

I was reading his autobiography, and my father was terminally ill at the time, so it was rather impactful. These days, I am less enamored with Asimov than once I was, but back then, it was a big deal.