Asimov Chronicles — Isaac Asimov

Fifty years after his first professional sale, Isaac Asimov is still writing, prolifically, and turning out high-quality work. In commemoration, Greenberg has brought together one story from each of those 50 years, beginning with that very first sale, ``Marooned off Vesta,'' an impressively well-told tale for an 18-year-old novice, concerning a rocketship crew in danger of languishing in space for lack of fuel, and how they solve their problem. Also here are ``Nightfall,'' voted one of the best SF stories of all time by members of the SF Writers of America, published less than three years after the first story, and demonstrating Asimov's tremendous growth in that time. It concerns a civilization on a planet in a multiple star system that experiences darkness only once every several millenia, to disastrous effect. ``The Red Queen's Race'' is a provocative time-travel story that resolves the contradictions inherent to the form; and ``The Ugly Little Boy'' is an almost unbearably touching tale of a Neanderthal child brought into the modern world. Interestingly, although a collection entitled The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov was published a few years ago, this ``best of'' volume overlaps that one in only six of its selections. (May)