Not the result I expected

[james_davis_nicoll]

This is what being a prolific author of non-fiction can do for your name recognition:

flist margin preserving cut:




Say, what about that other well-known prolific writer, Robert Silverberg?

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

What happened in the eighties?

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

The later foundation novels, which bagged Asimov a Hugo about then iirc.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

SF publishing expanded and Asimov returned to SF, I think.

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Do you think IASFM's existence (starting in 1977 or so) has any effect?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I was just about to post that, having his full name as a magazine title is almost certainly the reason for the huge difference starting then.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Do you think the ads he was in for early computers is because of the rise in name recognition or perhaps caused it?

And does he still recommend the TRS-80?

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder how much of Asimov's curve has to do with solely the Three Laws Of Robotics?

It's an easily grasped info-bite which has spread far and wide from the SF community. And it seems to always have his name attached as the creator.

-- RDaggle

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I think it's got more to do with the fact a kid doing research for a school paper could expect to find books by Asimov in nine out of ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Could that kid expect that in 2012, though? Even though school libraries are badly funded, most of the science books are badly out of date and are likely to have been culled. If we're talking about actual Web citations to the name, my money is on the Three Laws, with a brief boost from the I, Robot movie.

[connactic.livejournal.com]

He didn't just do popsci, though. He also had "Asimov's Guide to the Bible" and "Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare". I am guessing that both biblical and Shakespearean scholarship have advanced since he wrote them, but probably not to the same extent as his popsci stuff.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I own both of those. Also a book of jokes. And maybe two dozen compilations of science articles. And, um, lots of science fiction. He wrote more books than most people own; what do you expect?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

First of all, lets get this to 2008



There's a long, pretty steady decline after the peak in 1982. Wouldn't surprise me if it at least roughly tracked a decline in the availability of his books in libraries. I do note that Kitchener Public Library's online catalog has 103 results for "Isaac Asimov". (http://encore.kpl.org/iii/encore_kpl/search/C__S%22Isaac+Asimov%22__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=kpl) Waterloo Public Library has 112 hits. (http://encore.kpl.org/iii/encore_wpl/search?formids=target&lang=eng&suite=def&reservedids=lang%2Csuite&submitmode=&submitname=&target=%22Isaac+Asimov%22&x=0&y=0)

Looking for Robert A. Heinlein, on the other hand, gets 12 results at KPL (http://encore.kpl.org/iii/encore_kpl/search/C__S%22Robert+A.+Heinlein%22__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=kpl) and 32 at MPL. (http://encore.kpl.org/iii/encore_wpl/search?formids=target&lang=eng&suite=def&reservedids=lang%2Csuite&submitmode=&submitname=&target=%22RObert+A.+Heinlein%22&x=0&y=0)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Clifford D. Simak gets but three results at KPL and WPL...

[connactic.livejournal.com]

Tolkien beats the pants off of Asimov (J.R.R. Tolkien seems to confuse the search engine.)

I will also note that William Faulkner, Herman Melville and Charles Dickens leave Asimov in the dust. Tolkien got a crazy boost from the film series.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

My old high school has five books by Heinlein (one inexplicably called "cdn fiction"). It has 17 by Asimov.

I have a terrible feeling they have some of the same volumes they had when I was there in the 1970s...

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

I have a terrible feeling they have some of the same volumes they had when I was there in the 1970s...

eventually making them antiques that can be sold for thousands of dollars!

[(Anonymous)]

If it's worth anything as a data point, the local Albuquerque public library system has some 34 science book titles by Asimov, mostly space and planets, a lot of them children's science, some updated a bit after his death (but apparently not after 1994...)

Bruce

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

I have a terrible feeling they have some of the same volumes they had when I was there in the 1970s...

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Long-term shelf life is definitely preferred to being yanked to the library sale.

A different question would be who still has some portion of their works still in print.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

First of all, lets get this to 2008[...]

In their Science paper, the Googlers warn against using the corpus beyond 2000 for any serious work. It hasn't received the same degree of cleanup, I gather.

Probably blog entries do not need to be serious work.

[daev.livejournal.com]

1982 -- wasn't that the year he contracted AIDS and retired from his previous life of constant public speaking, talk shows, and prolific nonfiction books?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Also, having a game released with your name on it, and other such stuff.

[carbonel]

Only because I suspect there may be more of these coming...

Could you either shrink the graphics by about 20% or put them behind a cut? My LJ page is mildly unhappy with them. These two posts aren't a problem, but if it's going to be ongoing, it will be an annoyance.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Oh. Cut it is, then.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

I like Silverberg's writing a lot more than Heinlein's, but I'm surprised his name is cited more. Maybe it's just that those that use Heinlein's name, mean it more, so they don't have to use it as often.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Heh. Aside from sheer volume, Silverberg has done more writing about writing, SF and otherwise. You're more likely to get cited when you have something to get cited on published.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

I suspect that RAH being frequently cited by his initials rather than by his full name may contribute as well.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Asimov's magazine obviously represents a lot, but before this, he was still more widely discussed, and so was Silverberg makes me very happy indeed (and more than a bit surprised).

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Robert Heinlein's Science Fiction Magazine would have been like, and how much earlier they would have had to pull the plug on its online forums!

[(Anonymous)]

Just a note on Google Ngrams--I don't know if it's still up, but there had been a warning note that the 1800--2000 date base wasn't necessarily consistent with the post 2000 data. Google claimed that the earlier data was probably better than the post 2000 stuff.

wes

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

One other factor to maybe consider, Heinlein's name may be easier to misspell than Asimov's. (Likewise, Silverberg has to compete with Silverburg.)