By the time of his death in 1992, Isaac Asimov was widely regarded as one of the most productive and versatile writers of all time. Asimov was best-known for his science-fiction novels and popularized accounts of science, but he worked in a number of other genres as well. Writing in the New York Times, Mervyn Rothstein asserted that "Mr. Asimov was amazingly prolific, writing nearly 500 books on a wide range of subjects, from works for pre-schoolers to college textbooks." Peter Stoler declared in Time that "Simenon may have written more thrillers, Chesterton more poetry and philosophy, Pulp Romance Writer Barbara Cartland more novels. But no single author has ever written more books about more subjects than Isaac Asimov."

Asimov's "usual routine," explained Rothstein, "was to awake at 6 A.M., sit down at the typewriter by 7:30 and work until 10 P.M." In order to maintain the necessary writing pace, Asimov...