Fact and Fancy
Fact and Fancy is a collection of seventeen scientific essays by American writer and scientist Isaac Asimov. It was the first in a series of books collecting his essays from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov's second book of science essays altogether (after Only a Trillion). Doubleday & Company first published it in March 1962. It was also published in paperback by Pyramid Books as part of The Worlds of Science series.
 First edition | |
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Fantasy & Science Fiction essays |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | March 1962 |
| Media type | print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Followed by | View from a Height |
After he had written 200 essays for Fantasy and Science Fiction (out of 399 in the end), Asimov wrote of them "To this day I get more pleasure out of them than out of any other writing assignment I get."[1]
The only essay that did not appear in Fantasy and Science Fiction was "Our Lonely Planet", which first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction.
Contents
- Part I: The Earth and Away
- "Life's Bottleneck" (April 1959)
- "No More Ice Ages?" (January 1959)
- "Thin Air" (December 1959)
- "Catching Up with Newton" (December 1958)
- "Of Capture and Escape" (May 1959)
- Part II: The Solar System
- "Catskills in the Sky" (August 1960)
- "Beyond Pluto" (July 1960)
- "Steppingstones to the Stars" (October 1960)
- "The Planet of the Double Sun" (June 1959)
- Part III: The Universe
- "Heaven on Earth" (May 1961)
- "Our Lonely Planet" (November 1958)
- "The Flickering Yardstick" (March 1960)
- "The Sight of Home" (February 1960)
- "Here It Comes; There It Goes" (January 1961)
- Part IV: The Human Mind
- "Those Crazy Ideas" (January 1960)
- "My Built-in Doubter" (April 1961)
- "Battle of the Eggheads" (July 1959)
References
- Asimov (1975), Buy Jupiter (VGSF 1988 edition) p. 125