The Isaac Asimov Collection

Okay folks, I thought I'd try this here...

I recently picked up some very sweet Asimov books from BookMooch the other day and they come from a specially published series. After doing some research I found they were published by Doubleday in the 80's (maybe?) and some evidence has indicated that it may have been available by subscription only. Check out this tag and check out the covers. If that link does not work just go to my profile and check out tag "IAC". This should get you a good view of what I have and what I am looking for!

I tried writing to Doubleday, the Doubleday Book Club, Random House (DD's parent company) and they all pretty much told me shove off; that they could not help me or to visit amazon if looking for hard to find books. Which is dumb because all I was asking for is information!!!

So here is my query, if anyone out there knows maybe a site that has this information, or knows themselves, that would be super great!

How many and which of Asimov's book were published under this collection? Is there any publication data available for this set (ISBNs, LCCNs, Years, etc...)

Thanks in advance everyone!

Okay, the link clearly does not work unless you sign in under my name... :-)

Just follow the profile link and check the IAC tag.

Looks like quite a catch.

This seems quite a comprehensive bibliography, so maybe you could email this chap and ask him. (I've no idea how old the page is - why don't people put a 'last updated' date on web pages?)

All I remember is that it WAS a subscription series; sorry, I don't recall what was issued in the series, or even who issued it.

OK, Noisy's link at #3 leads to "The Big List" of all known Asimov editions.

http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_big_list.html

"The Asimov Collection" books are explicitly indicated there, but this list seems to show only

Pebble in the Sky
I, Robot
Caves of Steel
Naked Sun
The Gods Themselves
Foundation's Edge

and so seems to be incomplete.

It also shows some later Doubleday "Signed limited editions" which might be the same series.

Hey guys, thanks!

I have seen this list before and noticed the same thing as you, Bob. :-I

Elsewhere I saw some rare books store was selling a 14 volume set as well, but could not tell me if was complete or not... One of them was signed also, so the set was like $1800!

So, it seems no one really knows. It's too bad the publisher wouldn't help me, because if anyone has records of this, it would be them.

Thanks anyway guys!

Hey there. I stumbled on this thread looking to complete my set of these books. I have the following books (14 total):

I, Robot
Caves of Steel
Naked Sun
Robots of Dawn
The Stars, Like Dust
The Currents of Space
Pebble in the Sky
Prelude to Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
The Gods Themselves

I have never seen any others than these. I was in this book club until they suddenly stopped sending them to me. When I call and questioned them about it, they said that the club had ended and that I should have gotten a list of books to buy outright, to complete my collection. I never got this list and don't know if any others were printed.

I too would like to know if I am missing any. I do not have the books handy (3K miles away at my parents home) so I cannot give ISBNs. I will when I can though.

Oh BTW. My books have a kind of "puffy" faux leather pebbly textured cover with the artwork cut in a slight beveled manner and glued on the covers. Only Foundation has art by Michael Whelan, the others are the art that followed, introduced in the late 80's early 90's.

In the mid-90's, I saw an ad in a magazine for the book club again, only this time the books were redesigned. They looked like the covers were more "hardback" with artwork that covered like 4/5 of the right side of the cover. I don't know if these were ever made because I have NEVER seen them for sale.

Trabera, thanks for the information!

From what I've found out since this thread died, was that the 14 books in your list seems to be the complete run. No one else has found any others besides those. Although, I've not had firm confirmation from a reliable source (publisher) that there are not others.

I would really like to finish the set as well. I will be searching amazon and trying to find the last 6 I need. If you have the ISBN's for those sometime that would be appreciated. (I'm missing Naked Sun, Robots Of Dawn, The Stars Like Dust, The Currents Of Space, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation And Earth)

My books are also the puffy faux leather, although I'm not sure about the Foundation artwork. I see no mention of Whelan as the cover artist and it does not look like his regular style to me. Although I could be wrong. Here is my cover...

By the way, thanks for joining LibraryThing and the SF fan group just to make this post! Your information is much appreciated.

You should stick around. :-) This is a pretty great place to hang out and catalog books and chat about books and read about more books.

#9 -
That picture is by Whelan. I've even seen it in a collection of his online somewhere.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Rather late, I'm afraid :(
To make your link in the OP work, add "&view=thegreattim" to it.

Sure enough, that works. Thanks Jim.

I remember joining this club - I believe the first volume (Pebble in the Sky accompanied by a paperback short called CAL) was free then the remaining were $14.95 or so. I quit after the third so I only have the first three:

Pebble in the Sky
Caves of Steel
Foundation
CAL (A Short Story Written Exclusively for Members of the Isaac Asimov Collection)
http://www.librarything.com/work/1110041/book/29814071

Four items above with ISBNs (except CAL) are in my Library.

I finally got to my books and recorded the ISBN's:

I, Robot 0-385-42304-7
Caves of Steel 0-385-41952-X
The Naked Sun 0-385-47085-1
The Robots of Dawn 0-385-47086-X
The Stars, Like Dust 0-385-47083-5
The Currents of Space 0-385-47804-3
Pebble in the Sky 0-385-41953-8
Prelude to Foundation 0-385-43301-2
Foundation 0-385-41950-3
Foundation and Empire 0-385-42303-9
Second Foundation 0-385-42302-0
Foundation's Edge 0-385-47802-7
Foundation and Earth 0-385-47087-8
The Gods Themselves 0-385-41951-1

I have searched high and low and have not seen evidence of any other books in this series. Of course, I would be ecstatic if someone could prove me wrong.

I had tons of Asimov on my bookshelf but had to sell them all when I moved! Now I'm getting some back via bookmooch. So far I have Caves of Steel(looking out for The Naked Sun to follow), The Gods Themselves which I've never read, and Opus, the omnibus.

what happened to Robots and Empire? And Forward the Foundation?

As far as I know, Robots and Empire and Forward were never produced for the Asimov Collection. I have never seen them and in all sales and listings of collections, they have never been mentioned.

As I said, if anyone has info of other books in the collection, I would love to be proven wrong.

trabera,

Thanks! That list is super helpful. Maybe someday, I'll be able to find the six I am missing.

I subscribed to The Isaac Asimov Collection, which was supposed to encompass the so called "Empire" books. I was amazed when they ended the series with "The Gods Themselves." I wrote them a letter at the time informing them that not only was "The Gods Themselves" outside the scope of his Empire books, but that they were missing several. They thanked me for my interest, but made it clear that it was what it was. Someone really botched it, perhaps it was me for shelling out for the weird set in the first place. I'm currently re-reading them, which is how I tripped across this thread.

I noticed that each book begins with a note: "If you would be interested in receiving bookends for The IA Collection, please write to this address for information." I never wrote to Doubleday about them, and now regret it. I don't know if they ever supplied bookends specifically for the set. I checked eBay and didn't find anything.

Does anyone know whether special bookends were ever provided to go with this set?

Greetings! I know it's been a while since this thread was active, but somebody just brought 10 of these books to my used bookstore for trade and in doing some research on them found this conversation. I also found this online list: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?789 if that helps anybody.

They're beautiful books. In trying to figure out what to price them, I've been sort of surprised that they're not considered more valuable, collectable-wise. On the other hand, the lower I can price them, the sooner I can sell them!

Cheers, all!

22> I looked at ABEBOOKS to see if that pricing was consistent and it seems they are in the $9.00 to 12.95 depending on condition...having the IBSEN number resulted in two hits on the Book Foundation

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=asimov&isbn=0385419503&...

Hi everyone.

I know this one dropped off a long time ago, but I subscribed to this serious. It also included as a bonus a short story delivered almost as a pamphlet with one of the books. The two or three members who supplied the lists earlier are complete. The series was discontinued around the time he died. There was a really long unexplained break in shipments followed by a letter that basically said the collection was complete and no additional details. I really liked the series and was disappointed. Too bad there was no provision in the contract for it to continue in the event of death. I do wish I had ordered the bookends they offered with the set, just in case they were special somehow.

I was moving my incomplete collection of Issac Asimov recently and it got me wondering. I too was a subscriber to this collection and I remember getting the notice saying the club was ending. If I wanted to get the rest of the books I had to pay up front which I did. These books were some of the best reading for so many reasons and have a special place in my heart. I never got the rest of the books! I had 10 and now I know I was 4 short. Now five as I gave one away to my uncle as a gift. It was his collection of science fiction books that I stared at on his shelves when I was a boy that made me wonder what lay within all of the pages. Well now that I see that this happened to others, Now with the help of the internet, I will try to complete my set so Issac's stories will be around for as long as possible.

Those are some great covers!! I do not have any of this edition, I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Well it's been a while but as I laid here with a touch of insomnia, I thought I would look around for the last book I needed to complete my collection. After finding an ISBN number and web searching it, I was surprised to find a copy of Prelude to Foundation sitting on Amazon reasonably priced. The description and photo are correct so when I get it (just did this 15 minutes ago) I will have a complete set after waiting about 30 years! Well just wanted to give hope to anyone still hunting for this collection!

Also jumping in as someone who finally found another part of their incomplete collection and is still looking. I just found my 9th, so I'm looking to break into the double digits! 😀

I just finished acquiring a complete set of all 14 volumes! They are gorgeous books, but its incredibly difficult to find more than a few here and there. I ended up purchasing from Amazon, Abebooks, Thriftbooks, Mercari and Ebay to finally get them all. But the journey was fun.

Congrats! I just found a like-new copy of Foundation's Fear at the local library sale last week, which completed that trilogy for me.

I received each Isaac Asimov Collection book (14) when they were originally published, including the only paperback, "Cal," a story Isaac wrote just for members.

If memory serves the Collection was supposed to include all the Foundation/Empire books, but they missed one and the final book, 'The Gods Themselves(?)' was published instead.

I wrote them a letter, yes snail mail, wondering about what seemed to be a peculiar error on their part. They never corrected it as far as I know.

In case anyone was looking for this set, there is one currently available on eBay with all 14 volumes. See item number: 126088451721.

I have no relation to the seller. A Buy It Now at $1310.50 USD sounds reasonable though the description does mention some foxing.

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If anyone ever comes across a clothbound hardcover matching set of all 7 volumes of the 'Foundation' series, certainly please let me know. From reading the above though, I expect that one simply does not exist.