Isaac Asimov
Asimov story - the Early Asimov

"Technical" review, a copy of an existing one, just to unify two profiles and close one.

For example, for me, who was struck by the Trilogy when I was twenty, who proudly keeps Asimov's novels and essays, this collection was essentially missing.

I mean, I was camping with my parents in '73, at 12 years old, when it was published by Urania with four consecutive releases named Asimov Story n. 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the summer of 1973.
A twenty-year-old uncle bought them at the campsite store, and I devoured them.
And then, he took them away.
Then no more - gone. Only in memory.
I've been able to get my hands on a complete Asimov Story from a month ago; I dare my first - perhaps only - review because I doubt others can or want to review the same work.
The collection was published by Asimov in '72 under the title The Early Asimov.
In practice, it's a series of short stories, the first written by Isaac between '39 and '49, that is, between nineteen and twenty-nine years old, when he had no intention or expectation of becoming a writer: they were mostly entertainments, experiments, games.
Science fiction publishing was forming exactly in those years, and the genre was gaining autonomy and its own dignity, the readers were still few, and publishers struggled to keep the magazines afloat.
Twenty-seven short stories each accompanied by an Amarcord aiming to place it in context, to describe how the story was conceived, the innumerable series of rejections or requests - from publishers - for reworks sometimes accepted sometimes not, the amount of the checks received in return for sales and the importance they had in keeping the writer in his chemistry studies and later justifying - with a "normal" started working activity - maintaining a parallel occupation while waiting to see what would come out of it.
Personally, I find most of the stories timid, very timid, through which one can clearly perceive the evolution of technique and content.
Some of them (Half-Breed, The Secret Sense, Homo Sol, Half-Breed on Venus, Blind Alley, Mother Earth, The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use, The Fireman) I point out as little gems, you can see the seeds of what would later be the grand construction of Psychohistory in the Trilogy, that theoretical construct according to which psychology when applied to huge masses of individuals allows the creation of perfectly reliable mathematical models through which carefully planned interventions can guarantee results within a few months, or a few decades, or a few millennia.
The "historical" breath, borrowed from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by the author's own admission, begins to be recognized in these writings, and for those like me who love the Trilogy, it's a spectacle.
But above all, it is a volume dedicated to personal stories.
Of those like Asimov who were formed in those times and environments sharing paths and difficulties: the names of Frederik Pohl or Lyon Sprague de Camp recur throughout the interludes as those of who "grew up together," true and authentic affections and travel companions.

Above all, the figure of John Campbell stands out, an enlightened editor who played a huge role in Asimov's formation and successes, summarized so well by the image: when rejecting a story, he wrote long letters describing in detail what was wrong and why buying it was impossible for him. I later learned that in case of acceptance, the check I received would have been the only form of comment.
To John Campbell, mentor and friend, Asimov posthumously dedicated this collection.
Asimov Story, 586 pages, can be found quite easily on amazon or similar published in English with its original title, The Early Asimov.