Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov

Consider the problems of miners who work on Ganymede, moon of Jupiter, 390,000,000 miles from earth: isolated on a world so different from our own, surrounded by beings who know nothing of our traditions, how might these men teach their alien work-mates how we celebrate Christmas? Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov, that’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, with at least one lost vintage sci-fi short story in every episode.

Christmas on Ganymede is the first Isaac Asimov short sci-fi story on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. Listener Sleepy Williams requested something from Asimov and since we’re getting close to Christmas it seemed like a good time for this story. 

Asimov was born in Russia on January 2, 1920, his family immigrated to the United States in 1923, and he became a naturalized US citizen in 1928.

He discovered science fiction through the magazines sold in his father's candy store.

During World War II, he was employed as a chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. That’s when that he became acquainted with Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp, two other future science fiction writers.

Asimov briefly served in the Army in 1946, and following his discharge, he received his Ph.D. and began teaching biochemistry at Boston University’s School of Medicine. Asimov soon started writing short stories and then his first novel, Pebble in the Sky, in the 1940s and ’50s. For the next 40 years, Asimov wrote hundreds of science fiction works.

The 2021 Apple TV series Foundation is based on his writing, as is the 2004 movie I, Robot starring Will Smith and the 1999 Robin Williams movie Bicentennial Man.

Asimov was given theScience Fiction Writers Association Grand Master Award in 1987 and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1997.

A discussion of his accomplishments in sci-fi would take hours, so we’ll save more of the Isaac Asimov story for another episode of the podcast.

Christmas on Ganymede was written in December 1940, first published in the January 1942 issue of Startling Stories Magazine. The Yuletide Season Brings Turmoil on Jupiter’s Moon and Ill Will Toward Everybody When Olaf Johnson Gets Sentimental! Our Christmas tale begins on page 83, Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov...

Next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast… Undaunted by crazy tales of an indestructible presence on Asteroid Z-40, Harley 2Q14N20 sets out alone to face and master it. The Planetoid of Peril by Paul Ernst. That’s next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, with at least one lost vintage sci-fi short story in every episode.

Support the show

Listen without commercials and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes every month with Lost Sci-Fi Premium—start your free 7-day trial today. https://lostscifi.supercast.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.