When he was twenty-one years old, Isaac Asimov published Nightfall, a story that set the standard for science fiction at that time and established its author as a major science fiction writer. Over the next fifty years, Asimov went on to push the frontiers of science fiction and redefine the genre. Much of the science fiction found today in movies or on television can be traced to Asimov's ideas of futuristic societies featuring robots, space travel, and galaxy-wide civilizations. Asimov, a scientist, has also published hundreds of popular nonfiction books about science. Author Karen Judson interviewed Asimov's widow, Dr. Janet Asimov, and others, to put together an insider's view of the life and legacy of Isaac Asimov and to place the man and his work into the continuum of science fiction literature.