Help me out here if you can. My wife and I were talking about stories, and she remembered parts of a short-story she liked that might have been written by Asimov.
Best she can remember, the aliens came to Earth and met with its representatives. They wanted something, but for some reason, we were not able to figure out why.
The kicker: the aliens wanted Saturn. Apparently, the rings are so rare in the universe that they wanted to show it off to tour groups. So it might have been like a “sell you the Brooklyn Bridge” story.
The second thing she remembered was an essay he wrote about a fake element. He made everything up, including the proofs.
The essay about the phoney element was “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”. He was working on his (doctoral?) dissertation at the time, and decided to try writing a fiction story in the same sort of stilted, academic sounding style.
According to his autobiography, after spending a grueling couple of hours in his oral exams, the last question he was asked was something like “Now, Mr. Asimov, what can you tell us about Resublimated Thiotimoline?” After having been afraid that being a science fiction writer would hurt him in the eyes of his professors, he was both surprised and relieved at the same time.
RJKUgly has the essay. Asimov eventually did more stories about it, kind of fun.
The story is Buy Jupiter, the copy I have is in an anthology with that title. The aliens wanted to buy Jupiter, and the Earth government wanted to know why. When they found out the aliens wanted to use it for advertising, the government people realized that the other alien ad people would pay even more for Saturn with its rings.
The first story is “Buy Jupiter” as scr4 mentioned.
In the story aliens want to use Jupiter as a sort of giant billboard. Seems our solar system is on an important trade route, and lots of tourists will see the advertisement:
“Use Mizzarett Ergone Vertices For Health and Glowing Heat.”
The end of the story is a character pointing out the aliens are novices at advertising, because they “neglected to set up a series of options on the other planets.” So earth will be able to sell Saturn to their competitors. Since it has rings, they can sell it for an even higher price.
This is a short 3 1/2 page story, one of Asimov’s joke stories. I really enjoyed it. But then, I always enjoyed his joke stories!
Asimov has written somewhere that Buy Jupiter was not the title he had thought up, but a suggestion from his publisher, and he added that it was one of the few times that he agreed that the publisher’s idea was bettter.
Ever compose a carefully written, accurately phrased post in response to a question, get ready to post it, and find that three people have already posted the correct answer.
Those SOBs were using thiotimoline to get their posts in first!
Thanks so much for the answers! I’m working on my first draft of a near-future comic novel with science-fiction elements, and my wife suggested dropping in a Thiotimoline reference as a nod to the good doctor. A second story idea reminded her of “Buy Jupiter,” but she couldn’t remember much beyond what I wrote. Y’all been a big help.
