Black Friar of the Flame

Isaac Asimov: Black Friar of the Flame. I'll have to dig around in Asimov's autobiography to learn more about this story. I had first read it years ago, and I'm afraid that time has not been kind to it. I thought I had remembered a kind of homage to John W. Campbell's various tales (written in the guise of Don A. Stuart) such as Cloak of Aesir. Instead we have a somewhat pedestrian tale of rebellion against ineffective alien overlords. The greatest puzzle to this tale is the title. Asimov indicates that this was one foisted upon him, one of the things I'd like to find is what the original title was. More of historical interest than anything, it mentions, for example, the planet Trantor (the name was later recycled for the Foundation tales).

The story was written around the time that Asimov started producing the Foundation stories that later became (along with his Robot stories) his most famous work. Black Friar was not produced under the guidance of John W. Campbell, Jr. (and say what you may these days, Campbell formed much of what we know as science fiction!), so it may be that it would have been a much better tale with Campbell's guidance.

Part of the 2006 Year in Shorts.