The Magnificent Possession
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Magnificent Possession is a short story by science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was published in Future Fiction in July 1940. The author recalls that the story, an attempt at humour, was embarrasing to read later, and that he was glad that his long-time editor, John W Campbell, never saw it, as he would certainly have rejected it.
Asimov was majoring in chemistry at the time he wrote the story. It was originally called Ammonium, but the name change was made by the magazine editor.
Walter Sills, a struggling New York consulting chemist, is developing a method of plating metal with pure ammonium, which would be cheaper that using traditional plating metals such as nickel or chromium. Despite not having properly tested the plating process, he obtains some publicity for his discovery, which leads him into all sorts of problems with gangsters who want to steal his formula and crooked politicians who seek to exploit him.
He hopes to sell the process to a steel magnate, but discovers at the last moment that the process generates an extremely foul smell which lasts almost indefinitely.
| The Early Asimov |
| The Callistan Menace | Ring Around the Sun | The Magnificent Possession | Trends | The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use | Black Friar of the Flame | Half-Breed | The Secret Sense | Homo Sol | Half-Breeds on Venus | The Imaginary | Heredity | History | Christmas on Ganymede | The Little Man on the Subway | The Hazing | Super-Neutron | Not Final | Legal Rites | Time Pussy | Author! Author! | Death Sentence | Blind Alley | No Connection | The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline | The Red Queen's Race | Mother Earth |
