"Anything can happen and probably will right here on Earth. You don't have to rent a spaceship or sign up for a singles cruise to Saturn or spend your weekends star-hopping along the Milky Way because... Earth Is Room Enough. Earth is where the action is and each tomorrow unleashes new discoveries. Here are brilliant, witty, frightening, and fascinating stories of the future by the greatest science fiction master of them all. Just hitch your mind to these weird and wonderful tales for a spin around the world of tomorrow that will take you right to the center of your wildest dreams."
— Back cover of the first printing
A Science Fiction Genre Anthology by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1957. Many of the stories were written with the express purpose of addressing complaints that Dr Asimov was unable to write stories featuring aliens and sex. (The reviewer George O Smith is mentioned as an example of people critiquing him when Dr Asimov reflects on this collection in In Joy Still Felt.)
Works collected in Earth is Room Enough * †
- "The Dead Past" (1956)* †
- "The Foundation of S.F. Success" (1954)
- "Franchise" (1955)* †
- "Gimmicks Three" (1956)†
- "Kid Stuff" (1953)†
- "The Watery Place" (1956)* †
- "Living Space" (1956)†
- "The Message" (1956)†
- "Satisfaction Guaranteed" (1951)* †
- "Hell-Fire" (1956)* †
- "The Last Trump" (1955)* †
- "The Fun They Had" (1951)*
- "Jokester" (1956)*
- "The Immortal Bard" (1954)†
- "Someday" (1956)* †
- "The Author's Ordeal" (1957)
- "Dreaming is a Private Thing" (1955)*
Tropes appearing in this collection:
- Advertising by Association: One of the taglines for the 1960 Panther cover references The Currents Of Space and The Caves of Steel."Starkly realistic stories by the author of 'The Currents of Space' and 'The Caves of Steel'"
- all lowercase letters:
- On the cover for the 1957 Fawcett Crest paperback, Isaac Asimov is spelled in all lowercase letters. Averted Trope by the Tagline and title (both of which capitalize the first letter of each word except for articles).
- The Panther covers always list Dr Asimov's name in lowercase (often just listing his last name) and the 1967 edition also printed the book's title in only lowercase letters. Extra points for using an "a" silhouette for the cover image.
- The 1989 cover by Grafton chose to imitate the Panther style/font of lowercase "asimov" while using all capital letters for the title itself.
- Billed Above the Title:
- When the book was published by Fawcett Crest as a paperback (1957), it listed a Tagline first, then Isaac Asimov (in lowercase) and then the title.
- When the book was published by Bantam Books in 1959, the words look squeezed up at the top to make room for the picture below, and list Dr Asimov's name, the title, and then the Tagline.
- When the book was published by Panther in 1967, it lists Dr Asimov's name and then book's title (all in lowercase).
- When republished by Panther in 1969, it lists asimov twice as large as the book's title (and all in lowercase). Extra points for using an "a" silhouette for the cover image.
- When republished by Panther in 1972, it lists the title above "asimov", but Dr Asimov's name is still at twice the size as the title.
- When republished by Panther in 1973, it again lists "asimov" above the title (and his name is twice as big).
- The German translation, Geliebter Roboter, both the 1966 cover and the 2016 cover put Dr Asimov's name at the top.
- The Italian translation, La Terra è abbastanza grande, includes Dr Asimov's name above the title and at thrice the font size.
- The French translation, Espace Vital features Dr Asimov's name placed at the top of the cover, although the 1987 version is much smaller than the title.
- Dedication: Dr Asimov dedicated this book to the editors who had chosen to publish these stories the first time, listing ten in total."To Those Admirable and Amiable Gentlemen Who First Occasioned the Publication of These Stories: Anthony Boucher... Howard Browne... John Campbell... Horace Gold... Robert Lowndes... Leo Margulies... Ray Palmer... James Quinn... Larry Shaw... Russ Winterbotham"
- Design Student's Orgasm: The Bantam Books cover from 1959 has a black-and-white globe with the top cut off and multicoloured people/creatures flying out of it. The "o" "ROOM" were replaced by similar black-and-white globes, while the "o" in "ENOUGH" was replaced by a slightly different red-and-white globe.
- Genre Anthology: Seventeen short works, picked by Isaac Asimov, were included in this collection. The title can be interpreted a number of ways, but is most interesting as an answer to complaints at the time of Dr Asimov being unable to write stories about Earth, always setting them on foreign planets with space travel. Almost half of these works were originally published in 1956, with the goal of eventually collecting them in this volume.
- Orwellian Retcon:
- The German translation, Geliebter Roboter, only contains ten of the seventeen stories published in this collection. The ones left in are mostly those that deal with robots.
- The French translation, Espace Vital, claims to be the same collection, but only contains twelve of the original stories/poems and adds "Mirror Image".
- Recycled Title: The title of the French translation is Espace Vital, reused from the story "Living Space".
- Tagline:
- "Science Fiction Tales of Our Own Planet"
- "Mind-Tingling Tales of Tomorrow by the Master of Science Fiction" from the Fawcett Crest cover.
- "Earth's future in stories by the famous author-scientist who writes of possibilities that might become hair-raising probabilities..." from the Bantam Books cover.
- "Into deep space... where the unexpected is an everyday happening — and an ever-present danger" from the 1960 Panther cover.
- "Who owns the Earth? — 10 fascinating and shocking Stories from the World of tomorrow" from the 1966 German translation, Geliebter Roboter.
- "A collection of Asimov's best Science Fiction stories" from the 1976 Abelard-Schuman cover.
