Azazel (Asimov)

Azazel (Asimov)

Azazel is a character created by Isaac Asimov and featured in a series of fantasy short stories. Azazel is a two-centimeter-tall demon (or extraterrestrial), named after the Biblical demon.

Some of these stories were collected in Azazel, first published in 1988. The stories take the form of conversations between an unnamed writer (whom Asimov identifies in the collection introduction as himself) and a shiftless friend named George (named in The Two-Centimeter Demon as George Bitternut). At these meetings George tells how he is able to conjure up Azazel and their adventures together. George's greatest goal in life is a free lunch (or dinner, or ride, etc), but Azazel is constrained so that he cannot directly benefit George. George can only call upon Azazel for favors to various friends, which invariably go awry.

"Getting Even" (1980) was the first story featuring Azazel, and was also the first "Union Club Mystery". Ironically, Asimov stated that this story was omitted from both The Union Club Mysteries (1983) and the Azazel collection because it did not match the later stories in either series. However, it does appear in an anthology. The stories' theme about a demon/alien that grants wishes echoes an earlier work by Lester del Rey, titled "No Strings Attached" from 1954.