What is this Science fiction story?

July 27, 2007 10:23 AM

Help me remember the name of a science fiction short story (possibly by asimov)

The plot of the story is that an inventor is pressured to come up with more and more inventions. Unable to do it himself, he "invents" a new race of critters that are similar to two foot long centipedes. They have very short life spans, and the inventor injects various stresses into their environment to influence their development. The critters end up developing into a civilization more advanced then our own, when the military (who had originally funded the project) learns of it they decide to take out the island this is happening on. The critters figure out how to build a force field to protect themselves from the bombing, and that's where it ends. With an island covered by an impenetrable field sitting off the coast of the US.

Like I said i think it's by asimov, but i could have just been reading a short story collection at the time which also had asimov's work in it.

posted by sorindome to writing & language (5 comments total)

Theodore Sturgeon's MicroCosmic God
posted by vacapinta at 10:25 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well that was amazingly quick. Thanks.
posted by sorindome at 10:30 AM on July 27, 2007

Were you reading SF Hall of Fame Vol. 1? If not, I highly recommend that collection.
posted by vacapinta at 10:34 AM on July 27, 2007

The story was comicified here (sales link, but all I could find) in 1976.

Superficially similar story: George R. R. Martin's Sandkings.
posted by kurumi at 4:44 PM on July 27, 2007

The Sturgeon story was parodied on the Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror VII."

Related: Hyper-fast evolving creatures also featured in Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:27 AM on August 2, 2007