Month: February 2025

Stars End S5E20

We start Asimov’s third (or second) Galactic Empire Novel, The Currents of Space, by discussing chapters 1 through 6. This nearly corresponds to the first installment published in the October 1952 issue of Astounding Science Fiction which covered 1 through 7.

“I remember my Podcast. I had a Podcast!”

A friend tells me that our episodes are better when we’re enjoying the stuff that we’re reading.

We certainly enjoy reading The Stars End Mail Bag! This time when we opened it up, it inspired a short conversation about My Living Doll starring Julie Newmar and Bob Something-Or-Other.

And we’re liking The Currents of Space so far! It hits the ground running with a threat of planetary destruction and a hero in the mists of amnesia! This is the Good Doctor’s take on race relations in the American South making it a nice companion to The Caves of Steel which tackled the issue in our northern cities. This gave us a lot to think about!

Like, what year was this written? It looks like the answer is actually 1952 and not 1951 like I, Joseph, thought.

We see parallels to three (count ‘em! 3!) Star Trek episodes! But which ones? Not “The Omega Glory,” I’ll tell you that much.

Is Ol’ Isaac reading comic books on the side?

And how does this compare to the other Galactic Empire Novels?

Plus, another round of “Where’s Daneel?“ Have we figured that out yet?

And more! You’ll have to listen to find out! 

Picture Credits:

Next Time on Stars End

Coming soon! Season 5 Episode 20!

We’ve seen this before from a pulp SF fiction perspective, (or will again in the actual flow of time) with The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. The Good Doctor serializes a novel in Galaxy Science Fiction to convince himself that he can sell material to somebody other than John W. Campbell and then returns home to Astounding for the next novel in the trilogy.

And so we land in Book #007 in the Asimov canon. After wading through the quagmire of “Second Novel Syndrome” in The Stars Like Dust it seems like Isaac is back on solid ground.

The Currents of Space is indeed a return to form and we’ll be discussing chapters 1 through 6 in our next episode. That’s almost the first installment from Astounding Science Fiction, from October 1952; Campbell squeezed in an extra chapter on us.

Both the cover and the interior illustrations for this installment in Astounding were created by H. R. van Dongen whose work we previously enjoyed with The Naked Sun. You can enjoy these while we wrap up post-production on the episode.

Resources