Category: Elijah Baley

Stars End S3E17

“A Podcast in a Frenzy Can Do Surprising Things”

The Doubleday cover

Some things can’t be seen.  If you’ve listened to our podcast, you know that we’ve bemoaned the fact that although there was a BBC adaptation of The Caves of Steel, we cannot see it because all known copies of the original tapes have been destroyed.

Did you know that there was also a BBC adaptation of The Naked Sun?  It came out in the third season of Out Of The Unknown and starred Paul Maxwell as Elijah Baley and David Collings as R. Daneel.  We can’t see that either.  You’d think that the BBC would have learned its lesson by 1969, but no such luck.  All known copies of those tapes have been destroyed as well.

And then there’s Joseph’s friend Andy, our special guest in this episode.  He has studiously avoided having a social media presence and so he’s something else that can’t be seen, online anyway.

Paul Maxwell as Elijah Baley

In The Naked Sun, we learn all about things that can’t be seen.  Lije wants to see the crime scene and he wants to see the outside and he especially wants to see Gladia but the Solarians are determined that he only view these things.  Seeing is not the same as viewing.

But sometimes we can hear even if we can’t see.  That episode of Out Of The Unknown?  There’s a reconstruction, so the soundtrack must still exist.  You can hear that if you can find a copy.

“Andy” artist’s rendition.

You can hear Andy here on the podcast, in his World Wide Web premier.

And you can hear about chapters 1 through 6 of The Naked Sun because that’s what we’re talking about this time.  We’ll get to that viewing vs. seeing thing and much more!

So join us! You’ve got to hear this!

Next Time on Stars End

In our last episode, we reached the end of The Caves of Steel. In our next episode, now in post-production, we continue our trip through the Robot Novels with The Naked Sun. We’re joined as our latest special guest by Joseph’s old friend Andy who has no discernable social media presence.

Asimov serialized The Caves of Steel in Galaxy Science Fiction because the editor, Horace Gold, suggested the idea of a human detective with a robot partner.

But three years later Asimov was increasingly interested in writing popular science and hadn’t published anything with John W. Campbell in a while. He decided to return to his roots and The Naked Sun was serialized in Astounding.

And Campbell did his best to capitalize on the famous author’s return. The month before its first segment ran The Naked Sun dominated Campbell’s “In Times to Come” column which highlighted coming attractions. Here’s what he had to say.

On the cover of next month’s issue, you’ll see Mr. Lije Baley, Earthman detective, coming out from underground into the light of The Naked Sun. Isaac Asimov’s new serial is bringing Elijah Baley and his robot partner, Daneel, on another detecting mission. But while the surface activity is that of determining who killed a man when it was self-evidently impossible, the real and important problem Baley has to solve is far more complex. Essentially, it is… “Which Way Is UP? Which way is forward?”


And this time, the problem lies on one of the Outer Planets; agoraphobic Elijah Baley has to solve a problem under the conditions least endurable to him — out under The Naked Sun

Astounding Science Fiction September 1956

For this episode, we read the same portion of the book published in the October 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. That corresponds to chapters 1 through 6.

In this section, Baley is assigned to a murder case on Solaria, the newest of the Spacer worlds. He’s reunited with R. Daneel and we see him struggling with his agoraphobia in planes, spaceships, automobiles, and also in a big fancy house built just for him. We also learn about the murder and meet Gladia (pronounced gla-DEE-ah) Delmarre who is destined to become a major character and helps put the naked in The Naked Sun.

Here are the opening pages and the remaining illustrations by H. R. Van Dongen.

Season 3, Episode 17: coming soon to the aether near you!

Resources

  • Asimov, Isaac. “The Naked Sun, part 1” Astounding Science Fiction, October 1956, pp. 8-62.
  • Asimov, Isaac. The Naked Sun, ©1956, 1957, 1983, Bantum Spectra
  • Campbell, John W. “In Times to Come” Astounding Science Fiction, September 1956, pg. 42.

Stars End S3E16

“Podcast and Sin No More”

It was right about this time last year; one of us got up in the middle of the night to share the latest Foundation trailer with you right here on this website.

This year there was a sneak peek of Foundation season 2 at San Diego Comic-Con.  It’s more than a week later and we haven’t seen it anywhere.  If that’s about generating interest, they’re missing the mark.

Luckily, we have our own news!

Available NOW! Our very own Jon Blumenfeld stars as Librarian Homir Munn in “Search by the Foundation, Part 1” on Joel McKinnon’s excellent Seldon Crisis Podcast!

Also, in S3E13, we talked about how Asimov said he made “extensive changes” to “Liar!” when he revised it for I, Robot.  Want to know why?  Want to know how extensive?  We plug our line-by-line comparison!

Also, also way back in S1E01, we talked about Joseph’s Grandfather’s artwork.  There’s now a website where you can see and enjoy that artwork!  Please visit JosephFranke.com and see why there’s such a fuss! 

All this plus: we wrap up our conversation about The Caves of Steel!  Jessie is revealed as a Medievalist!  Another murder rocks the NYPD… wait… is it murder? And in the final denouement, we discover who did it in this who done it!  You don’t want to miss all that!  Let’s go!

Next Time on Stars End

Episode 15 of Season 3 dropped this morning and episode 16 is already in post-production. in it, we’ll be finishing up The Caves of Steel, reading and discussing the third and final installment that ran in Galaxy Science Fiction in December 1953.

Our novel is not featured on the cover again, this time passed over for a nice holiday-themed illustration. Galaxy, evidently had a series of those.

In this concluding installment, Jessie confesses to conspiracy, Lije and Daneel play bad cop, uncomfortably robotic cop with a suspect and Baley cracks the case!

Here’s the promotion for this installment of The Caves of Steel from Galaxy’s November Issue.

Ed Emshwiller provides the artwork and we once again open with a two-page spread.

And here’s the rest of the synopsis if you want to refresh your memory about what’s already happened before you read the last installment or listen to our next episode.

And here are the remaining illustrations from the story. Below we see Daneel closing on Clousarr during the interrogation (left), and R. Sammy as a murder vic… uh… property damage (right). We should keep our legal terms straight.

The final image shows Baley projecting the crime scene for Daneel and the commissioner.

Season 3, Episode 16 will be available soon!

Next Time on Stars End

We’re not recording our next episode until Saturday, but if you’re reading ahead, we’ll be discussing chapters 8-13 of The Caves of Steel, corresponding to the second installment that was published in Galaxy Science Fiction in November 1953.

Galaxy SF, 11/1953

It’s an interesting issue. Asimov didn’t score the cover this time. The cover references the non-fiction piece about the famous experiment that saw complex amino acids generating spontaneously when the conditions on primordial Earth were recreated in a laboratory.

Also of interest is “Galaxy’s 5-Star Shelf.” which reviews a compilation of Olaf Stapledon’s work, the non-fiction Man in Space by Heinz Haber, Second Stage Lensman by E. E. (Doc) Smith, Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke and Second Foundation. In that last review, Groff Conklin calls the now-completed Foundation Trilogy “Our first great sociological space opera.” He compares it favorably with Smith’s Lensman series saying, “…Asimov’s work, based as it is on fairly sound social principles and the activities of fairly normal human beings, has a pressing sense of reality that Smith’s fairy tales lack…” He concludes “it is a thoroughly satisfying and adult play of the scientific imagination.”

But back to The Caves of Steel. Here’s the promotion for this installment in Galaxy’s October Issue.

And here are some pages from the story.

i

I’m particularly liking the opening two-page spread, with artwork once again by Ed Emshwiller. It depicts the encounter in Chapter 8. The synopsis is nicely done as well and continues for the entire next page. Here’s the remainder in case you want to remind yourself of the last installment before continuing to read this one.

Finally, here are the rest of the illustrations from the story. We have Lije and Daneel leaving Space Town (top right), traveling through a power plant (left), and Daneel being examined by Dr. Gerrigel, a roboticist.

Season 3, Episode 15 will be available soon!

Simultaneously published at: Comics, The Universe, and Everything.

Stars End S3E14

“There are Rs that Can Do Your Podcast and Mine.”

Just over a century ago, the word “robot,” derived from the Czech word “robota” which means “forced labor,” was introduced to the English language in the play R. U. R. by Karel Čapek. In it, a scientist has created artificial humans, called “roboti” or “robots.” Robots replace workers in factories, then become the basis of the economy. Eventually, the robots revolt, supplant humanity and ultimately cause humankind’s extinction.

In an interesting coincidence, R. U. R. debuted on 2 January 1921, The Great and Glorious Az’s first birthday! Who would have suspected that Ol’ Isaac and the word “robot” would be astrologically equivalent?

In this episode, we start discussing Asimov’s The Caves of Steel where the theme of robots replacing humans looms large. There’s already a palpable sense of economic anxiety within the New York Police Department as lower-level employees have already been replaced. Now Detective Elijah Baley is assigned a robot partner named R. Daneel Olivaw who is all but indistinguishable from a human being. It’s essential that Baley not only solve a murder but solve it in a way that doesn’t lead to many more humans being supplanted by robots.

If you’re reading along, we talk about Chapters 1 through 7 which coincide with the first installment of the novel as it was published in Galaxy Science Fiction.

This is Asimov at the height of his abilities and it’s going to be a blast! Let’s go!