“Who Really Cares What a Podcast Looks Like Or Is Built Of Or How It Was Formed”

We finally know that season 2 of Apple TV+’s Foundation will begin on 14 July. Rather than tackling another novel, we’re wrapping up season 3 of Stars End with short stories and guests.

In our next episode, we’re both pleased and proud to announce that we’ll be interviewing Melinda Snodgrass, author of the first truly great episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the source of many of our Star-Trek-related digressions, “The Measure of a Man.”

But in the meantime, for this episode, we’re reading The Great and Glorious Az’s “The Bicentennial Man,” (TBM) which is based in part on a suggestion from famed science fiction editor Judy-Lynn del Rey. To quote the good doctor, “Of all the robot stories I ever wrote, ‘The Bicentennial Man’ is my favorite and, I think, the best.” In The Complete Robot, he pairs it with our last episode’s subject, “…That Thou Art Mindful of Him” (TTAMoH) in a section entitled “Two Climaxes” where he envisions the ultimate fate of the three laws and the science of robotics.

Of the two, TBM has the less auspicious genesis. You’ll recall that TTAMoH was commissioned for an anthology entitled Final Stage which charged the authors with taking their themes to their ultimate conclusion. TBM was commissioned for an anthology entitled “The Bicentennial Man” where the stories could be anything at all so long as it was suggested by the phrase, “The Bicentennial Man.” That, to a large degree, was the way things worked in the US in 1976.

But there was an earlier suggestion from del Rey about “…a robot who has to choose between buying its own liberty and improving its own body.” After reading TBM, Judy-Lynn wanted the story, and when the original anthology fell through, Judy-Lynn got the story. It appeared in a different anthology, one that she edited, Stellar Science Fiction #2 published in February 1976.

So, don’t miss our discussion of “The Bicentennial Man, ” the Good Doctor’s favorite Robot Story, and his third favorite story overall, surpassed only by “The Last Question” and “The Ugly Little Boy.”

Let’s go!