Category: Season 3

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!

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!

Stars End S3E15

“I’m sure that if non-Asenion podcasts were ever designed or if the mathematical theory were worked out we’d hear of it.”

We’re not an etymology podcast even though we sometimes make up our own words.  Nevertheless, if you follow our blog you’ve recently read about the origins of the words “robot” and “robotics.”  Asimov has been known to make up his own words too.  In fact, he’s credited in the Oxford English Dictionary as the originator of the word “robotics.”  

In this episode, we learn the origin of the word “Asenion” through a miraculous combination of brilliance, scholarship, and real-time detective work which the uninitiated might dismiss as mere Google-fu.  Did the Great and Glorious Az invent the word “Asenion?”  You’ll have to listen to find out!

Meanwhile, we ruminate over the second section of the Caves of Steel in which Baley throws around some wild theories, learns the sinister,  not-so-sinister, or not-sinister-at-all designs of Spacetown, and sees an object eerily similar to a slide rule.  If you think that sounds like fun, you’re in for a wild ride!  Join us!

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!

Stars End S3E13

“The Creation of the Podcast Was Looked Upon as the Prime Example of the Overweening Arrogance of Humanity.”

Well, we’re between books this episode, so we decided to read “The Robot Chronicles” from the Great and Glorious Az’s Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection. It’s an essay in which Asimov discusses his robot stories, their inspirations, and their milestones.

So far, I’ve found Gold enjoyable. It contains the last of Asimov’s science fiction short stories, essays about his stories, and essays about writing Science Fiction. He insists, by the way, that Science Fiction be abbreviated “SF” and not “sci-fi.” You can find out why and read “The Robot Chronicles” and the rest of Gold here.

But, really, the bulk of this episode is an engaging and free-wheeling conversation with our special guest Travis Johnson, whom you may know from Twitter as @travisjohnson and/or @startravcommand. He’s one of the hosts of the Black Alert Podcast and created, with his 11-year-old daughter, a Star Trek Prodigy podcast called Star Trek Podigy. He has also published A Matter of Right: Futures of Justice, a “science fiction comics and prose anthology” about the US criminal justice system. Join us as we discuss Robots, Foundation, all things Asimov, and more! You don’t want to miss this one!

Update: sometimes I forget stuff, and I only remember when I listen to the episode after it’s published. This time it’s the Asimov bust that Travis told us he 3-D printed. It’s an impressive bit of work and here it is for your edification.

Stars End S3E12

“Softly Beaming, A Steady Light of Hope… the Stars End Podcast.”

Are you troubled by premonitions of unsavory equations or non-standard beverages?

Do you experience feelings of dread from your grandfather’s office furniture?

Have you or anyone in your family experienced prestidigitation, clairvoyance, astral projection, or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia?

If the answer is yes, don’t wait another minute!  The Second Foundation is for YOU!

Our courteous and efficient staff is on call 24 hours a day to serve all your psychohistorical prediction needs!

In this episode, we come to the end of Forward the Foundation with the story of Wanda Seldon where we finally see the inception of the Second Foundation as Hari discovers Wanda’s abilities and Wanda first becomes an important part of the Seldon Project before striking off with Stettin Palver to form the nucleus of the Second Foundation. Meanwhile, we hit the bittersweet part of any biography. Hari’s life winds down as he says goodbye to everyone he’s ever loved and is left only with psychohistory before we finally say goodbye to Hari himself.

And, in case you don’t recognize the reference above…

Stars End S3E11

“No one outside the podcast has the faintest knowledge of how psychohistory works and not everyone inside does either.”

If you’re read our one piece of fan fiction, “Dors,” by our very own Jon Blumenfeld, you’ve read an origin story of sorts for Dors Venábili.  If you like this character like so many others you should check it out; it’s excellent.

In this episode, we finally get to the chapter of Forward the Foundation featuring… well no, they all feature Hari but this one’s named after Dors.  It was called “The Consort” when it ran in Asimov’s Science Fiction in April of 1993 and to be honest, Dors plays a larger role in this story than the so-called “featured” characters in the other eponymous chapters.  If you hadn’t noticed the book has a bit of a pattern.  In each section, Hari says farewell to his friends and loved ones as his life winds down in ten-year increments. In this story, Hari and we get to say goodbye to Dors, nicely bookending with Jon’s story.

Our guest this week is one of Joseph’s oldest friends, Rick Tetrault. Rick is the host of the Starbase 66 Podcast from the Infinite Potato Alliance and also qualifies as an “old friend” of Stars End. Rick gave us a great deal of sage advice when we were just figuring out how to do a podcast. You might recall that Starbase 66 was the site of our first collective guest appearance back in December. You’re more than invited to check that out here: Starbase 66: Foundationally Speaking.

But first, without further ado: Episode 11!

Featured Image: Interior artwork from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1993.

Stars End S3E10

“We Must Keep the Podcast Stable If For No Other Reason Than That We’re Here”

Well, here we are again with another installment on Asimov’s swansong, Forward the Foundation.

You might recall that Forward was written as a series of Novellas the first three of which appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.  The installment we’re discussing this time is “Cleon I” which originally appeared in the magazine’s 15th-anniversary issue in April 1992 as “Cleon the Emperor.”  Much like the previous story, it isn’t very much about the titular character but it’s a lot about Hari Seldon.  This one is set during his tenure as Cleon’s First Minister.

But the cover, by Gary Friedman, is pretty great; it’s Asimov himself alongside a woman who is almost certainly Dors Venabali. I can’t say it’s Dors for sure, but I can state with absolute certainty that character is neither from Mycogen nor Dahl.

Inside the issue, there’s an extensive editorial about the Foundation series and its history and it answers, in part, one of the questions we posed on the podcast.  We’d wondered why Asimov decided to write Forward as a series of novellas and evidently, the genesis of the idea came from Jennifer Brehl, who Asimov calls “my brilliant and lovely editor.” He continues.

Jennifer thought it might be a good idea if I wrote a Foundation book in which the characters were new from one section to another.

I thought the matter through and decided that I would write a Foundation book (called Forward the Foundation) in which Hari Seldon gradually grew older. I would tell it in five installments and in each installment, Hari was ten years older.

It turns bittersweet as we get some bits of the story we’ve heard before.

I began work on it but then toward the end of 1989 disaster struck. I came down with congestive heart failure produced by mitral valve insufficiency. I was very sick and I was hospitalized for months. Actually, I was convinced I was going to die — but I didn’t.

And a bit later…

But there’s a catch (there’s always a catch). I’m tired. I’m just plain tired. I sleep a great deal and I drag around even when I’m not asleep…

And the worst trouble is that I can’t write very much. This is especially true of the new Foundation book. I wrote the first installment (in fact, it was published last November in this magazine) and the second and third parts are finished as well. The fourth part is almost finished but it’s been weeks and weeks since I’ve been able to work on it. Nor do I know when I’ll be able to get to it. Every time I try, I find I am too tired to work at it.

Whether I will improve with time, I can’t say. Certainly, there seems no sign of it at the moment.

Believe me, I am sorry about this; more so than you can possibly be. 

Coincidently, although the issue would have been printed weeks before, April 1992 is the very month that Asimov journeyed beyond this mortal coil.

You can read the entire editorial here.

And, if you want to learn more about those costume design awards that we mentioned, there’s some more information here.

But in the meantime, join us for our latest episode as we continue through the life story of Hari Seldon!

Stars End S3E09

“I Suspect You Will Find That No Podcast Is Ever Truly Crucial”

Have you been with us for a while? If you have you might remember some jokes back in the long, long ago about the longevity of our podcast. We were pretty stoked (is that what the kids say nowadays?) back in Season 1 Episode 8 when we surpassed the Manimal Threshold for example.

Well, on 26 April 2021 our first episode was squirted out into the aether so we have another milestone to celebrate; we’ve officially been a podcast for over a year.

Thirty-two episodes in and we’re starting to talk about our fifth book, Forward the Foundation by the Great and Glorious Az.

It’s a departure in that it started life as a series of novellas like the original trilogy; three of those appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine starting in November 1991. The book and the stories within are somewhat bittersweet; we touch on that a bit in the podcast and we’ll get back to that here as soon as we’re able.

And we have a special guest in this episode, who you may know as @stratotron from that bluebird site! They are a perfect person to join us in a discussion of a chapter entitled “Eto Demerzel.” Join us and welcome the delightful Daneel Adrian Cayce to the conversation, Asimov Enthusiast, Trekkie, Twitterer, chiptune creator, and namesake of the quintessential character in the entire Asimov canon! It’s going to be good!

And thanks to everyone who’s stuck with us for an entire trip around the sun! Never fear, there’s no getting rid of us now!

Stars End S3E08

“The Podcast Makes No Allowance For Unwitting Harm”

How time flies!  It’s our final Episode on Prelude to Foundation and you’re not going to want to miss this one!

Our heroes finally, despite their best efforts, find themselves in the sector of Wye.  That’s pronounced “why” and The Great and Glorious Az has a bit of fun with that.  Also, “Who” is the Prime Minister, “What” is the neighboring sector, and “I Don’t Know” is on third.  And while Raych gets to go to the Zoo, Rachelle eventually finds herself in the penalty box.  I’m kidding, mostly.  But whadya asking me for?  You should take a look at this to see how it’s supposed to be done!

https://youtu.be/2ve20PVNZ18

Also War! And the final climactic ending which, in classic Asimovian style, is people in rooms having conversations!  But with tons of intrigue, lots of reveals, and a bit of what some might even call romance.

There’s more!  A special report from our man on the scene at Star Trek: Mission Chicago!  A special interview with a classic Captain of the USS Enterprise and a special surprise from one of our favorite Foundation actors!

Don’t wait!  You don’t want to wait! Let’s go!