Welcome to our season 5 premiere in which we talk about the first four chapters of Foundation’s Edge!
“At Odd and Unpredictable Times We Cling in Fright to the Podcast”
Hello, True Believer! We’re back! Again. And we’re ready to dive into season five!
You might recall the beginning of Season 3 when we made a pronouncement like this one. “On the Stars End Podcast, Foundation canon is represented by two separate, yet equally important kinds of seasons” the odd-numbered seasons, which discuss Asimov’s writings, and the even-numbered seasons that talk about the Apple TV+ series.”
That’s been working for us so far, and we have no plans to stop now! And here we are in an odd-numbered season so, we’re starting with the first sequel, Foundation’s Edge, specifically the first four chapters, “Councilman,” “Mayor,” “Historian,” and “Space.” That’s the starting point. We’ll continue in four-chapter chunks through the entire novel. You can probably guess where we’ll go from there, but we promise there will be some treats and surprises along the way.
So join us as we enter the second interregnum between seasons 2 and 3 of the Apple TV+ series. We’ll make sure that this one won’t seem like 30,000 years either!
“The Second Semi Semi Septennial Hari Awards Podcast”
After recording weekly throughout Foundation on Apple TV+’s second season, we needed our own interregnum as we rebuilt the galaxy. We can’t wait to show you our spiffy new water clock!
But we’re back! In our next episode, we launch season 5 of Stars End discussing the first four chapters of Foundation’s Edge!
But that’s not the main event right now! You voted! We listened! Join us as we bring you the Second Semi Semi Septennial Hari Awards to cap off an excellent season, not just for Foundation, but for us as well! You helped us decide the winners, You’ll want to join us in the accolades! Let’s GO!
But just between you and me, I hope that the next gap is again exactly 21 months. Otherwise, we’ll need a new temporal adjective.
Join us! It’s our overview of Apple TV’s Foundation Season 2 in the penultimate episode of Stars End’s Fourth Season!
There’s still so much we don’t know! Will Demerzel hunt down and kill Dawn, Sereth, and the baby? Who gave Hari a living body and why? Will Tellum emerge from the Aether to become the Mule? Did anybody remember to scrub all the incest in C-17’s brain before they woke up his pickle? Is the Prime Radiant becoming sentient? Just how many Hari’s are there in a conspiracy, anyway? And where the hell is Dors, damnit!?!
There’s more! And we talk about it all! Well, most of it. Uh… some! Some! No! A bit. A bit. We did do the nose! And the hat!
We also open the Stars End Mail Bag and answer some of your questions!
You’ll want to stick around for the end of this one so you can learn how to help us choose the winners of the Second Semi-Semi Septennial Hari Awards!
What a wild ride that was! This time we’re talking about the season finale of AppleTV+’s Foundation, “Creation Myths!” Haven’t seen it? Go! Watch it! Now! We’ll be here when you’re done!
Then you can join us for the excitement! Not everybody gets out of this one alive! There are beginnings and endings, twists and turns, conclusions and preludes! Everything a great finale needs!
And don’t go away after this episode! Foundation season two might have concluded but we still have two more episodes to go in our season 4!
In one week we’ll have an overview of what might be called the best season of Foundation so far! And we’ll open up the Stars End Mail Bag as Dave Letterman might have said.
Then, two weeks after that it’s the Second Not Actually Annual Hari Awards for Foundational Excellence! Be on the lookout for the polls, these are your awards as well as ours.
Hmmm… “not actually annual” needs a bit of work. “Sesquiennial” is once every year and a half. Too frequent. “Biennial” means once every two years. Not frequent enough. What’s once every twenty-one months? 21 months x 4 = 84 months which is Seven Years, So, how about Semi-Semi-Septennial? That will have to do.
But never mind that right now! You want to hear about the Season Finale! I know you do! Let’s go!
“Podcasts End Gracefully – Everything Else Ends in Shock and Horror Falsely Certain of Tomorrow.” Hoo, boy do we go on about Foundation, S2E09, “Long Ago, Not Far Away” in this one! We’re joined by Special Guest, Morgan, aka @AsimovPosting on the Dead Bird App.
The Stars End Podcast! This time, 42% longer and with 10% real fruit juice!
Jon had the right idea, the only way to summarize this one is to watch the entire thing! So go watch it! Now! Otherwise, you know, spoiler alert and all that!
But, let’s at least whet your appetite!
We get a big chunk of back story for Danee… er… Demerzel that’s only a small percentage of the whole picture!
You’ll never guess who gets the upper hand in the epic battle between Gaal and Tellem!
And Brother Day (no this one over here) tries to become “The Cleon Who Chose Peace.” How do you suppose that went?
Plus the sickest burn in over eight decades of Foundation stories!
You DO NOT want to miss this one… or the next! This is just the prelude to the season finale!
“If the Podcast Can’t Put its Thumb on the Scale, What’s the Point of Having a Thumb?” I don’t know, but l do know that we talk about Foundation, S2E08, “The Last Empress” in this episode!
Just who is “The Last Empress?” In the real world, Roxanne Dawson deserves the gig! She directed the best two episodes of season one and with this outing, she’s outdone herself!
Could it be Enjoinder Rue? That would require a complicated plan involving Brother Dusk, a time machine, and a bottle of Focus Factor… but maybe.
How about Sereth? She seems to be on a path to becoming the next Empress, and she has more irons in the fire than anybody else, if you’ll excuse the expression. And we know the Empire may not last much longer. Next and last could overlap!
Maybe it’s Gaal. She seems to be High-Muckety-Muck–Elect of the Mentalics! Nothing could go wrong there… right?
And don’t write off Salvor! She’s learning how to explode rocks! Don’t mess with the warden!
Did I miss someone?
We’re pretty sure it isn’t the lady with the comically large statue from episode 206.
Do you want to know? Listen to the episode! We’ll make an educated guess! Let’s GO!
“It’s a Bloodless Podcasting Coup” in which we’re joined by friend of the show, Travis Johnson, as we talk about Foundation, S2E07, “A Necessary Death.”
That title sure sounds dreary so it’s hard to believe that it’s attached to an episode that’s just so compulsively watchable! This episode is so compulsively watchable that no fewer than three characters IN the show are themselves watching the show. And that’s last week’s episode! It’s so compulsively watchable that next week’s episode is rumored to consist of nothing but characters watching this week’s episode! It’s so compulsively watchable that one of our hosts has watched the episode so many times that he’s lost count of just how many! Want to know who watched so many times? You’ll have to listen to our episode (and then make an educated guess) to find out!
And meanwhile the pile of bodies at Tellum Bonds’s feet just… keeps… getting… larger…
You want to hear about this episode! Travis and we want to tell you about this episode! You don’t want to miss that and neither do we!
“It Takes a While Yet for the Decay to Reach the Podcast” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E06 “Why The Gods Made Wine.”
We hope that we haven’t spoiled you with all the great guests lately, but this week it’s back to just the three of us muddling along.
And speaking of spoiling, as always, we’re working on the assumption that if you’re listening you’ve watched the episode. It’s up to you, but if you don’t want the latest episode of Foundation to be as spoiled as a swig of sour milk you know what to do!
If you were hoping for a Hari-centric episode you should be careful what you wish for. It isn’t all Hari all the time though. Two moments with Hober flash by. Queen Sereth expediently and efficiently drops an audacious power play in front of a stunned and scowling Brother Day. Constant and Poly have barely started trying to see Trantor on 30 Altarian dollars a day when the Secret Police all crowd into their room.
The big chunks of the episode are dealing with the Mentalics on Ignus and a flashback to Hari and Dor… uh… Yanna’s brief time together.
But there’s not much humor in this one. It’s dark. Want a theme for the episode? Let’s get the full quote from the title drop. “The gods, made wine to compensate those who can’t afford revenge.” And I’m pretty sure we’re all out of wine.
“The Whole Point of the Podcast is that the Future Isn’t Set in Stone” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E05 “The Sighted and the Seen” This week media analyst, Fordham professor, and Renaissance human Paul Levinson joins the conversation! That Beatles reference below, Paul? That’s for you.
Here’s the usual spoiler warning. If you haven’t, go watch the episode. We’ll be here.
Foundation, Season 2 seems to be leaning even harder on comic relief and sexy time than it had been. Still, the plot wanders forward.
After a fairly dark opening, we get the comic relief from Gaal, Salvor, and Hari. The beggar crashes into a forest on Ignus reminiscent of Star Trek: Generations. Where’s Jordi LaForge when you need him? Salvor yells “I’m flying dead stick!” Hari replies, “Is that bad?” That’s pretty funny but it’s not the best line. They encounter an old friend and then a crowd of mysterious mentalics. Could they be the nucleus of the Second Foundation?
Meanwhile, Sereth and Rue drive their arc forward with the sexy time while the theme of memory is writ large. We learn who was behind the murder of Sareth’s Family while Day is becoming more unstable and Demerzel just keeps getting creepier. Rue manages to send Dawn and Dusk on a journey to see the Wizard, which is to say the vending machine version of Cleon the First. Imagine two Junior High School Elvis impersonators meeting the One True Elvis and you have the idea. Later they’re impressed by the size of C-1’s… uh… data.
It’s a lot to digest and we talk about it. You should join us! We can’t promise it will help, but a splendid time is guaranteed for all!
Do you know who liked milestones and writing? The Great and Glorious Az, that’s who! That should come as no surprise.
The Cover to Opus 100.
What does surprise me a bit is that his first book, Pebble in the Sky, wasn’t published until 1950. Isaac had been writing professionally for 11 years at that point. In 1969, after writing book #99, Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume 2, he turned to a new subject, himself. His next book was entitled Opus 100. It presents an overview of his writing career from 1939 to 1969 organized by subject.
“Section Two: Robots,” for example, begins with an excerpt from a special issue of Science Journal entitled “Machines Like Men.” It proceeds into a history of Asimov’s robot stories beginning with “Strange Playfellow.” It’s highlighted with copious excerpts from not just the stories themselves but from his non-fiction as well. The section culminates in a full reprint of “The Last Question” because that story, in the words of Asimov, “represents my ultimate, thinking on the matters of computers/robots.“
I’ve only dipped into Opus 100, but it’s delightful! You might expect that from a beloved author, writing on what must be his favorite subject. You don’t have to take my word for that, here’s what Isaac said in the introduction.
The Back Cover
… I was about to have my ninety-second book published, and the question arose as to how many other books I had in press. As I began to tick them off, we all realized that My Hundredth Book was upon me.
Various suggestions were made, and finally, someone suggested that I make it a completely personal book in which I rattled on and on about myself and my writings, with selections from books, articles, and stories where those were appropriate.
I thought about it briefly and said “Any writer, who is a monster of vanity or egocentricity — like myself, for instance, — would love to write a book like that. But who would buy it?“
“You let us worry about that Isaac,” said Austin [Olney of Houghton Mifflin].
From Opus 100
The point here, of course, is that here we are at our 100th blog post, just a bit under two years and four months since we got started.
Sixty-Five of those posts introduced podcast episodes. Two of those episodes were about the Stars End Podcast itself, our very first episode and our 50th episode extravaganza.
Seventeen of our episodes were about episodes of the Apple TV+ series or the series as a whole. With three of the rest dedicated exclusively to interviews, and one dedicated to Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy (which contains an essay by our own Dan Fried). The remaining firty-two were all about reading and then talking about Asimov’s work. Thus far we’ve talked about the entire Foundation Trilogy, both of the prequels, the four Robot Novels, and a handful of short stories and an essay.
Outside of introducing episodes, we’ve had 13 “Watching Foundation” posts with additional comments on the teevee episodes and nine posts with original pulp art from Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction. Plus coming attractions, show news, and more!
Here are some highlights! We’ll start with posts about
Episodes of our Podcast.
in reverse chronological order.
It’s always a delight when a guest joins us on the podcast; the fresh perspective shakes things up and enhances the conversation. During our long journey through the Robot Novels, our in-depth discussions frequently brought us back to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data, and frequently the episode “The Measure of a Man.” We were therefore particularly happy and honestly, a bit star-struck to have Melinda Snodgrass join us for an episode. Melinda wrote “Measure” and as a TNG Story Editor was the show’s Data-whisperer. It was an excellent coda to an extensive canticle.
And speaking of milestones, we had a lot of fun with the special 50th Episode of our podcast. Like this, it’s a retrospective, but it also contains our single most surprising segment! It must be heard to be believed!
Another fun episode was our second wrap-up of the first season of Foundation the teevee show. That was the First Annual Stars End Hari Awards! The best part of that was all the folks who helped by contributing to the discussion, promoting the project, and voting.
Our Website is like an excellent glass of orange juice, it comes with pulp. That is unless you don’t like orange juice with pulp. In that case, you’ll need to come up with your own metaphor. The “excellent” part is non negotiable though.
What does that mean though? Most of the Asimov stories we talk about appeared first in pulp magazines and we relish those connections. When available we can give the stories some context. We explore the differences between the original publications and their anthologized versions, use the coming attractions and the summaries to help our listeners and we enjoy the illustrations. I don’t know about you, but I find stories without illustrations to be too dreary. I may be biased. Have you heard about my side project?
Anyway, while we read The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, those posts looked like this.
Sometimes something will come up on the podcast that needs follow up, for example when we read “The Robot Chronicles” and discovered that Asimov said this about his short story, “Liar!”
This story was originally rather clumsily done, largely because it dealt with the relationship between the sexes… Fortunately, I’m a quick learner, and it is one story in which I made significant changes before allowing it to appear in I, Robot.
from “The Robot Chronicles”
Asimov’s ability to write female characters and his reticence to rewrite things had come up frequently and we were curious about what “significant changes” meant in this context. That led to this follow up.
One of the posts we’re proudest of here at StarsEndPodcast.com is our only (thus far) piece of fiction. Written by our own Jon Blumenfeld, It’s called “Dors” and it fills in some of the eponymous character’s back story. You should read it because it’s excellent. If that’s not reason enough, we’ve declared it canon here at Stars End and you never know when we’re going to rely on that to make some obscure point or other.
Those posts about pulp art started here with our “Foundational Readings” post and the first one covered all of Foundation, the first book of the Trilogy. Perhaps more importantly it contained a paene for Archive.org without which none of our Pulp Art posts could exist. While we read Second Foundation our attention was focused on the advent of the Apple TV Plus series, so there are more of these yet to come!
Stars End: A Foundation Podcast 