Tag: Isaac Asimov

Stars End S4E02

“God Made Podcasts to Compensate Those Who Cannot Afford Revenge”

One of the things you can say about Foundation the TeeVee series is that they throw down one hell of a season premiere! And this one is fresh! It’s like a brand new TV show that isn’t a brand new TV show.  Let’s talk about it!

It’s up to you, of course, but there are spoilers-a-plenty for Foundation, S2E01, “In the Shadow of Seldon” here.  If you don’t want anything spoiled, run right over to the nearest screen and watch the episode! We’ll be here when you’re done!

We’ve proverbially hit the ground running! There’s already stuff we’re dying to learn in episode two!  Can Gaal and Salvor work as mother and daughter?  Why is the Vault opening? And could this be the beginning of the end for the genetic dynasty?

Lord Dowrin finally floats into the range of Empire Wi-Fi

But there’s a question that we have to ask ourselves in the next week.  You’ve noticed that there are already two Hari Seldons wandering around.  It’s a murder of crows and a parliament of owls.  What do we call a group of Haris?  Because I think there’s very little chance that particular guy is going to be content with just two.  

Hari Seldon is called Raven Seldon, so let’s not mix the metaphor.  A group of ravens is called a “rave,” an “unpleasantness,” a “conspiracy,” or a “treachery.”  Which of these do you like best? Or do you have something even better in mind? Let us know and we’ll talk about it next week!

Featured collage compiled (mostly) from Apple TV+.

Stars End S4E01

Season 4 Episode 01 “If There Is A War We Will Podcast”

Well, The First Interregnum has ended. Season 2 of Apple TV+s Foundation is just three days away. The goal for our season 3 was to make the gap between the TeeVee seasons seem to fly by quickly! We hope it seemed like less than 30,000 years! Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with us!

That’s the raison d’être for season 4 of Stars End, we’ll be recording weekly for the duration, bringing you the best analysis of each episode of the Apple TV+ program as it airs as quickly as humanly possible.

So, join us for this, our season premiere, as we play at being psychohistorians and ponder what we might see in the coming weeks, and chat about what we expect in Season 2. We’ll even be aspirational as we voice what we hope to see. We’ve been on a slow ship since season one ended, now it’s time to hop onto a jump ship and soar through these new episodes together! Let’s go!

Featured Image from Apple TV+

Some Show News

We’re about four days out from the start of Apple TV+’s New Season of Foundation.

Here’s an interesting article about Season 2, centered around an interview with David Goyer.

You should read the whole thing, but here are some highlights.

  • We will see the Church of the Galactic Spirit.
  • Goyer “wanted to introduce more appropriate levity in the story.” I think that means introducing some levity.
  • Concerning Asimov’s Foundation, he says. “We do not set out to change as much as we can; we actually set out to retain as much as we can.”
  • And here’s a somewhat somber note which echos something you’ll hear us discuss in our Season 4 Episode 1: Goyer tells us, “There is a roadmap. I did originally pitch eight seasons, 80 episodes to Apple TV+. We’ll see if we get there.” We can hope!

The article also provides us with a new trailer!

Just a few more days… let’s go!

Stars End S3E37

“Asimovs Foundation Podcast and Philosophy”

I podcast, therefore I am. Or is it, “I podcast, therefore I philosophize?”

If you’ve listened to some of our recent episodes, you might think it’s the latter as recently we’re delved into topics like free will and pondered whether there’s an objective morality beyond things that we might be programmed with, like societal norms or the Three Laws of Robotics.

Well, if you like that stuff, you’ll love this episode! There’s a new book out called ⁠Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy⁠ (AF&P), a collection of essays about… well, you’ve figured that out, right?

Remember books, by the way? They’re weird. You can read them, but they don’t have batteries and they’re made of wood, of all things!

We discuss this book with three of its authors, who are simultaneously two-and-a-half special guests!

Josef Simpson is one of the editors of AF&P and helped bring the book to life. He also wrote “A Foundation-al Lesson on Free Will and Determinism” for the project.

Our second guest is a long-time friend of the show, ⁠Cora Buhlert⁠! Cora was our first guest way back in Season 1 Episode 7. She is now our first returning guest and the first Hugo Winner to appear on our show as she was chosen the Best Fan Writer for 2022! Congratulations, Cora! Cora contributed “Between Cynicism and Faith” to AF&P.

The book also contains a chapter by our own Dan Fried, “The Dao of Psychohistory!” Thus, Dan is our one-half of a special guest as he splits his duties between interviewer and interviewee!

So if our excursions into philosophy have whetted your appetite for such things, pick up a copy of Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy⁠. You’re sure to enjoy it! And if you want to read the book without harming a tree or through inaction allowing a tree to come to harm, here’s ⁠one option⁠.

Images used under the fair use doctrine.

Stars End S3E36

“Never Hoard Your Silver Podcast”

Sometimes we bury the lede in the title so let’s rectify that straightaway: featuring special guest ⁠Melinda Snodgrass⁠!

We’ve never been shy about our obligatory Star Trek references. As we’ve undertaken our long, strange trip through Asimov’s Robot Novels and some related short stories, those references skewed sharply in the direction of The Measure of a Man, which is in my opinion “the moment when The Next Generation earned the right to call itself Star Trek.” It’s great TV and great SF and a monument to themes and ideas that Asimov championed throughout his career.

So for this episode, we going to treat you to an episode-long Star Trek reference as we’re joined by the author of The Measure of a Man, the aforementioned Melinda Snodgrass!

Please excuse us, we’re all a bit starstruck.

In addition to writing the quintessential Data episode for TNG, Melinda Is a ⁠lifelong Science Fiction fan⁠ who has written many novels including the Circuit series, co-created the ⁠Wild Cards⁠ series of books, and has extensive screenwriting credits including L. A. Law, Sliders, and The Outer Limits. Within the realm of Star Trek, Melinda has written Tears of the Singers, a TOS novel, and five episodes of TNG, which also include a excellent second Data-Centric episode, The Ensigns of Command.

She was the Story Editor on Next Generation while the show transformed from a program struggling to find its voice into the science fiction juggernaut we all know and love.

As Jon puts it, this episode “slaps!” You do not want to miss this one! Let’s go!

Images used under the fair use doctrine.

Season 2 Trailer

Here’s the latest trailer for Foundation Season 2. What’s up with those Pegasus-like creatures that can actually fly? Are they defying the laws of physics? And how do they fit into Asimov’s universe? We’ll probably have to watch season two to find out!

We’re down to less than a month and anticipation is building… let’s go!

The Latest Trailer for Foundation Season 2

Stars End S3E35

“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!

Stars End S3E34

“That Thou Art Mindful of the Podcast”

Asimov’s story “…That Thou Art Mindful of Him” has an interesting pedigree. It was initially commissioned for an original collection entitled, ⁠Final Stage: The Ultimate Science Fiction Anthology⁠ edited by Edward L. Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg. The intent of the anthology is compelling. Here’s how the editors described the premise.

The assumption was that science fiction — that branch of literature, half beast, half-civilized —sits upon perhaps, a dozen classic themes, which, in various combinations, permutations, and convolutions, underline most of the work in the field. Like the ten to twenty basic chess attacks and defenses, these themes can lead to winning combinations of great beauty or, in less talented hands, to disastrous and obvious clichés.

Some of science fiction’s most astounding writers were each given one of these classic themes and charged with crafting that theme’s ultimate story. The assignment of “Robots and Androids” could only have gone to the good doctor. Each contributor was also tasked with writing an afterword on the theme and their story.

Thus, “…That Thou Art Mindful of Him” was born. Ed Malzberg was also editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction at the time. According to Peter King writing on Amazon.com, Malzberg, upon receiving the manuscript, was compelled to include it in his magazine first. It appeared in the ⁠April 1974 issue⁠. In his afterword to the story, The Great and Glorious Az proclaimed “…having followed matters through to the logical conclusion, I have possibly destroyed the Three Laws, and it made it impossible for me to ever write another positronic robot story.”

But then, of course, he qualified it, maybe not. And he said something similar after writing the Bicentennial Man two years later (that’s for next week). He qualified that as well, “But then again,” he wrote, “I might. I’m not always predictable.” Two novels and a bunch more short stories later, the good doctor might have been more predictable than he thought.

Anyway, we talk about it. Please tune in and join the fun! Let’s go!

Afterword to “…For Thou Art Mindful of Him.”

by Isaac Asimov, Final Stage: The Ultimate Science Fiction Anthology, Penguin Books, 1974

The first story I wrote in which the Three Laws of Robotics were explicitly stated, was “Runaround,” which appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The laws were implicit, however, in stories, I had written earlier — the earliest being “Robbie,” which appeared under the title of “Strange Playfellow” in the September 1940 issue of Super Science Stories. So I have been playing around with those Three Laws for more than a generation.

With all due modesty, (which means “very little modesty” in this case), the Three Laws were revolutionary in science, fiction development. That’s not to say that there were no sympathetic robots in the field before Robbie. There was Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy” in the December 1938 Astounding Science Fiction, for instance. The Three Laws, however, and the stories I used to explore them, represented the first honest attempt at a rationalization of robots as machines, and not as symbols of man’s overweening pride leading to his destruction, à la Frankenstein. The field did me the honor of excepting the Three Laws, and though no one but myself can use them explicitly, many writers simply assume their existence and know that the reader will assume it too.

This does not mean that I wasn’t aware from the start, that there were serious ambiguities in the Three Laws. It was out of these ambiguities, indeed, that I wove my stories. In The Naked Sun, the ambiguities could even lead to robot-induced murder.

And, of course, the deepest ambiguity and the one that had the potential for giving the greatest trouble was the question of what was meant by the phrase “human being“ in the Three Laws. John Campbell and I used to discuss the matter in the far-distant good old days of the Golden Age, and neither of us ever came to a satisfactory conclusion. It did seem likely, though, that if I were allowed to dig deeply into the question of “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” as addressed to the robot, I might upset the Three Laws altogether, — and at that I always balked.

But John is now dead, and I am in my late youth, and the Three Laws have given me good, loyal, and profitable service for thirty-four years, and maybe that’s enough. So when asked to write “the ultimate story” in robotics — or as near as I could come to one — I sighed and took up the matter of that Biblical quotation (Psalms 8:4).

I think you will agree with me that, having followed matters through to the logical conclusion, I have possibly destroyed the Three Laws, and it made it impossible for me to ever write another positronic robot story.

Well, don’t bet on it, you rotten kids.

Stars End S3E33

“Use the Podcast But Not to Justify Needless Harm to Individuals”

We interrupt our regular program!

Dateline: Capitol District, Trantor

This just in: AppleTV+ has announced the premiere date for Foundation, Season 2: 14 July 2023.

That means that we, at Stars End will be wrapping up Season 3 of the podcast and strapping in for Season 4!

Release Date! Trailer! New Episodes! We’ll talk about it! You’ll listen! It’s a psychohistorical necessity!

You can watch the trailer along with us on the episode right here.

Meanwhile still in season 3, we reach the climax of not merely Robots and Empire but The Great and Glorius Az’s Robot novels collectively! Do we finally get a satisfying ending? You’ll have to listen to find out! And just how philosophical do we get this time? We’re not saying! So tune in and join us already! We promise that no co-host melted down in the recording of this podcast! Probably.

This could very well be where the climax of the novel happens!

And speaking of meltdowns, the ultimate confrontation between Daneel and Giskard on the one hand Amadiro and Mandamus on the other play out against the backdrop of Three Mile Island. In Asimov’s future, this sounds like a vast deserted wilderness and maybe it is 3000 years hence. Not so today. Three Mile Island itself is pretty small, barely big enough for a nuclear power plant or two. Fun fact: TMA-2, the reactor that suffered a partial meltdown and was shut down in 1979 is currently in a state called “Post defueling monitored storage.” It will be officially decommissioned in 2052.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. If this has been an actual emergency you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for Foundation and official Asimovalia.

Stars End S3E32

“The Very Word Podcast is Taboo in Polite Society”

We hit some big, philosophical issues in this episode.

As a mathematician, it seems odd that I’m frequently the one to point out that some things can’t be quantified. We’re reaching the limits of quantifiability with the Three Laws of Robotics, just as we did with Psychohistory. How do you quantify harm? Take the First Law, for example. Even within a single human, there’s psychological harm or physical harm, at least if you’re Giskard. How do you compare the two? It’s not even possible to measure the two things with the same unit. What’s bigger: 17 furlongs or 200 degrees on the Rankine scale? And there’s also social harm, financial harm, legal harm… the list goes on.

How is this not the cover for The Naked Sun?

It’s even trickier if the question is about the amount of harm between two humans. And what about the Zeroth Law? Quantifying harm between groups of humans? Species of humans? Collections of sapient beings that might be humans? That way, it seems, lies madness. What’s bigger: royal blue or next Tuesday? The only possible path to an answer is the ability to predict the consequences of any action. That brings us back to Psychohistory. It’s a vicious circle.

We get into it as Daneel continues to evolve into a Zeroth Law robot in chapters 15, 16, and 17 of Robots and Empire. Meanwhile, we revisit the caves of steel, experience the pomp and circumstance surrounding Gladia’s visit to Earth, meet a government functionary, and witness an assassination attempt! Plus: a space maneuver worthy of Captain Kirk himself! You’ll enjoy this one!

We also ask: do college professors think? We never quite get to the bottom of that one, either.

Let’s go!