Title: The Bicentennial Man
Author: Isaac Asimov
Type: Fiction
Page Count: 256
Rating: 4.5/5
What we have here is another cracking little collection of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, along with Asimov’s introductions to the stories for a little additional context. There were actually one or two here that I’d already read and so I skipped past those, although I did read the introductory essays as they were different.
I’ve also read a full length novel that Asimov co-wrote with Robert Silverberg and which is based on the titular short story here, but it was nice to go back to the original. I also heard that Asimov wasn’t really involved in the novel, which I can believe because it was published not long before he died.
Asimov’s short story collections are always a lot of fun, and while I’m still yet to find one that’s as good as I Robot, I can’t exactly be mad about it because that book is a masterpiece. I love Asimov’s work and I love the way that he sets up his three laws of robotics only to knock them down again by looking at the different ways in which they can be subverted.
That means reading Asimov feels like so much more than simply enjoying a little science fiction escapism. It’s almost philosophical, and it asks the reader a lot of questions about what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be a robot. I’d definitely recommend picking it up.
