A collection of Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1976 (printed by Doubleday). The book has also appeared as Bicentennial Man, using the poster of Bicentennial Man as the cover, but the inside title remains The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories.
Works published in this collection:
- "The Prime Of Life" (1966)
- "Feminine Intuition" (1969)
- "Waterclap" (1970)
- "...That Thou Art Mindful of Him" (1974)
- "Stranger in Paradise" (1974)
- "The Life and Times of Multivac" (1975)
- "The Winnowing" (1976)
- "The Bicentennial Man" (1976)
- "Marching In" (1976)
- "Old Fashioned" (1976)
- "The Tercentenary Incident" (1976)
- "Birth of a Notion" (1976)
The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories provides examples of:
- Advertising by Association: The Ballantine publication points out that Dr Asimov is also the author of bestselling book The Robots of Dawn.
- The Annotated Edition: Isaac Asimov writes a one-two page preface for each of the stories to add a bit more Real Life context to each of his tales.
- Billed Above the Title: Since the 1978 Panther publication, Dr Asimov's name is always at the top of the book cover. Before then, the title was listed more prominently.
- Covers Always Lie: The 1978 Panther cover, using the title The Bicentennial Man, features an enormous six-limbed robot in water, using Eye Beams to attack a fighter jet. For one, nothing of the sort occurs in "The Bicentennial Man". For two, none in the rest of the stories feature four-armed robots (giant or otherwise). For three, nothing written by Dr Asimov ever featured robots larger than a fighter jet!
- Dedication: This collection is dedicated to Judy Lynn Del Rey, who had been Judy-Lynn Benjamin when Dr Asimov had met her, working as managing editor of ''Galaxy' and publishing some of his stories. He makes many jokes at her expense (and his own) in the annotations.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The 1990 Gollancz cover has a white/grey pattern for the most part, with an enormous metal man lying down on the floor with sliding doors into their head where you can see a dusk-like sky, and skinny human figures made of solid colour are standing around with shadows. Pretty weird
◊. - Divided for Publication: When Urania republished this collection in their series, it had to be split into issue #736 and #738.
- Eye Beams: For some unknown reason, the 1978 Panther cover features an enormous six-limbed robot in water, blasting a damaged triangular plane with beams from the "head" of the robot, spaced so that they look like eyes.
- Face on the Cover:
- Downplayed for the cover of the original 1976 publication, where Dr Asimov appears holding up the face of a completely unrelated statue. Still, by this point he had grown his sideburns and started wearing glasses constantly, so his face is readily recognizable even if it isn't a closeup.
- On the 1978 Fawcett Crest cover is a man with unusual eyes, indicating that it is intended to represent Andrew Martin.
- House Pseudonym: In the introduction, Dr Asimov shares the anecdote that in the review for Asimov On Chemistry, he was called a "label and linchpin of a New York corporate authorship", meaning that the reviewer thought that other people had written the book and Asimov was a publishing house churning out books. However, Dr Asimov quite proudly considers himself a one-man operation in his career.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: The 1977 Gollancz cover has only the publisher's mark, the title, and the author's name on a yellow background.
- Novelization: After the release of Bicentennial Man, this anthology was released with the film poster as the cover, to more strongly resonate with potential readers, but "The Bicentennial Man" is the original story, not an adaptation of the film.
- Omnibus: German publisher Heyne created Meine Freunde, die Roboter as a combination of both I, Robot and The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories.
- Tagline:
- "A dozen dazzling tales by the superstar of science fiction" — Fawcett Crest
- "The Hugo and Nebula award-winning novelette" — Ballantine, inserted between The Bicentennial Man and ...And Other Stories
- Thinker Pose: The 1985 Ballantine cover features an obviously mechanical man sitting out on the open lunar surface, with a dome in the distance. Meanwhile, the robot is leaning over with its head supported by the right hand (the one nearest the audience) and left hand resting on its knee, to indicate contemplation.
- Title Drop Anthology: This collection takes its name from "The Bicentennial Man", one of twelve stories. The title, as seen on the cover, varies from simply Bicentennial Man, to including And Other Stories as a subtitle, to making the last part as prominent as the rest of the title. The copyright page indicates that the full title contains all six words and no separation.
