Bicentennial Man is touted as one of the science fiction classics.

I disagree.

Not with the quality of the book, but in branding it science fiction. When we do it, we club it with the same group as interstellar cowboy fantasies where space adventurers ride space ships instead of horses and shoot lasers instead of pistols.

The point is, this is literature ? plain and simple.

Yes, it uses science to explore human behaviour, which would otherwise be possible.

But then literature has always used such agents. Like magic for instance. Which was used so effectively by everyone ? from Goethe to Shakespeare.

Well now about the book.

The book, by the author?s own admission, explores an age-old subject. The difference between the inanimate and the animate. A subject favourite of author?s from time immemorial. (Remember the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, or Pinocchio.)

The wish for a robot (in this case) to be human. What can be more ennobling, or more frustrating? And who among us will not identify with it?

Because all of us have the inherent drive to be better than what we are. The wish to cross the boundaries of our limitations. The need to evolve.

We all have an ideal in the soul, a mountain on the horizon. We will never reach this ideal, we will never climb this mountain. But life will be infinitely poorer if both were taken away from us.

This is a fairy tale. And in this our protagonist does achieve his ideal.

Note: Robots have always fascinated Asimov. Half of his writings revolve around this theme. It would interesting for the reader to check out more of such writings.

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