This is one of those matches that could hardly fail to produce the goods. One of my favourite authors (Silverberg) teaming up with my very favourite (Asimov) to produce a novel version of one of my very favourite stories. The Short Story 'The Bicentenniel Man' won Asimov Hugo and Nebula awards when it was originally published in the seventies and is almost certainly the very best of his Robot stories.

Having it transformed into a novel is something that interested me greatly but also something that would have filled me with a sense of dread were it not for the fact that this task was being handled by someone of Silverberg's calibre.

The story is that of a household robot who exhibits real personality and the ability to grow and learn, his life and that of the family that originally bought him, the Martins.

Whereas this book never truly manages to capture what made the short story so brilliant it does tell the story in a good way and is the perfect way of reading this superb story if novels are your preferred length for fiction.