On page 4 of The Bicentennial Man, Isaac Asimov claims to have published 175 books. By the time you read this, the score will probably have passed 200. The Bicentennial Man does not seem to form any particular landmark in this apparently endless plain of prose, but is still a good read, particularly if you like conjuring-trick stories about robots and are not totally switched off by the purple cotton wool introductions in which Asimov now packs his stories. Certainly, anyone who feels that the three laws of robotics had all the pith sucked from them years ago should read this collection—although none of the stories takes the pith quite as well as John Sladek's pastiche of Asimov in The Steam-Driven Boy. (pp. 218-19)

Martin Sherwood, in his review of "The Bicentennial Man," in New Scientist (© IPC Magazines, 1977), Vol. 74, No. 1049, April, 1977, pp. 218-19.