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A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermitlike existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!… (more)
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We were introduced to the detective duo of Elijah Bailey and R. (for robot) Daneel Olivaw in Caves of Steel. The title refers to the domed supercities under which 8 billion people live in semi-starvation and can only be sustained in carefully controlled supercities with tight rationing. When Asimov wrote Caves of Steel in 1953, the world population was near two and a half billion. It's now close to 7 billion, and it is estimated it will reach 8 billion in 15 years, so it's hard to see Asimov's vision of industrialized societies at the edge of starvation as plausible. His earth society strikes me as Sovietesque. Each human being has a rating which controls such privileges as space and rations. There's no sense that Asimov believes this kind of command and control economy is unjust or the cause of near starvation--rather you get the sense this is the rational way to order society and nigh inevitable--at least without robots and/or the ability to spread out amongst the stars.
Things are different in the fifty wealthy "Outer Worlds" which dominate Earth and doesn't allow its teeming billions to leave the planet, controls their trade and dictates to their government. The most extreme among these worlds is Solaria, with only 20,000 people spread across an entire planet, but with millions of robot servants. There it has become nearly taboo for two humans to inhabit the same room, except for the assigned spouses. Instead they "view" each other remotely rather than "see" each other where they could be within touching distance. When for the first time in the history of their planet, a Solarian is murdered, Baley is sent for and is reunited with Daneel to solve the murder.
Daneel really is an appealing character. He reminds me of Data of Star Trek. But I also found something disturbing about how he protects Baley. Under Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" no robot can harm a human being or allow one to come to harm. But the more sophisticated the robot--and Daneel is a state of the art human-seeming android--the more sophisticated becomes the concept of "harm." Thus while Baley wants to overcome his agoraphobia, Daneel is willing to override that by force if necessary to spare him the "harm" open spaces bring him. Daneel is practically the embodiment of the nanny state, and Asimov would in later novels only expand on this idea of the benevolent robot who is "here to help" which would weave together his scientific Foundation series and his Robot series. Asimov has a faith in social engineering and the pliability of human society I don't share--or at least can no longer share.
And really, the entire mystery depends on the fact that the wife seems the only plausible suspect since only she would live on the estate. But given the extreme distaste the Solarians have for touching, for even being in the same room with another human, why would they even have assigned mates for the purposes of having children? How were they even able to bear having sex since apparently there is no artificial insemination?
One other thing I found a bit disconcerting which I'm sure Asimov included as a commentary on the race relations in America at the time (The Naked Sun was published in 1957). Baley is always calling robots "boy." (And robots call humans "master.") It made me wince inwardly every time he did it. I wanted to like Baley--and mostly I do. But it's hard to like a bigot.
But it says something about Asimov that engaging with this book makes me think about such issues as individualism versus "the tribe" and stagnation versus dynamism. Not exactly the sort of thing that happens reading your usual hard-boiled detective or cozy mystery.
As before, the mystery in the novel is well-crafted, and the process of solving it is well-written. Much of the book serves to contrast the conditions on overcrowded impovershed Earth where the bulk of the population is hostile to robots, agoraphobic, and live in an almost communal manner to those on wealthy Solaria, with strict controls limiting the human population of the entire planet to twenty thousand, robots outnumber humans tens of thousands to one, and where face-to-face human contact is regarded as obscene.
As usualy for Asimov robot novels, the plot revolves around the meaning and application of the Three Laws of Robotics, and some frightening implications those laws have that had not been previously considered and which are fully explored much later in Foundation and Earth. The mystery also allows Asimov to explore the problems of Earth culture (exposed by Baley's contact with the Solarians), and the troubles faced by the dysfunctional Solarian culture specifically, and the spacer culture in general.
While this book isn't quite as good as The Caves of Steel, it remains one of Asimov's best.
Asimov's three laws of robotics have been criticised as being unrealistic, but if you understand them as a plot device for exploring the implications robotics on humans then the issues he explores are as valid today as when he wrote.
People fearing for their
People no longer being stimulated to explore new knowledge.
Effecting peoples social skills.
The inherent contradiction in programming a robot to protect humans - to be totally protected the human has to be cocooned.
An much more.
Baily must use all his skill and intellect to solve the mystery together with Daneel, the humanoid robot, who has once more joined forces with Elijah.
This book is a joy to read and leaves one with a lot of food for thought.
Asimov, in fact, really
The story itself for this one was good enough, I s'pose, although again, the mystery itself is guessable. When you're not a mystery writer by trade, it must be hard to figure out how to fool people best. But if you want to figure out all the logical implications of robots that are constructed in a certain way, Asimov is your man. This wasn't quite as good as the first one, but it was still fairly good. It's worth a read, anyway, and it won't take you long.
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Set on the anti-Earth world of Solaria, Lije and Daneel must deal with anti-earth sentiment while trying to find the true
Second in a series featuring Lije and Daneel, this book is sure to please Asimov fans as well as anybody who appreciates a good science fiction mystery.
So a leading scientist described as a "good Solarian" was murdered in his estate. The problem was, who could have done it. He was with his robots, but everyone knows that the First Law of Robotics won't permit robots to harm humans. The only other option was his wife, Gladia Delmarre, who he never would have allowed into his presence in his laboratory, but as she was the only human with access, she's the guilty party as far as Solaria is concerned. Unfortunately, there's no murder weapon, no motive, no confession, nothing. So, since Baley (and Olivaw) did such a great job solving the Spacer murder on Earth the previous year, he was requested to come try to solve this murder. And he goes against his wishes. Because like all Earthmen, he's terrified of open spaces and of light, such as sunlight. Remember that he lives in a giant city under ground full of people and going to a planet where everything is on the surface and there are so few people and so many hated robots is hideous to him. But it's his duty, so he does it. And in the process, the lead investigator who invited him to Solaria is murdered in his presence while viewing and he himself is attacked with an assassination attempt, so it becomes quite personal. And as he investigates, the obvious murderer to everyone becomes the less obvious person to him, as he looks at other possibilities. To be perfectly honest, this isn't the hardest mystery to solve. I had it figured out about halfway through the book, but it was still enjoyable to see how things played out and besides, that wasn't what this book was about. This book's strengths lie in its look at sociological views of human evolution and technology, in this case, robots. The Solarian sociologist who is the acknowledged expert knows nothing. He is self taught and doesn't care to study anything by anyone on any other worlds, no matter how advanced or helpful their work may be. The physician, too, seems woeful in his abilities. Solaria, in its efforts to become the perfect human world and society, is freaking falling apart and disintegrating and they don't even realize it. But Baley does. He sees and understands. The only humans left on Solaria are admittedly the "leisure" class and they are practically useless and helpless. This is what we'll come to with the aid of robots? Hopefully not. The sociologist shocks Baley by telling him Solaria is based on Earth, but he's right to a certain degree. They are simply opposite extremes of each other. As in the last book, Baley had become convinced that in order for Earth to survive its population explosion and diminishing resources, it had to once again advance into outer space and again colonize new planets, he's now further convinced of the necessity for that and when he returns to New York, he makes a point of expressing that to the powers that be, hoping that someone, somewhere will see the light.
The actual solving of the murder is pretty dramatic and somewhat satisfying, if also fairly simplistic and to a minimal degree, somewhat predictable in terms of who the culprit is. My two main complaints about this book are we don't see as much of Daneel Olivaw as we did in the preceding book, and that's a shame, and I also find it very hard to believe that Solaria has devolved so much in the 200 years of its colonization so that people are now so disgusted with human contact that they can't even tolerate it at all and can't even say the word, "children," for instance, and can barely tolerate the notion of intimacy with anyone, including a spouse. How can people, in 200 years, grow to despise being in contact with each other so much that some, this happens, would rather commit suicide? It stretches the imagination and I find it somewhat unbelievable. But whatever the case, it is what it is, so I guess you have to go with it.
I thought hard about giving this book five stars because I thought it was pretty original and quite enjoyable, but I'm giving it four because the actual mystery is rather simplistic, as I said, and because there are some elements of the book, as noted, that seem rather unbelievable. It's not bad though and I certainly recommend it to anyone in search of a decent sci fi mystery to read. And it's not essential that one have read the first robot book to read this either; it can be read as a stand alone novel. Recommended.
If you have not yet
I have found, over the last 8 years of living in an urban condo, that I think often of the communal kitchens of the Earth Cities! Considering when Asimov wrote, he spun out worlds that we may each, unconsciously, be making an effort to render achievable.
Earth detective Lije Bailey is called on for a special mission to the planet Solaria. He's been requested to look into a murder on that world of a prominent Solarian who
Teamed again with R. Daneel Olivaw, Bailey arrives on the planet to find that there are only 20,000 inhabitants on the world. Each person is tended by multiple robots and there is rarely any in-person contact. Contact takes place by holographic interface (think "Star Trek"'s holodeck) which really narrows down the list of potential suspects. It also serves as an impediment to the investigation since the Solaran taboos on personal contact mean that a lot of the evidence in the case was destroyed before Bailey arrived.
The mystery isn't necessarily the most complex one in the universe, but it serves as the starting point for the novel. Asimov takes time to really develop Bailey in this story and we see some growth in him over the course of the novel.
What keeps this from being a five star review like its predecessor is that at times, it's not nearly as much fun to read as the first. The society of Solara is interesting, but no where near as compelling as the future Earth we see in "Caves of Steel." Interestingly, Asimov will later combine the two worlds in the next novel in the series, which had some mixed results.
However, that shouldn't go to say the novel is a bad one. It's still a great read and a lot of fun.
Having experienced Solaria in the Foundation series, it was interesting to contrast it here. The Foundation series is set millenia in the future compared to this story so some aspects of the society shown in this were clear signposts to what would evolve. However, knowing the society did lessen some of the dramatic tension of the book. Perhaps that is one reason I thoought this was not quite as good as the previous one!
Asimov writes a good story, engrossing and fun, yet with social commentary to mull over once you finish. In this one, the adaptation of humans to differing social mores (in this case, specifically to be solitary vs. to be in a crowd) is explored and the ultimate consequences of these adaptations is hinted at. I found it fascinating that even the "normal" Earth attitude
is strange to us (although crowding is a not uncommon theme is futuristic sci fi).