Isaac Asimov, Caves of Steel
Following I, Robot (though the story seems to happen hundreds -thousands?- years after the lifetime of robopsychiatrist Susan Calvin), The Caves of Steel is the first installment in three stories from the robot series featuring Detective Elijah Baley.
In a futuristic New York where people live in small apartment units without windows; the “caves of steel”, and where no ones ever sees the sun except in occasional sessions in the solarium, where bathrooms and kitchens are communal and rank in society measured by privileges such as a private washbasin or a sitting place in the expressway (the public means of transport), Elijah Baley is sent on a delicate mission by his boss and friend, Commissioner Julius Enderby.
In Spacetown, a New York enclave in which people from the Outer Worlds (people who have emigrated on other planets hundreds of years ago and have developed different customs from the earthmen) live in secrecy and isolation, a murder is committed on the person of Dr Sarton, a man who had plans to convince the earthmen to welcome robots among them. Most earthmen are anti-robots and resent the spacers for their scorn and superiority, and the spacers are convinced that the murder has been perpetrated by a New Yorker. Public knowledge of the crime could lead the spacers to declare war on earth and force the earthmen to accept the changes they judge necessary. Therefore, Elijah has to cooperate in order to solve the murder discretely. For this, he has to work with a partner who is R. Daneel; … a robot.
As Elijah wonders how to convince his wife that they have to accommodate a robot in their apartment (a robot who is a perfect imitation of a human being), and how to solve a murder which could have consequences for the future of humanity before the robot does…
Caves of Steel is a very decent mystery, and mostly a very interesting view of a futuristic society and its problems, which has apparently inspired many subsequent writers. The problems of the robots and how they apprehend the world, with their mixture of obvious superiority and more subtle limitations, is also very interesting…
Rating: 3,5/5
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