The Caves of Steel
The Robots series, Book 1
Isaac Asimov
Spectra
Fiction, Sci-Fi
Themes: Classics, Robots, Urban Tales
***+
Description
It has been thousands of years since humanity lived under open skies on Earth, retreating to vast covered Cities of steel and concrete even as some of their
number escaped to colonize nearby worlds. Since then, not much has changed, people falling into well-worn ruts of civilization even as a booming population
strains Earth's dwindling resources... until the Spacers returned, bringing with them dangerous new ideas. Now, their robot helpers are threatening jobs; for
now, they're just performing menial tasks, but it's no secret the Spacers have robots to do just about every conceivable job a human currently does - even
investigate crimes.
Plain-clothes detective Elijah "Lije" Baley, like most in the City, has little love for the aloof Spacers or their job-stealing robots, but neither does he hold
much sympathy with the rising tide of Medievalists: malcontents and rabble-rousers determined to take humans "back to their roots" and a more primitive
existence... maybe even, blasphemously, outside the City. Then his boss and friend assigns him to a most delicate case: the murder of a Spacer. Worse, he insists
Baley partner with a Spacer robot, one R. Daneel, which was purposefully designed not only to mimic a human but to act as a detective itself. It is both a
diplomatic nightmare and a test; not only are the Spacers capable of massive retaliation if a City human murdered one of their own, but if R. Daneel solves the
crime before Baley, it will prove once and for all that robots are indeed better at complex human tasks like detective work, rendering the City's police department
obsolete overnight. What Baley discovers in his investigation will change his views of robots, Spacers, and humanity itself.
Review
Asimov is a foundational writer, and this is one of his many foundational works, forming the underpinnings of many ideas and tropes still in use today; his
three robotic laws are so ubiquitous many people even outside genre circles assume they're real things in today's robots. As with many older works, though, it
can't help showing its age. While the ideas presented are grand and interesting, the future created here feels not only dated (very white, very Western, very
male, with women as shrill and irrational and foolish creatures and minorities or other cultures apparently as extinct as every animal more exotic than dogs or
cats or sparrows), but deliberately skewed and warped around a very definite Idea of how humanity should (not does, but should) evolve and operate, creating a
very specific problem for which Asimov offers his own very specific mouthpiece solution. I understand that, to a degree, that's what most authors do (create
their own problem, solve with their own solution), but the world and characters here are just too obviously spouts for his arguments to flow through. He even
stops to analyze the Bible. So, while there are some very relatable elements - the displacement of human labor by new technology (without viable options for the
displaced) causing resentment and pushback, the lack of official planning or vision to counter said pushback before it reaches a boiling point, the rise of
cultish groups built around a nostalgic vision of a history that never was (not to mention how such groups tend to have two layers: the reactionary masses on the
lower levels being led and manipulated by an elite few for their own purposes) - the world just plain doesn't feel realistic or organic. As for the characters,
Baley is, frankly, not that great of a detective, especially at first, vision riddled with cultural and personal blind spots, leaping to conclusions without
doing the smallest testing of them first, spending more time defending his prejudices and City culture than actually considering the case at hand objectively.
The culprit is obvious very early on from their actions, though some nuances and shades of the case only become clear through the course of the investigation.
Much like Asimov's Foundation, while it held my interest (more or less) and still has some nice ideas, ultimately I just found the story a little too
dated to fully enjoy.
(On a completely unrelated note, my first exposure to this story was as a child, when my father would sing a filk - fannish "folk" song - based on it to us kids,
to the tune of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." In the interest of nostalgia and posterity, here is the link to the lyrics:
Caves of Steel. No, I did not recall details of the lyrics when reading.)