The robot novels.

The caves of steel. The naked sun

404 pages

English language

Published April 8, 1957 by Doubleday.

OCLC Number:
283246

View on OpenLibrary

(80 reviews)

4 editions

Review of 'Robot Trilogy' on 'Goodreads'

The core detective story here holds up fairly well, and some of the basics of human-robot fears (primarily unemployment) hold up pretty well too.

But boy… so much else does not. There’s both the trivial (our hero is really concerned about tobacco rations for his pipe… to smoke during meetings!) but also much deeper cringe—the treatment of the only woman in the story is deeply misogynistic, and to put the robots in their place characters call them “boy”. In that sense, it’s a good reminder that our modern science fiction is made much more interesting by taking seriously the interests of everyone, not just white men, but … hard to recommend reading just for that.

Perhaps the one thing that’s actually interesting as a time capsule is that the book’s plot is driven in large part by scarcity, in a way we don’t tend to think much about (or …

Review of 'The robot novels.' on 'Goodreads'

Especially in contrast against the Foundation books, these are a faster read, with stronger characters, and were just more fun.

You don't need to read them before the Foundation books generally, but I'd suggest reading them before Foundation & Earth and beyond. OTOH they'd also provide insight to Prelude to Foundation, IIRC.

I am enjoying finally reading about the famous Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw, and look forward to getting The Robots of Dawn from the library soon too.

Review of 'Robot Trilogy' on 'Storygraph'

Science fiction and murder investigation: I love this combination. This is the second book of the Robots series and I read it 3 years after reading "The Caves of Steel". I am not sure why I took so long to start reading this one, but I not disappointed. It was a great contrast if compared to the first one where the detective Elijah Baley was investigating a murder case on Earth with underground cities and crowded spaces.

The Naked Sun takes place in an Outer World planet called Solaria which has only 20 thousand humans that live with 200 thousand robots. The culture, habits and taboos are completely different in Solaria, where humans are not used to seeing each other, instead, they socialize through "viewing", something resembling a uber high-tech-quality with immersion Skype talk. Like all good detective stories, there was no obvious motive, opportunity or weapon on the crime …

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