Die Stahlhöhlen

A fun scifi detective novel. I see a lot of reviews focusing on Asimov's speculation of how AI/Robots/Automation will effect humans and society, which is certainly a prevailing theme here. However, one should not overlook that just as, if not more important, is the attention given to human overpopulation and environmental system collapse as a consequence of it without changes to human goals and behavior. Its interesting that he shows us a post-capitalist society that is not the post-scarcity utopia of Roddenberry's dream, but if anything has greater scarcity due entirely to human society falling victim to other behaviors and cultural norms just as outlandishly stupid as the pursuit of ending financial gain.

No es ni mucho menos lo mejor de Asimov, pero es un libro digno y entretenido. Una novela policíaca con un punto de ciencia ficción suave que se lee rapido y cumple su función de hacer pasar el rato. Esta escrita en los años 50 y se nota. Un par de ejemplos: la película fotográfica y la casi ausencia de mujeres en la trama. Asimov, no logró imaginar entonces la foto digital y me resulta gracioso ver como, en un momento dado, habla de película; como si se fuera a seguir usando dentro de tanto tiempo, aparte de los posibles aficionados nostálgicos. Por otro lado, la casi única mujer que aparece, un personaje completamente secundario, cumple los típicos tópicos femeninos de mediados del siglo XX. Es curioso ver como imagina el autor la sociedad del futuro y como, al describirla, me ha hecho pensar en comportamientos comunistas que no me pegan con la mentalidad norteamericana. La trama no es complicada y no es excesivamente difícil «pillar al malo» antes que el detective. Como decía, es un libro recomendable para pasar el rato y sobre todo si te interesa conocer los orígenes de un personaje relativamente importante para La Fundación de la famosa trilogía. Hace tiempo, más de 20 años, que me lo leí por primera vez y en esta nueva relectura ha vuelto a gustarme.

La trama me ha gustado, me gusta el ambiente que imaginó el autor para la tierra en un futuro, me parece creíble.

Pero el final a contrarreloj, sin hacerte sospechar, sin ir hilando los acontecimientos, tipo "eureka!", no me convence mucho.

Eso sí, siguen ahí las maravillosas cuestiones filosóficas que plantea Asimov con cada robot que aparece en sus obras.

Isaac Asimov was famous for his stories involving robots, and for inventing the Three Laws of Robotics:

First Law
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

The earlier stories took place on an Earth not too far in future. In this novel he jumps several millennia into the future. With the aid of robots, some people have colonized 50 worlds near Earth, and they are called The Spacers. They do not want much to do with Earth, but there is some trade. Earth has in the meantime become an overcrowded megalopolis of enclosed levels inhabited by people who have become agoraphobic to an extreme. The population is huge, and taking care of them requires severe rationing measures and artificial foods. Interestingly, the total population is given as 8 billion, not much more than we have today, and less than the maximum we are projected to reach. Asimov was someone who worried about overpopulation to perhaps an extreme degree.

Then a Spacer is murdered, and a detective form Earth named Elijah Bailey is assigned to the case. But the Spacers insist that one of their "people" be involved, only that turns out to be a humaniform robot named R. Daneel Olivaw, who can pass for being a human being. So the novel combines a developing relationship between these characters with a murder mystery, something Asimov was also fond of writing. This novel is the first of three. The second, The Naked Sun is set on the planet Solaria, and a third, The Robots of Dawn is set on the planet Aurora. The three novels explore in some sense different settings: Earth is the more primitive, over-crowded society, Solaria is highly developed but becoming neurotically opposed to any social contact, and Aurora is a more balanced middle. Asimov later tied all of his future history into one big whole, and R. Daneel Olivaw becomes a character in the Foundation series.

"The Caves Of Steel" was Asimov's first SF/crime/mystery crossover novel and shows Earth suppressed by the long-lived superior "Spacers". When the spacer ambassador to Earth is killed an investigation by a mismatched pair of investigators, one from Earth and the other a Spacer must find the killer and avoid an interstellar incident. Well crafted characters and thoroughly plotted this is an excellent book for fans of either genre.

1) '''We can't ever build a robot that will be even as good as a human being in anything that counts, let alone better. We can't create a robot with a sense of beauty or a sense of ethics or a sense of religion. There's no way we can raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism.
'We can't, damn it, we can't. Not as long as we don't understand what makes our own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can't measure. What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood. It's what makes us men.
'A robot's brain must be finite or it can't be built. It must be calculated to the final decimal place so that it has an end. Jehoshaphat, what are you afraid of? A robot can look like Daneel, he can look like a god, and be no more human than a lump of wood is. Can't you see that?'''

2) ''It could not all have burst full-grown into his mind. Things did not work so. Somewhere, deep inside his unconscious, he had built a case, built it carefully and in detail, but had been brought up short by a single inconsistency. One inconsistency that could be neither jumped over, burrowed under, nor shunted aside. While that inconsistency existed, the case remained buried below his thoughts, beyond the reach of his conscious probing.
But the sentence had come; the inconsistency had vanished; the case was his.''

A surprisingly small book, considering the size of some of Asimov's others. Asimov introduces Elijah Bailey, a cop who must solve the murder of an off-planet visitor, although the real story here is society's acceptance of robots (or its lack thereof) and the advancement of humanity.

Asimov's character relationships come off lackluster as usual, but they're easily overshadowed by the intriguing and feasible he paints.