The Caves of Steel

All the short stories now under my belt, it was time to tackle the first novel of the series.

I understand that this novel was partly written in response to his editor John W. Campbell's belief that Science Fiction and Mystery were incompatible. Asimov thought otherwise and 'The Caves of Steel' was the evidence of that. It is essentially a murder/mystery in which we encounter Elijah Baley (the Detective) and R.Daneel Olivaw (an advanced Robot) that looks identical to a human.

The title 'The Caves of Steel' refers to the large self contained cities covered entirely by domes. People rarely venture outside and have no desire to do so, in fact they suffer from severe agoraphobia due to generations of living in these Caves. Everything they would ever need including transport links to other Cities around the country is encased in giant blocks of Steel that has covered in the New York area .  This adds a real gritty futuristic urban feel that features in many Science Fiction stories in print and on screen. Asimov readers will find similarities here with Trantor from the Foundation series.

Elijah has a low opinion of robots and the meeting has the coming together of seasoned detective handpicked for the task and a partner being thrust upon them. In this case its not the plucky young upstart straight out of police training but a Robot sent from the Spacer world in the image of the murder victim. I couldn't help but think back to all the movies and TV police shows where these relationships are central to the plot. Elijah isn't a womanising alcoholic, or a brooding introvert with a closet full of skeletons (or has he? we may find out in later tales?) so here the similarity ends. He is certainly not happy about being partnered with a robot though.

The murder investigation plays itself out against a backdrop of an over populated future earth, the book being set approximately 3000 years in the future where men have colonised 50 planets and live long and healthy lives on sparsely populated worlds.  There is some interesting and often amusing dialogue between Elijah and Daneel - a feature of much of his short fiction - that help lift an otherwise standard whodunit.

I can't say that I was blown away by this one, but it was still an interesting read and as it starts a series within a series (Elijah and Daneel make up the last of the Robot books) there is scope for that relationship to develop further. The Naked Sun awaits...