Have you ever thought of reading... "The Caves of Steel” by Isaac Asimov?

If not let me tell you something more about it! First of all IsAac Asimov immigrated with his family from Russia to the United States, and then became a biochemistry professor while pursuing writing. He published his first novel, “Pebble in the Sky”, in 1950. An immensely prolific author who penned nearly 500 books, he published influential sci-fi works like “I, Robot” and the “Foundation” trilogy, as well as books in a variety of other genres.

Turning now to the novel there can be only one word to describe what “The Caves of Steel” made me feel like: alive. I loved the novel, and when I choose to read it I wasn’t even very curious about it, I know very bad to say but true! This book opened my mind and made me realise of thousands of thoughts that never could have come to my mind, or at least not in the way they did.

This book describes a world and a time distant in the future, something like two or three thousands years from the present, and there are two distinct human cultures: Earth and Spacers. Earth is over-populated but thanks to the “Cities” it is roughly monitored. The Cities, the “C” is needed to be capitalised (as Asimov himself explains in the brief introduction of the novel), are massive futuristic buildings without windows where every human need is provided by a central authority and all actions of everyone are regulated.

These Cities don’t cover all the planet and, despite the effort of governments, Earth population grows more everyday causing a nearer and nearer inability of the Cities to find resources for the people.

Before I mentioned the “Spacers”, but who are they?

They are descendants of the original humans who colonised 50 planets in space. They have low population, long lives, due to different medicine (not necessary better), and robots. Robots are central to the Spacer economy and, after a short war with Earth, they have begun to implement them on Earth.

Humans do not appreciate this development since robots are starting to take jobs away from people. Anger and resentment is building up and the Cities are not safe for either robots or Spacers (although they avoid trouble by never leaving “Spacetown”, a shielded open sky community on the outskirts of New York City).

The story begins with the protagonist, Elijah Bailey (a detective of New York) learning from police commissioner Julius Enderby about a Spacer named Roj Sarton being found murdered in his home, his chest imploded by an energy blaster. Enderby charges Elijah with finding the murderer, but the Spacers have one condition: Elijah must work with a Spacer partner, a highly advanced robot named R. Daneel Olivaw . On the outside Daneel looks human. In fact his physical appearance is based on the victim, since he is designed to explore Terran culture and perhaps find a way to convince Earth Humans about the necessity of robots for their survival.

The Spacers believe “Medievalists”, a loose collection of robot-hating humans who want to eject the Spacers from Earth and get humanity out of the Cities, murdered Sarton to prevent robots from becoming more prevalent. Bailey, however, believes it to all be a Spacer plot, but for the moment has no choice to work with Daneel. Together, they search for the murderer and try to avert a diplomatic incident that could be interstellar...

“The Caves of Steel” is full of lies, misdirection, hidden messages and “gray morality”.

Essentially all the ingredients needed for a good mystery. As story goes on, Elijah learns to overcome his prejudices and work with Daneel, but in the end the human ingenuity is needed to save the Day and solve the mystery.

Unlike most novels, Asimov does not waste time on detailed description of the settings, letting the dialogue drive the story. I really liked this because it gave me an opportunity to imagine the enclosed City of New York as I wanted (for some reason I imagined everything to be gray and maybe metallic, with lights that were blinking in the tunnels, I don’t know I liked it a lot anyway). From a historical perspective, it is interesting to read about Terran’s hatred for robots and how it compares to racism of the 1950s, the decade of the novel’s publication. Considering the political atmosphere at the time, it is amazing you don’t hear more about this book being banned in certain schools in America (I learned that there are some versions of it in which some parts are banned). You need to love “Science Fiction” because just by adding a robot or an alien, no one will notice a social commentary…at least consciously. What I disliked is the fact that, being influenced by the historical period, anyone looking for a strong female character is going to be disappointed, and probably angry; if you’re a woman with principles (like me) get ready! There are also plenty of “as you know” moments where characters had to constantly remind themselves about the Three Laws of Robotics , which anyway I agree are important. I found very interesting how was Asimov’s idea of the new technologies in he future, some have failed to come true as some are a little unbelievable, like the idea of the Cities. Would every single human culture and nation agree to wall themselves up in giant cans that are megalopolis? Wouldn’t some nations just refuse either because of cost, culture or some other reason? I have to say, he certainly made a good point about how isolated, interstellar colonies might lose their resistance to human disease, underlining how Spacers have to put into their nostrils special gadgets to filtrate the air. Despite missing out on many scientific advancement (mobile phone,etc...) and political outcomes of the 20th century, “The Caves of Steel” is still a good read and an excellent example on how science fiction can easily mix with other genres. Although certain aspects of the novel might not translate well into our society, if you can put yourself in the mind of a person of the 1950s, you get a glimpse of how people at the start of the Cold War thought about the future.

As I said before, I loved this book and I can’t wait to read its sequel!

E. Giarrizzo