The Caves of Steel

The Caves of Steel is a book by Isaac Asimov. It is essentially a detective story, and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science-fiction is a flavour that can be applied to any literary genre[?], rather than a limited genre itself.

In this novel, Isaac Asimov first introduced Elijah Bailey[?] and R. Daneel Olivaw which would later become his, and more so his readers', favourite protagonists. It is set in a near future where hyperspace travel has been discovered, and a few worlds relatively close to earth have been colonised -- fifty planets known as the "Spacer Worlds". The spacer worlds are rich, have low population density and use robot labour very heavily. Meanwhile, Earth is overcrowded and strict rules against robots have been passed. The Caves of Steel of the title are the cities which cover most of the surface of the planet: Asimov imagines the present day's underground transit connected to malls and apartment blocks, extended to a point where no-one ever exits to the outside world - indeed, most of the population cannot, as they suffer extreme agoraphobia if they try.

A Spacer ambassador, who tries to convince the Earth government about both the importance of robots and of that of continuing space exploration and colonization, is murdered. Elijah, a detective for the earth police, is charged with finding the murderer. However, he gets a spacer partner -- a humanoid robotic spacer partner named R. Daneel Olivaw. Together, they search for the murderer and trying to stop an interplanetary diplomatic incident which would mean the destruction of earth.

In The Caves of Steel Asimov paints a grim situation of an Earth which has become dictatorial/pseudo-socialist to deal with an extremely large population, and of luxury-seeking Spacers which limit birth so that each may have virtually unlimited grounds, wealth and privacy. However, the lack of daylight was not something Asimov found grim: one of his anecdotes tells how a reader asked him how he could have imagined such an existence with no daylight. He relates that it had not struck him till then that living perpetually indoors might be construed as unpleasant.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the contrast between Elijah, the human detective, and Daneel, the humanoid robot. Asimov uses the "mechanical" robot thoughts to talk about human nature.

In Asimov's later books, the character Elijah will be remembered for thousands of years into the future, as the man who started the second immigration wave from earth. R. Daneel Olivaw will have a long life, and will manouver behind the scene to help humanity as it expand in the galaxy, and will even set the stage for the growth of Galaxia, an united living galaxy.

Isaac Asimov himself claimed that the reason Daneel got so much screen time was that his readers and publishers begged it of him.

See also

• Isaac Asimov's Robot Series