The Caves of Steel (Book Review)

The Caves of Steel (1954) is a robot detective novel by robotics pioneer Isaac Asimov, focusing on life in a womb-city New York, where everyone lives in populous underground "Cities," with staggering populations into the millions. Political turmoil ripples throughout the metropolis, especially since a man from Spacetown (an off-worlder) has been murdered. Elijah Baley, C-5 Detective, is hot on the case, and he's got a partner who's unconventional, to say the least.

The novel is quite short and spans eighteen chapters, following the exploits of Baley and R Daneel (that's Robot Daneel to us,) on their quest to unravel the conspiracy. A world where the population lives on yeast substitutes; a planet overpopulated to the tune of billions and a galaxy that has seen only limited colonisation provides a dark, rich overtone, filled with possibility and a surprisingly inventive cast of characters. The dystopia of population excess is brought forward with unrelenting skill on Asimov's part, the high technology levels contrasted by the problems it is unable to solve with an irritation that feeds into one's own mind, subconsciously. The problem is ultimately a sociological one, with the society effectively one comprised of luddites, who treat robots as second-class 'citizens' (called the Mediaevalist Movement.) Through this series of political problems, he creates a brilliantly told soft SF narrative, yet nevertheless, thanks to his scientific training, he still manages to offer explanations for the technologies, providing a realistic, hard SF finish to make his world completely believable and -considering that fact that the novel was written over 50 years ago- completely accurate, in the problems that we as a planet are facing currently (food shortage etc.)

The technology is still far future in some areas e.g. speed ramps to increase walking pace instead of a teleport system, whereas in others it is very much contemporary (book-films, for example, akin to tablet computers.) The scenes are often tense and unnerving, the dialogue unbroken and clean-flowing, like a rapid stream undulating with the freshness of spring. As Baley meets dead-end after dead-end we grow anxious as to his ability to solve the murder, and as more and more suspects begin to pile onto the list only to be struck off via a rock-solid alibi, Baley grows furious. The suspects all have their own quirks and traits that make each of them unique in some way or another, which is another strong point to Asimov's writing: His creating characters that share and embody his own personal knowledge of physics and robotics is captivating, to the extent that their explaining the workings of the positronic brain is as compelling as it would be if Asimov had told us himself. The Caves of Steel is a fantastically fast-paced detective thriller, of an almost disturbing prescience.

Thank you for reading this review, but before I leave it here, please also read iRobot because (for those of you who have seen the film,) the original book is very different, to the extent that Smith's character (Detective Spooner) is not even present. That's all for now so thanks again and next week I will most likely be reviewing the book Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984) because, having just started it, I've just realised that I can't put it down!

The Caves of Steel (1997 Pocketbook Edition)