The Foundations Series, Book 2 of 15

This second book follows The Complete Robot, a collection of 31 short stories that sets the literal foundation for Isaac Asimov‘s epic Foundation series. While most people view this series to have only 7 titles, Asimov has written elsewhere that he actually includes 8 more, organized semi-chronologically, which offer the fuller scope of the universe he envisioned. That’s what I’m reading.

I was excited to try The Caves of Steel simply because it’s novel, a change of pace following all those stories! It took me a little bit to get my bearings, but once I did, I fell in love with this future world from Asimov’s imagination.

About 1000 years have passed since robot-psychologist Susan Calvin shepherded the rise of the world’s first robots on Earth. Now, the world lives underground, millions of people surviving in cramped and crowded cities thousands of feet below the surface.

Over the intervening years, humanity has spread across the solar system, populating 50 planets and improving the quality (according to some) and extent of life—though many feel they’ve plateaued and are beginning to stagnate. Robots are the key to their prosperity on planets like Aurora and Solaria, yet back on Earth there exist the lowest forms of humanity with the most primitive of robots. Most Spacers hold most Earth-men in contempt, viewing them as filthy, unsophisticated sewer rats. Yet still, they need these humans to re-enter the world of space travel and bring new vitality to the solar system—if, that is, the Earth-men can get over their disdain for advanced robots.

Lije Baley is one such Earth-man, a plainclothes detective called in to investigate the murder of a Spacer in underground New York City. His wife Jessie is worried about him, especially because of his strange new partner, an R. Daneel Olivaw. Together, Baley and Olivaw (a humanoid robot) travel to Spacetown to investigate the murder, and soon they discover that the culprit (or culprits) might actually live a whole lot closer to home.

Although this book took me a few chapters to picture in my mind’s eye (and a few more chapters to understand), I really got into the feel of it as it sped along. It reminded me a great deal of the world depicted in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which was the inspiration for the Blade Runner films. Underground New York is a dark dystopia, where air and openness is an enemy and personal hygiene is an antiquated concept. Overpopulation keeps life short, which is the exact opposite of what we’ll eventually find on the Spacer planets.

Perhaps my favorite scene was the strip-running in Chapter 11. The “highways” are actually parallel moving sidewalks that get incrementally faster the further out one moves, so that people can walk from one underground city to the next at 60mph (or at least that’s how I read it). Teenagers (who apparently haven’t changed much after so many years) use these strips as a game of daring, running from one strip to the next, the leader trying to reach a destination before the followers can catch him. It’s a dangerous game but a really fun concept and highly visual for the reader.

Some advanced knowledge about robots that I gleaned from this is that they do have a weakness: radioactivity, which would essentially melt their positronic brains, “killing” them. The characters also describe why robots are becoming humanoid rather than their own separate thing—because the world is already created to fit humans, so why retrofit everything to fit some other robotic form?

I really enjoyed this unique mystery story. I felt it’s like the exact opposite of Robert Van Gulik’s mysteries set 1400+ years in the past, and yet I loved it for the same reason. Humanity hasn’t much changed over the intervening years, and it likely won’t change in the future (if the Lord tarries). Instead of magistrates and servants, it’s Spacers and robots. Both are unique, and both are fun reading. They don’t make them like they used to.

Next up in the series is Book 3, The Naked Sun. Lije and Daneel return again in this one, this time to investigate a murder on one of the Spacer planets—if Lije can survive his time above ground that is!

©2024 E.T.

Read More from Isaac Asimov:

• The Extended Foundation Series:
  1. The Complete Robot (1982) [A.D. 1995]
  2. The Caves of Steel (1954) [A.D. 3421]
  3. The Naked Sun (1957) [A.D. 3422]
  4. The Robots of Dawn (1983) [A.D. 3424]
  5. Robots and Empire (1985) [A.D. 3630]
  6. The Stars Like Dust (1951) [A.D. 4850]
  7. The Currents of Space (1952) [A.D. 11129]
  8. Pebble in the Sky (1955) [A.D. 12411 or 827 G.E.]
  9. Prelude to Foundation (1988) [12020 G.E.]
  10. Forward the Foundation (1993) [12038 G.E.]
  11. Foundation (1951) [12067 G.E.]
  12. Foundation and Empire (1952) [13800 G.E.]
  13. Second Foundation (1953) [13850 G.E.]
  14. Foundation’s Edge (1982) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
  15. Foundation and Earth (1986) [14200 G.E. or 498 F.E.]
• Short Story Collections:
  I, Robot (1950)
  Buy Jupiter (1975)
  Gold (1995)
  Eight Stories from the Rest of the Robots (1964)
• Other Novels:
  Fantastic Voyage (1966)