Bibliophilic Friday: The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Review by Nancy L. Eady)

Over three thousand years in the future, a New York City police detective named Elijah Baley is charged by his Commissioner with solving a politically sensitive murder. But the politics of the Cities, huge concrete and steel caves that exist mostly underground and support between 10 to 20 million people each, differ vastly from the politics of today. 

There are over 800 Cities on Earth.  In Elijah’s world, families live in community facilities with private rooms for the family, but shared bathrooms and kitchens that are more like cafeterias. Earth’s inhabitants no longer live in open spaces, but in the confines of the Cities’ steel caves. For many Earth people, walking outside under an open sky is unthinkable and uncomfortable, if not debilitating. In the less distant past, because of the pressures of expanding population, Earth colonized space, but the colonies grew in isolationist directions and limited immigration from Earth to the barest trickle. (Colonists are called “Spacers” by Earth people).  The colonies have vastly outpaced Earth technologically—for example, they have robots that are almost indistinguishable from humans. Earth, on the other hand, adamantly opposes the use of robots in the Cities because they fear they will take away jobs from humans who need them. 

New York City is also the location of “Spacetown,” a space port where those few Spacers who have business on Earth land. 

Elijah is tasked with solving the murder of a prominent colonist, Dr. Sarton, a task he is reluctant to undertake especially when he is told one condition of the task is that he must partner with R. Daneel Olivaw, one of the humanoid robots Earth (and Elijah) are so opposed to. 

In The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov wrote a brilliant novel blending two popular genres, science fiction and mystery, that rarely get a chance to mix. The novel is even more fantastic when you consider that it was written in 1959, a world where PCs and the internet were every bit as much science fiction as the world Asimov created in his novel. 

Every good story has more than one subplot, and without diminishing the mystery one iota, Asimov also explores the reactions and social consequences living in the Cities has created for the people of Earth, and the social interaction between his two dissimilar detectives, Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. 

Without giving it away, the solution to the mystery is both believable and satisfying, as is the resolution of the other plots in the book. If you like mysteries, or science fiction, give The Caves of Steel a try. Who knows? It may encourage you to explore whichever of the two genres you are less familiar with. And even if it doesn’t, it’s a fun book to read.