The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov

The Caves of Steel

By Isaac Asimov

  • Release Date: 1991-11-01
  • Genre: High Tech Sci-Fi
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 598 Ratings

Description

In the second book of the renowned Robot series, detective Elijah Baley is swept into one of the most emotionally charged and dangerous situations in Earth’s history when he’s tasked with solving the murder of an illustrious robot scientist.

“With his fertile imagination, his wit, and his prolific output, Isaac Asimov truly laid the foundation for all future generations of science fiction writers.”—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling co-author of the Dune prequel series

Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer.

The relationship between Life Lige and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Isaac Asimov’s Robot series chronicles the sometimes uneasy partnership between human and humanoid:
I, ROBOT • THE CAVES OF STEEL • THE NAKED SUN • THE ROBOTS OF DAWN

Reviews

  • Organic and mechanical awareness

    4
    By jwmpc
    The great debate about human versus machine intelligence almost invariably ignores networking. Dan Simmons got nearer to it when he wrote of dataspheres and noospheres, but Asimov provides in this novel the first possibility of a synthesis of the two forms
  • Good

    5
    By Taspunky
    It is a very good read.
  • Classic

    5
    By RLOMD
    A classic for a good reason.
  • Timeless Classic

    5
    By Ringhome
    It's hard to believe that this was written in the mid-fifties! Overpopulation, food/power shortages, and A.I.-- all pretty well in line with today's standards. Either Asimov was prophetic, or we're not moving on. The human/machine relationship was well done; a masterpiece of psychology and A.I.
  • Hardboiled SF detective yarn

    5
    By S Burg
    This is a very entertaining book! It is a very successful mix of police detective mystery and a number of compelling science fiction themes. The world Asimov creates is very timely, an overpopulated Earth strained for resources to support it's 8 billion people. The main characters - a human and a robot - form an unlikely team when they are assigned a politically sensitive murder case. I won't say too much more, except this story kept me going up until the last page. I highly recommend it!
  • Awesome!

    5
    By Jeneva T.
    This is certainly my favorite Isaac Asimov novel! I highly recommend it! P.S: R. Daneel reminds me a lot of Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.