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The Caves of Steel
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==Setup== Isaac Asimov introduces [[Elijah Baley]] and [[R. Daneel Olivaw]], later his favorite protagonists. They live roughly three millennia in Earth's future, a time when hyperspace travel has been discovered and a few worlds relatively close to Earth have been colonized β fifty planets known as the "Spacer worlds". The Spacer worlds are rich, have low population density (average population of one hundred million each), and use [[robot]] labor heavily. Meanwhile, [[Earth]] is [[Human overpopulation|overpopulated]] with eight billion people, three times that of Asimov's 1950s, with strict rules against robots. In ''The Caves of Steel'' and its sequels (the first of which is ''[[The Naked Sun]]''), Asimov paints a grim situation of an Earth dealing with an extremely large population and of luxury-seeking Spacers, who limit birth to permit great wealth and privacy. Asimov was a claustrophile: "I wrote a novel in 1953 which pictured a world in which everyone lived in underground cities, comfortably enclosed away from the open air. People would say, 'How could you imagine such a nightmarish situation?' And I would answer in astonishment, 'What nightmarish situation?{{'"}}<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/nightfallotherst00asim#page/244/mode/2up|title=Nightfall, and other stories|last=Asimov|first=Isaac|date=1969|publisher=Doubleday|pages=244}}</ref> The "caves of steel" are vast city complexes covered by huge metallic domes, capable of supporting tens of millions each: the [[New York City]] of that era (wherein much of the story is set) encompasses present-day New York City as well as large tracts of [[New Jersey]]. Asimov imagines the present day underground transit connected to malls and apartment blocks, until no one ever exits the domes and most of the population suffer from extreme [[Agoraphobia|fear of leaving them]]. (Even though the ''[[Robot series (Asimov)|Robot]]'' and ''[[Foundation (book series)|Foundation]]'' series were not made part of the same fictional universe until much later, the "caves of steel" resemble the planet [[Trantor]].) The novel's central plot device is a murder, which takes place before it opens. (This is an Asimov trademark, which he attributed to his squeamishness plus [[John W. Campbell|John Campbell]]'s advice to begin as late in the story as possible.) The victim is Roj Nemmenuh Sarton, a Spacer [[Ambassador]] who lives in [[Spacetown]], the Spacer outpost just outside New York City. For some time, he has tried to convince the Earth government to loosen its anti-robot restrictions. One morning, he is discovered outside his home, his chest imploded by an [[Raygun|energy blaster]]. The New York [[police]] commissioner charges Elijah with finding the murderer, in cooperation with a highly advanced robot named [[R. Daneel Olivaw]] who is visually identical to a human and is equipped with a scanner that is able to detect human emotions through their [[electroencephalography|encephalographic]] waves.
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