Pros: Interesting discussion of Robot labor and its implications, and a mystery to boot.
Cons: The usual complaints, poor dialogue and shallow characters...but not as bad as most.
The Bottom Line: A robot-dependent society develops phobias and psychotic behavior. Cultures clash as an Earthman is brought in to solve a crime. Classic science fiction fun.
avepythagoras's Full Review: Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun
Another Step Toward A Climax
More Isaac Asimov in my ongoing attempt to read/re-read his entire Foundation series. I am surprised I have stuck with it so far. I don't normally have this kind of energy because I am like a raccoon: shiny objects distract me easily. This is my eighth review in a nearly complete attempt at reviewing Asimov's Robot/Foundation series. At least those left in print. At first, when he wrote the original Foundation trilogy, it was only intended to be that, a trilogy. But further down the line of life, he wrote other novels, namely the Robot trilogy, and decided he wanted everything to fit into a nice little greater Foundation series. So he wrote four more Foundation novels connecting his Robot and Empire trilogies--sadly, the Empire trilogy and the last Foundation novel, Foundation and Earth, are out of print. And therefore, the great cycle of novels, the Robot, Empire and Foundation trilogies, are considered his grand opus of future Humanity: the true Foundation series as Asimov wanted it.
The Naked Sun is the second book in the Robot trilogy and the third in the greater series, if you start with I, Robot.
My Eyes Were Burned when I stared at the Naked Sun
Fresh from his success at solving the murder of a famed roboticist and Spacer, Elijah Baley's aid is required when an odd murder occurs on the far distant world of Solaria. His renown has caught the eye of both the Spacers and his superiors on Earth. No Earthman has ever been to a Spacer planet. Spacers have a notorious fear of earthbound illness and infection. Elijah is forced by his superiors to act as both detective and spy, keeping Earth's interests as his top priority.
The planet Solaria is drastically under populated. A planet the size of Earth, it has only 20,000 citizens. A few Fetologists, Fetal engineers, who work to preserve embryos and cycle the population, keeping the birth rate and death rate equal, rigorously control the population. Until the recent murder, crime has been non-existent. Each human is master to thousands of robots, who wait on them hand and foot, doing every menial task, from cooking and cleaning, to running the factories and farming. Each human is infinitely free to pursue leisure and has unlimited freedom to do as they see fit. But this society is odd, they are all hermits, and the greatest taboo: being in the presence of another human being. Actually 'seeing' another person in the flesh is considered sick, maladjusted and psychotic. So who would commit murder if everyone on the planet becomes physically ill when they are around another human being? Or is it something more sinister, something that could unhinge the tense equilibrium between humans and robots, did a robot actually kill its master? Elijah finds himself partnered, once again, by the robot Daneel Olivaw. They set out to solve this murder, but for different reasons.
You Know, I Kind of Liked This One...
For some reason or another, Asimov was able to write an interesting novel. The Naked Sun is a good novel, classic science fiction. A quixotic planet populated by hermits and endless hordes or robots, a world barren to most human progress, an entire world lost in its own deep thought. As an Earthman, Elijah is used to the direct opposite, overpopulation, forced community and life in cold, massively large cities. He has a distinct phobia of the outdoors. Earth seems to have produced as many quirky habits and idiosyncrasies as Solaria, yet we find ourselves more empathetic to Baley, and less so to Solaria. The two cultures clash as Baley slowly begins to unravel the mystery behind the murder of the famed Fetologist and 'good Solarian' Dr. Delmarre.
Asimov's characters actually show some growth and the dialogue isn't as painful to read as some of his other novels. It seems given enough time and thought, even Asimov had the ability to construct rudimentary characters with qualities similar to their actual non-fictional counterparts. The character growth is fairly believable, as Elijah begins to deal with the open, naked sun. And unlike his Solarian counterparts, Elijah finds the personal strength to overcome his adverse feelings and phobias. Elijah squirms his way through Solarian culture like a fish out of water, and uses his knowledge of intimacy and community, both attributes missing in Solaria, to solve the case.--to the Chagrin of Solaria at large.
When All is Said and Done
And while I liked this book, it still had many flaws. It seems Asimov spent most of time writing Elijah's character and spent little if any developing the other main characters. Olivaw, Elijah's partner, is cut from most of the book. Elijah's exuberant meeting with Olivaw is shadowed by his general distrust for robots, even though Elijah was supposed to have developed moderate levels of understanding and open-mindedness by the end of the first novel. He spends much time trying to trick Olivaw into making mistakes and generally uses his erratic human tendencies to vex Olivaw's desire to help and eventually forces him away from actually participating in working on the case. So much for the grand, robots-are-OK-by-me epiphany in The Caves of Steel. I guess Elijah still has some thinking to do. But I thought this was particularly bad because I like Olivaw's character much more than Elijah's. It would've been nice is Asimov worked a little harder on developing Olivaw, the not-quite-human-but-I-am-working-on-it robot.
This is a better novel than The Caves of Steel. Asimov was able to pen an interesting, yet oddly misplaced and out of touch, Solaria. And with it, he developed a classic problem in robot fiction: what is the ultimate goal of robot labor? Will robots actually free humanity from a life of toil, sweat and tears? Do we really want to be liberated from such things? What would a life devoted only to leisure really accomplish? Could it accomplish anything?
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