The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun - Isaac Asimov Among Asimov's best novels, the picture of the culture of the advanced "Spacer" "Outer Worlds" such as Solaria, and of robots is rich and thought provoking, and I can't help but give a nod to that in my rating. Yet I admit this wasn't as enjoyable to read as it was in my teens, and part of that is because the scenario seems dated, but partly because I've changed since I first read it. We were introduced to the detective duo of Elijah Bailey and R. (for robot) Daneel Olivaw in Caves of Steel. The title refers to the domed supercities on Earth under which 8 billion people live in semi-starvation and can only be sustained by tight rationing. When Asimov wrote Caves of Steel in 1953, the world population was near two and a half billion. It's now close to 7 billion, and it is estimated it will reach 8 billion in 15 years, so it's hard to see Asimov's vision of industrialized societies at the edge of starvation as plausible. His earth society strikes me as Sovietesque. Each human being has a rating which controls such privileges as space and rations. There's no sense that Asimov believes this kind of command and control economy is unjust or the cause of the near starvation--rather you get the sense this is the rational way to order society and nigh inevitable--at least without robots and/or the ability to spread out amongst the stars. Things are different in the fifty wealthy "Outer Worlds" which dominate Earth and doesn't allow its teeming billions to leave the planet, controls their trade and dictates to their government. The most extreme among these worlds is Solaria, with only 20,000 people spread across an entire planet, but with millions of robot servants. There it has become nearly taboo for two humans to inhabit the same room, except for the assigned spouses. Instead they "view" each other remotely rather than "see" each other where they could be within touching distance. When for the first time in the history of their planet, a Solarian is murdered, Baley is sent for and is reunited with Daneel to solve the murder. Daneel really is an appealing character. He reminds me of Data of Star Trek. But I also found something disturbing about how he protects Baley. Under Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" no robot can harm a human being or allow one to come to harm. But the more sophisticated the robot--and Daneel is a state of the art human-seeming android--the more sophisticated becomes the concept of "harm." Thus while Baley wants to expose himself to the outside to overcome his agoraphobia, Daneel is willing to override that by force if necessary to spare his human partner the "harm" open spaces bring him. Daneel is practically the embodiment of the nanny state, and Asimov would in later novels only expand on this idea of the benevolent robot who is "here to help" in his weaving together of his Foundation series and his Robot series. Asimov has a faith in social engineering and the pliability of human society I don't share--or at least can no longer share. And really, the entire mystery depends on the fact that the wife seems the only plausible suspect since only she would live on the estate with the murder victim. But given the extreme distaste the Solarians have for touching, for even being in the same room with another human, why would they even have assigned mates for the purposes of having children? How were they even able to bear having sex since apparently there is no artificial insemination? One other thing I found a bit disconcerting which I'm sure Asimov included as a commentary on the race relations in America at the time (The Naked Sun was published in 1957). Baley is always calling robots "boy." (And robots call humans "master.") It made me wince inwardly every time he did it. I wanted to like Baley--and mostly I do. But it's hard to like a bigot. But it says something about Asimov that engaging with this book makes me think about such issues as individualism versus "the tribe" and stagnation versus dynamism. Not exactly the sort of thing that happens reading your usual hard-boiled detective or cozy mystery.