Since my last post, I have finished the books The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. As mentioned before, both books follow the detective Elijah Baley and his partner R. Daneel Olivaw.
The Caves of Steel is a more traditional mystery story (except set in the future, of course) than The Naked Sun; it all takes place on Earth. I won’t really go into the storyline, as it would be difficult to do with a mystery story, but suffice it to say that it’s a great story. Besides being a good mystery story (even if the end isn’t all that surprising) it shows just enough of the strange culture of this future Earth to make you want more.
I was wrong in saying that the problem was lack of space in my last post; it was lack of resources (a much more reasonable problem). Food is rationed, and such things as actual meat are rarities. The majority of the food for the planet is specially bred yeast. They can make anything from stand-in strawberries to lubricant from it.
A good deal of the book deals with the fight by Earthmen to arrest the integration of robots into the economy. Everyone accepts that robots can work in the fields, but as they become more common in the Cities, riots have occurred.
The Cities are also important to both stories. They are giant caves of steel and concrete (hence the title) that house the grand majority of the inhabitants of Earth. They are essentially giant, opaque domes enclosing the entire city. These have the major drawback of massive consumption of resources; they cannot support themselves for a single hour. If even something simple were to go wrong; catastrophe.
The Naked Sun takes place on the planet of Solaria, which has a population of 20,000. It’s robots outnumber its humans 10,000:1. Elijah Baley and R. Daneel are sent both to solve another murder and to spy for their respective planets, Earth and Aurora (the most powerful of all the 51 inhabited worlds).
Earth fears an invasion by the Outer Worlds; an invasion in front of which, they would be powerless. Elijah is expected to find their weaknesses. Of R. Daneel’s mission, however, we know little about.
This book deals heavily with psychology and sociology. The citizens of both Earth and Solaria have developed irrational fears due to their lifestyles; those on Earth fear the outdoors, and those on Solaria, each other.
Elijah is forced to confront his fear of the open air; the naked sun. All those humans of Earth who inhabit the Cities have this fear; very few ever venture outside. Elijah considers it barbaric to live one’s life as dictated by the rotation of the planet. It is unlikely that he will ever truly overcome this fear; it’s likely a mental disorder, honestly. If he spends too much time outside, he will actually faint.
The Solarians, on the other hand, fear “seeing” each other. Due to its low population, they are isolated from each other, and meet each other only through “viewing;” seeing each other by hologram. This has led to a great fear of “seeing.” Even a woman who frequently “sees” children will only allow Baley to stand 20 feet away. One other man couldn’t handle his presence and eventually fled from the room, still another committed suicide at the threat of someone going to meet him. Depending on whom you ask, the planet may be a utopia, dystopia, or just something in between (hmm, Word doesn’t recognize “dystopia”).
They are isolated from all physical contact with other humans beginning in roughly their teens. It is considered horrible that younger children enjoy contact, enjoy “seeing” each other, enjoy playing physical games. This occurs in only one building on the planet, where all of the children are brought up from one-month-old fetuses until they are ready for their own estate.
Spouses are assigned to each person, and, as the population is rigidly controlled, children are only allowed if it is approved (by whom, I’m not sure) after an examination of each person’s genes; fetuses with genes showing a likelihood of such things as nearsightedness are killed (on all of the Spacer planets, genetic defects and disease are virtually unknown; this is both a strength and a weakness; they have no natural immunity). The assignation of a spouse is quite traumatic for both parties, due to the aforementioned fear.
However, tricentenarians are very common.
Interestingly, these are just two in a long string of books that I have thoroughly enjoyed. I find very few that I don’t. Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that, despite being a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, I really don’t like Lord of the Rings and Dune much at all.
Too bad my luck at finding books I like (or my mom’s luck, perhaps) doesn’t stretch to enjoying books that are assigned to me. Dracula and Frankenstein were pretty good, but summer reading books tend to get under my skin.
The title this time is a reference to Children of Dune. It doesn’t really refer to the actual plot (which I don’t remember) but rather to the fact that the Outer Worlds, once colonies of Earth, have turned against it, and are perhaps even preparing for war.
Stay tuned for The Robots of Dawn; the next of the Robot series.
Ach, I forgot something important; another major subplot of the books is that Earth must colonize more worlds in order to survive (the only Earthman who know this is Elijah, as he has been manipulated by the Spacers). Those new colonies would be better than any of the currently inhabited worlds, as they would have take things to fewer extremes, being used to having some robots around but not relying upon them overmuch (I think that was the reasoning, anyway).
It would relieve the pressure of the population on Earth (which hardly compares to the future population of Trantor) and they would be able to establish a stable C/Fe culture, as it is called in the books (Carbon/Iron; Human/Robot).
I like your remodeling, very sharp. Did you get the "Laws of Robotics" from your book? I also find it funny that the future phobias of nature and other people are beginning, just a bit, already. I mean, I haven't seen some of my closest friends face-to-face in months, and the last time I went outside just for the sake of it was... oh my goodness, I can't remember. Does that frighten anyone else?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I wouldn't say that the human race is in too much danger of developing those fears any time soon, though. Sure, we have better contact with people who live farther away, as we have telephones and even videochat, but we still see people everyday. Other than the occasional recluse, everyone still comes into contact with other human beings very frequently. To the second phobia, looking further into it only made it all the more confusing for me. Asimov often refers to it as "agoraphobia," which is completely different from the fear of the outdoors. Plus, we still look outside everyday. Who doesn't look outside of a window everyday? I bet it isn't many.
ReplyDelete[I can't keep any of these things short, now can I?]
Okay. For this one I went to Webster's. Agoraphobia is: "the abnormal fear of being helpless in an embarrassing or unescapable situation that is characterized especially by the avoidance of open or public places." To most people, this means the fear of the outdoors, which I think is very nearly the phobia in the book.
ReplyDeleteBesides, what else could you call the phobia in the book? The fear of an uncontrolled environment, maybe. But wait! Agoraphobia can also include the fear of open public places and the uncontrollablity they entail. It sounds like this fear of a non-humanly controlled environment is really just the fear of an uncontrolled environment, because these people have spent so much time in awe of their own human race that they think the universe could function without its intervention and assistance. To them, humans must control things for the things to be controlled and safe. This is the fear of an uncontrolled environment because they soundly believe that without humans, things are uncontrolled. And the fear of an uncontrolled environment, which might an open public space, falls squarely under agoraphobia.
(Side note: In my research, I encountered a list of phobias, which included porphyrophobia, fear of the color purple [no relationship that I can see to the Greek Titan], somniphobia, the fear of sleep, ephebiphobia, the fear of teenagers, chromophobia, the fear of colors, and philophobia, the fear of love. Interesting.)
(Side side note: Don't worry about keeping it short. I'm no better, and I'm in an argumentative mood to boot, so I'm even more verbose than usual.)
*blinks*
ReplyDeleteI suppose I need to start paying more attention to what I'm reading on the computer. Maybe I should start by keeping the amount of seperate windows to a minimum.
Ah, but I am making excuses for myself.
[Then again, this is a small school blog that seems to have a total readership of three (excluding me), so perhaps it doesn't matter all that much.*]
*Still making excuses.
Don't minimize the importance of your "small school blog!"
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog, Rex, as I'm a HUGE fan of Asimov's robots - especially Daneel and Giskard. It's always good to read a summary of these great stories from time to time (I first read them at age 15 and reread them again recently).
ReplyDeleteI would LOVE to live on the beautiful world of Aurora as it sounds so peaceful and gentle - and with all those gorgeous robots around! And the luxury of the Aurorans' spacious houses set in wonderful grounds.
I would probably feel so relaxed and secure there that my habitual anxieties, phobias and hang-ups would all disappear - and I might've ended up a brilliant roboticist after all!
I always feel I was born a thousand or so years too soon.