The Caves of Steel

Robots, #1

by Isaac Asimov

Paperback, 208 pages

English language

Published July 16, 1997 by Granada.

ISBN:: 978-0-586-00835-5

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(8 reviews)

"A Del Rey book."

It was bad enough when Lije Baley, a simple plainclothes cop, was ordered to solve a totally baffling mystery - the murder of a prominent Spacer. It was worse when he found that the smug, self-satisfied Spacers were behind the pressure to provide an impossibly quick solution.

But then Lije discovered the worst of all bad news. The Spacers, distrusting all Earthmen, insisted he must work with an investigator of their choice. And that investigator turned out to be R. Daneel Olivaw. R stood for robot--and Lije hated and feared robots deeply, bitterly and pathologically.

"A Del Rey book."

Issac Asimov's The Naked Sun and The Caves of Steel are two of the most famous science-fiction novels ever. They are set long after mankind - aided by the positronic robot - has colonized the worlds of other suns. This is a time of growing concern between Earthmen and Spacers. Lije Baley, who is filled with all Earths prejudice agains robots and Spacers, must learn to work together with a seemingly human robot to solve apparently impossible crimes that threaten the fragile link between Earth and Space.

9 editions

Sean Randall reviewed The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Robots, #1)

Review of 'The Caves of Steel' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I've only ever read Asimov's robot short stories, many of which are very very good indeed. So this was interesting, to see the Earth through a different lens to some of those. I do recognise these characters of course, because there was a short story (about a few mathematicians if memory serves), and another which is too vague in the memory to recollect.

This is very interesting for its time, and hopefully reading more of these will yield further background to some of the short stories and further fleshed-out detail.