Logic and the Human Mind - I Robot

Time again to delve into Asimov. I enjoyed the two previous robot centric books I read by him, Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. But I had never read the stories that started it all, so I was interested to see how “I Robot” fit into all this.

I was aware that this was a collection of short stories, and that’s fine with me. “Foundation” is essentially a collection of short stories that build on each other, and “I Robot” has a similar feel to it, with the central character of Susan Calvin telling or figuring in all the stories. Some of the tales had a very pulp sci-fi feeling to them, especially those involving the duo of Powell and Donovan. I got a kick out of their dialogue and their layman approach to dealing with the puzzling behavior of their metallic comrades.

But what struck me most about these stories is that they are basically logic puzzles with a narrative formed around them. At the heart of each tale is a mystery that needs unraveling and this usually has something to do with the three laws of robotics, and how they are interpreted. Since the robots deal with things logically, they are limited. But these limitations aren’t always apparent to the other characters and to the reader.

As the stories progress, the robots evolve and the puzzles take on greater and greater impact on human society. This is one of the things I admire about Asimov, he weaves his themes so well into interesting stories and provides you with entertainment and a bit more to chew on after you’re done reading.

If you haven’t given this book a read I recommend it, as some solid and entertaining short stories, but second to see if you can figure out these logic puzzles before the other characters do. I have to say that if had to take the place of Donovan or Powel… I’d be dead.

Have you read “I Robot”? What did you think of it?

The Other Side of the Coin – The Naked Sun

Last year I read Isaac Asimov’s “Caves of Steel”, an interesting combination of mystery and sci-fi. It was Asimov’s first novel length Robot themed work and to tell you the truth, I enjoyed it a great deal. Anyone who is not familiar with Asimov should give it a try. It’s very accessible and entertaining to boot.

Now I’ve read Asimov before. I’ve blogged about “The Gods Themselves” and read the Foundation trilogy in high school. So I was pretty familiar with his style and the way he weaves interesting science based themes into his work. “The Gods Themselves” did it in a way that was fairly obvious, but the story was engaging enough to keep the themes from disrupting the flow.

I can say that the two Robot Novels I’ve read, “Caves of Steel” and “The Naked Sun” are much more based in telling the story and having the themes play more of a background role. After all most mystery stories have to be plot based by their nature – otherwise the mystery ends up taking back seat to the thematic action. That’s what makes these two books easy to recommend to people who aren’t huge fans of science fiction. The mysteries are both compelling enough to make the story entertaining, and if they make you think outside of the story – well that’s just a great bonus.

“The Naked Sun” is really a solid companion novel to “Caves of Steel”. Sure you could read “Naked Sun” and enjoy it without reading “Caves of Steel” first, but they actually work together so well, that I really wish I had read the two books back to back. The Naked sun follows the protagonist of the first book, Elijah Bailey to the world of Solaris, where a murder has taken place. He is brought in to find the killer, and bring them to justice – simple enough right?

Well, Bailey has a few problems right from the start. Being from Earth, he’s not used to huge open spaces and wandering about on the surface of the world. In “Caves of Steel” we learn that humanity is living underground in densely populated mega-cities. Bailey is used to crowds of people and recycled air. The fact that Solaris is all open fields and huge mansions presents not only a huge culture shift for him, but actually makes it difficult for him to concentrate on the task at hand.

In addition the world is sparsely populated, but has an enormous robot to human ratio – something like 10,000 robots to every one person. On Earth robots are disliked and considered to be a necessary evil. On Solaris, they are a fact of life, built to serve and do whatever the Solarians ask.

While the mystery is still the focal point of the plot, it is the huge cultural differences that not only drive the story, but also provide for the themes of the book. The contrast between earth and Solaris is very obvious, but as Bailey attempts to untangle the mystery, he finds more and more that the differences between the two cultures shows strengths and weaknesses in each that he never considered before. And this leads into the final chapter of the book where Bailey realizes a truth about human kind and the fate of those on earth.

All in the all the book is a solid read, every bit as intriguing as “Caves of Steel”, if a little on the slower paced side. There isn’t much in the way of action in the novel, most of the interaction happens via view screen (Solarians refuse to see each other face to face and find such close contact abhorrent and obscene). But the mystery itself as well as the finding out bits of the culture as you search for clues with Bailey keeps you turning pages. The only downside for me was that the very interesting character of Robot Daneel Olivaw has a smaller role to play. While in “Caves of Steel” he was a main character and key to the investigation. In the “Naked Sun” he is removed from the story for a good third of the book. He plays a key role, but I missed his interaction with Bailey.

What “The Naked Sun” is an excellent example of is the fact that Asimov took his characters and situations from “Caves of Steel” and wrote a sequel that not only expanded and developed those ideas, but also made sure that “The Naked Sun” took the world concept into a new direction. This is actually a really impressive sequel – one that doesn’t rehash the previous book, but moves things in a new direction and provides a very interesting ending.

In his introduction to the book Asimov says that he felt that “The Naked Sun” was the perfect ending to his Robot series. I agree with him. He did end up writing a third book 25 years later called “Robots of Dawn”. I’m curious to read it, but I wonder if it was really necessary. “The Naked Sun” was a perfect ending for these characters and that world.

Have you read “The Naked Sun”? What did you think of it? Have you ever read a book or seen a movie that was a excellent sequel – one that took the established characters and situations and took them in a new direction (instead of just rehashing the story)?

Thank you Mr. Robot - Caves of Steel

Genre fusion in fiction can be like food fusion in cuisine. It can work out well, with each segment complimenting the other with their differences. Or it can be a discordant mixture causing you to feel actual pain as you experience it. At best, an interesting and inspiring discovery. At worst a mistake that should be forgotten as quickly as possible. People love murder mysteries. People love science fiction. Can these be two great tastes that taste great together? Asimov decided to find out.

In “Caves of Stell” Asimov illustrates his setting and themes while allowing the plot to move forward. His early chapters are pretty tipped toward giving the reader a detailed picture of a future of enormous cities that delve deep into the earth, where humans are afraid of the open air and are used to living like packed sardines. He establishes the strong anti-robot sentiment of the earthlings, the details of the main character's life and relationship to his wife and coworkers. So by the time Elijah meets his new partner, a robot that looks too human for comfort, we know enough about this sci-fi environment to see how the murder mystery rolls out.

As the book goes along, the mystery takes over the plot more and more, but Asimov is very good about using his themes as a basis for presenting solutions to the murder or as red herrings to throw the reader and Elijah off the scent. He throws in his laws of robotics of course, but there are other ideas about overpopulation, efficiency, resistance to change and human kind's need to push past boundaries. The thing is, he doesn't really bash the reader over the head with it, these are just presented as the clues are pieced together.

For example, Elijah attempts to pin the murder on a robot. This forces him to explore the laws of robotics as well as the differences in behavior between humans living on earth and those who come from space colonies. These conflicting views show different approaches to his themes. And they offer the reader a nice trip though Elijah's logic in putting together a motive and a suspect. So you get character building too!

The only things I wasn't too fond of was the dated language and some of the clunky dialogue. Does anyone exclaim "Jehoshaphat" and do it more than once?

I've tried my hand at a thriller/sci-fi short story and found it to be a bit of a challenge. Really my story was primarily a thriller in a sci-fi setting, but what Asimov does here is create an excellent balance of presenting sci-fi themes and ideas along with a good murder mystery.

Have you read "Caves of Steel"? What did you think of it? What other combination of genre's have you seen attempted successfully or not so successful? Have you tried your own mixed genre story?

Nothing is for Free - The Gods Themselves

I ran into a recording by famed science fiction author Isaac Asimov and he mentioned that while he felt that he would be known for the "Foundation" series, he felt that he would like to be known for "The Gods Themselves".  I had checked out the "Foundation" trilogy back in my high school days and had reread them a couple of times.  But I had never really ventured into his other works.  Asimov tends to be on the dry side and I find that I have to be in the mood for his style.  Well, it just so happens that I was in the mood for his style and decided to seek out this book and see what I thought about it.

First thing I discovered was that I needed to review some of my knowledge of nuclear fission and fusion.  It's part of the main conceit of the novel and while I know a little about the subject, I was pretty rusty.  But after I got some on-line reading done on the subject I was OK.  For the most part the science aspect of the novel didn't go over my head.  Asimov usually has a layman character around who needs some additional explanation, so I often got up to speed.

The basic story for the novel revolves around the appearance of a massive amount of free energy.  All we have to do is leave some Tungsten hanging around, and a portal to another universe opens. The tungsten is traded for a radioactive and unstable bit of plutonium.  But this Plutonium creates a large amount of radiation as it decomposes in our universe (it is very stable where it came from).  This exchange with the parallel universe is wonderful, we get free energy in exchange for Tungsten we weren't using anyway.  Of course we all know that if something is too good to be true, then it probably isn't true.

This isn't free at all.  Each time the exchange is made, other things come from the parallel dimension.  Most importantly the actual laws that define that universe cross into ours and start affecting things.  Most dangerous is the idea that our sun would start being affected by these laws causing it to become unstable and explode.   Yeah, not a good thing.  The problem is that no one wants to acknowledge this or do anything about it because they love their free energy!

The novel is split into three parts.  The first deals with a scientist bent on proving that the exchange is causing more harm than good.  The middle section takes us to the parallel universe and delves into what is driving those beings to make the exchange in the first place.  The last section deals with the people of the colonized moon and how their advances in technology may save us all - unless they have another agenda...

This split carries the basics of the story from one section to the other, but there are interesting sub-themes to each section.  Most of the first part is driven by the ego's of the scientists involved.  The discovery of the exchange would not have been made without one of the scientists feeling like he was the little fish in the big pond.  In turn, the danger of the exchange would not have been discovered, unless the scientist hadn't been snubbed by the illustrious founder of the exchange.  The second section offers us a view of life forms that are interdependent and yet are very much separated.  This creates a struggle between the beings, and one that is resolved in an interesting way.  This theme of connection also goes back to how our universes are connected and what happens in one can affect what happens in the other.  The final section on the moon makes a statement about colonial attitudes and how the one-time colony now wants to break away.

I wasn't too surprised to find that the three sections were published separately.  This makes some sense, as each one carries it's own theme in addition to the overriding theme dealing with the "free energy".  What this reminded me was that good science fiction (and I'm not talking about Space Opera - like "Star Wars") is about ideas and themes.  This book is heavy on the dialogue and there really isn't much action.  What action there is happens in laboratories and testing environments.  The middle portion of the book is the most entertaining to read, because it deals with the alien beings and their perceptions.  It's more of a character story with some mystery thrown in, and the alien perspective is intriguing.  That's not to say that the bookend sections are weak, but they are very focused on ideas over action.  I was in the mood for that, so I didn't mind.  But I know it's one of the things that some readers find dull about Asimov.

"The Gods Themselves" is a novel rich in ideas, and it made me wonder if this kind of fiction is still popular.  People don't seem to like to slow down and think so much now.  And most of the books about writing I have read stress the movement of plot, the importance of action and the feeling that if you have a theme or two in your story, it's a lucky accident.  Reading something like this reminds me that books don't always have to fall in such a narrow view.

Do you think a book can balance multiple themes without become a talky bore?  Is science fiction better when it focuses on ideas over plot?  What do you think of this book or Asimov in general?