mauri1000's Full Review: Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun
'The Naked Sun' is the second of the Robot mysteries featuring the futuristic NYPD detective Elijah Bailey. In the first of the series 'The Caves of Steel' we are introduced to the earth detective Elijah Bailey and his android partner R. Daneel Olivaw. We found out that the earth population lives mostly underground and that they have developed mistrust of robot technology. However a group of humans have managed to colonise space and slowly have cut themselves off from Earth effectively penning in the population while they develop their culture amongst the stars. These so called 'Spacers' are in many ways superior to the 'Earthers' both physically and technologically. They by contrast have completely embraces Robot technology and are totally dependent on them the robot outnumbering the humans by tens of thousands to one on many of the newly colonised planets.
While the 'Earthers' have become used to living in crowded underground cities and over the years have become agoraphobic the spacers live alone the very idea of human contact being repugnant. They 'meet' only by hologram and even couples only physically meet to procreate.
Bailey in the first story managed to solve the murder of a top Spacer scientist on Earth, now he is asked by the ruling Spacer government to go to the distant planet of Solaris to solve the seemingly impossible murder of a spacer. The physical disgust that the Solarians feel for contact with humans makes it difficult to understand how the murder could have taken place and invariably the only Solarian to have on a few occasions physical contact with him the victim's young widow Gladia is the main suspect.
The request by the Spacer for an earth detective to be involved in the investigation has also a political dimension. It is very unusual for the spacer to ask anything of earth so low I their regard for the mother planet and in the eyes of the earth government this is a great opportunity to prove a point and show the spacers the worth of earth culture. Of course Bailey is in the centre of the political manoeuvrings and find s himself under pressure from both sides to acquit himself favourably. Adding to his problem is his fear of open spaces and his distrust of flying let alone space travel.
Fans of the first book will be pleased to know that R. Daneel Olivaw is once again present helping Bailey this time the fish out of water, navigate the strange Solarian culture.
MY OPINION
Despite the setting this is a classic murder mystery, where at first the solution seems impossible to find but through the deductive skill of the detective an answer the only possible answer is finally uncovered.
As usual Asimov provides us with a brilliantly crafted plot with plenty of twist and red herrings along the way. This novel will entertain fans of more traditional mystery writers from Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle of PD James. Asimov develops the main characters from the first novel well and again Bailey comes across as the everyman figure that all readers can identify with.
The novel is still essentially part of the Robot series so the ever-present three laws of robotics
"LAW1 A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
LAW2 A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
LAW3 A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law."
are still key to the proceedings.
The Naked Sun is a true hybrid mixing murder mystery with science fiction and it does it very well each complementing the other. The science fiction element of the story is fascinating. Just as in the first novel Asimov explores the effects that technology can and does have on the way we live and on how that technology can change every aspect of our lives. The naked Sun presents us with the flip side the themes introduced in 'The Caves of Steel'; the vision of earth in the previous novel is not an endearing one. Lack of resources have forced high-density habitation and a strict hierarchy exists in the distribution of wealth and favour. On Earth technology seems to have caused as many problems as it has solved and in a very human reaction that we can all identify from our own world a perceived threat from outsiders in this case the robots has lead to distrust and hate of the technology that created them.
Solaris on the face of it is a paradise, all the humans are wealthy their every need including sexual gratification catered for by armies of robots completely dedicated to their well-being. They want for nothing and spend most of their time in leisure pursuits, however this over dependence of technology has led them to become insular and suspicious of other humans. Their eradication of disease has also made them acutely fearful of contact with each other for fear of contracting any new infection, their whole culture is moving away from what we would consider as essence of human society contact with other people.
Again Asimov has managed to tap into a feeling that we can understand today. The lifelike robots might not be a reality but how often do we hear of the progress toward a future with 'gated communities, where we largely work from home, do our shopping on the web or on the phone, interact on the internet and socialize in chat-rooms and entertain ourselves by playing games on games consoles or PC rather than actually meeting other people in the flesh. Maybe in a very extreme way Asimov was beginning to describe subtle changes that might occur in our own society.
The Naked Sun as with the best of Asimov's novels makes you think and while not the highest form of literature it is well written and engrossing. Unusually for Asimov I would say that the character development in this novel is better than in many of his other books and a little romance is also to be seen. All in all a splendid thought provoking read.
A third Bailey novel was to follow 'The Robots of Dawn ' completing a very satisfying trilogy.
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