Resumo de The Naked Sun

THE NAKED SUN is a witty little novel that is unmistakably a product ofIsaac Asimov. Not just because of the ubiquitous robots, but because ofthe familiar themes that Asimov explored over the course of hisdecades-long career. On the surface, the novel is a science-fictionmystery story told in the author's usual enjoyable style. But by thetime I reached the end of the book, I realized that Asimov had beendoing something a little cleverer than his normal runaround, and uponreaching the conclusion, I immediately flipped back and startedrevisiting some of the earlier scenes to catch what I had missed thefirst time around.THE NAKED SUN starts up where THE CAVES OF STEELleft off, although you certainly do not need to have read the earlierbook to enjoy this one. Earthman Detective Elijah Baley is once againteamed up with R. (for Robot) Daneel Olivaw to solve an unexplainedmurder. The gimmick this time is that the homicide occurred on one ofthe mysterious Outer Worlds, and Baley must not only act as policeman,but as an unofficial spy for an Earth government curious as to what theculture is like on those advanced, robot-dependent planets.Themystery is rather clever, although I did figure out what the murderweapon must have been before Baley did. As usual with Asimov'smysteries, I found myself enjoying the investigation more than theoccasional plot logic that's thrown to the audience. In the case ofthis book, the storyline has some solid twists and turns, the only realflaw being that the cast of characters is so small that one could justpick a suspect at random to have a pretty good shot of correctlyidentifying the killer.The real star of this story is theuniverse that Asimov builds. The Earth is still the lagging, suspiciousand enclosed world of THE CAVES OF STEEL, but now we turn our attentionout to one of the colony worlds, Solaria. I could tell that Asimov washaving a blast creating this society, giving us all kinds of detailssuch as this planet's frosty relationship with Earth, its delicaterelationship with other Outer Worlds, its population levels, itsstaggeringly high ratio of robots to people, etc. But he has even morefun giving birth to the inhabitants. He has them still as recognizablehumans, but from an extremely skewed perspective. For most of the book,it's the story of these strange people and their odd customs thatoverpowers what is currently going on in the murder investigation. Thisdefinitely makes for an interesting read, as once we get to the end, wefind that the detective portions were only secondary to the real pointof the book.Often Asimov would insert little bits of socialcommentary into his fictions, with varying levels of success. Andindeed, the summation at the end, where Baley lets the cat out of thebag and tells us what the novel has been exploring, is a little on theclumsy side. But the real triumph is how the author quietly andcunningly led us down the garden path to the end. When I opened thebook to page one and found Elijah Baley nervously flying into aWashington, DC airport (by sheer coincidence I was making the sameapproach, albeit I started my journey in a different city than Baleyhad) and wishing to once again be safe indoors, I chucked to myself,recalling passages from Asimov's autobiography that discussed hislegendary fear of flying and his mild claustrophilia. While reading allthis stuff about people who hate flying, people who have an unnaturalfear of face-to-face meetings, and people who yearn for enclosedspaces, I assumed that Asimov was doing nothing more than his usualshtick of inserting his own neuroses into his fictions (there's nothingwrong with this; it can make for very interesting reading, and it'ssomething I particularly enjoy from Asimov). And with that assumptionin place, I didn't pay much mind to what the author was actuallysetting up beneath the surface. So when the end of the novel rolledaround and it was suddenly revealed what he had been up to this wholetime, I was very psurprised.I like pulpy books thatwork on more than one level, and THE NAKED SUN gives us a very cleverlook at human fears while also providing an entertaining murdermystery. No, the characters aren't terribly deep, but the plot is a funone and the extra bit of world building that Asimov engages in raisesthis book up. I like to read Asimov novels while traveling, because Ifind them to be a nice relaxing way to pass a few hours. Anytime thegood doctor can provide me with something even better and smarter thanhis usual high standard of amusing, whimsical adventures, I'm a veryhappy camper indeed.

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