Caves Of Steel
(Isaac Asimov)
Not since Detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) and Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) in the movie In the Heat of the Night has a detective duo been as well matched as Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. They appear in Caves of Steel, the second book in Isaac Asimov?s robot series, published in 1953. Just as in the movie, the subplot is prejudice. Here Asimov uses a humanlike robot, the R in Daneel?s name stands for robot, to examine prejudice. He shows the reader how prejudice is created, manifested, and overcome. Daneel has been sent from the planet Aurora to Earth as a partner for Elijah, known as Lije, human detective, to solve the murder that occurred on Aurora, but was most likely committed by an Earthman. While conducting the investigation, Lije has to try to overcome his prejudice towards robots. There is a delightful scene that rings true to my experience of prejudice. The main mode of public transportation is moving passenger conveyor belts, which go from one destination to another. There are seats, but only those with a certain rank are allowed to fill them. Most people must stand. Lije, because of his rank as a detective has this privilege. He assumes that Daneel does not. However, Daneel has the same rank with the same privileges. Lije just assumed that a robot could not be his equal just as the police chief in In the Heat of the Night assumes that a black detective could not be his equal. Asimov creates two consistent universes with specific rules that point the way to the murderer. Robots, for instance, are programmed not to harm humans. Therefore, a robot could not be the murderer. However, Earthmen are no longer comfortable going outside the confines of their domed city. So how could an earthman have walked on the outside for many miles to reach the destination to commit the murder? On the way to the solution to the crime, the relationship between the two detectives grows. Lije gradually, and with difficulty, changes from an intolerant bigot and reluctant partner to Daneel to a person who sees his partner not only as his equal but also as his friend. Caves of Steel is a fine novel that does, as Asimov boasted, work both as a detective novel and a science-fiction novel. Pay close attention to the rules of the two universes here and you just might come up with the name of the murderer before the detectives do.
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