A review of this — 5 days ago
Having finished Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, I was pretty intrigued by the character of R. Daneel Olivaw, so I’ve checked out the Robot Trilogy of which this book is the first. In this book, Elijah Baley, a human detective, is paired with the humanoid robot Olivaw. He has to overcome his native prejudices against robots to solve the case of a murder that brings tensions between humans and Spacers (descendants of humans who colonised outer worlds centuries ago) to a boil.
It also includes interesting looks at Asimov’s (scary) picture of a future when overpopulation crowds the earth’s people into walled-up cities, where a rigid caste-like system based on your utility to the world determines what privileges you get (like whether you can have chicken on Sunday), and going into the open is frightening for even a seasoned detective like Baley.
Overall, though, I found Foundation a much more thrilling and mind-bending story. But maybe the next two books will be better?
