Asimov Book Review - The Naked Sun

by Lacey Kat
(Copyright 2016 by Author)

By the mid-1950’s Isaac Asimov was steadily moving away from science fiction, and devoting more time to non-fiction work. This trend had been steady through most of the decade beginning, if you will, with the publication of his book “Biochemistry and Human Metabolism.”

Asimov enjoyed writing and found that he enjoyed non-fiction more than fiction writing. In fiction, every story had to be different. In non-fiction, however, that was not the case. Asimov found he could write a technical paper for a science journal, popularize it for a broad appeal magazine, and even shorten and simplify it for a publication geared for a younger audience. The same article could serve many masters.

Asimov did not totally abandon non-fiction however and one of his better efforts during this time is the sequel to “Caves of Steel,” which he called, “The Naked Sun.”

“The Naked Sun” is the further exploits of New York detective Elijah Baley. Baley’s world is a thousand years from the time of the “Robot” stories Asimov wrote in the 1940s. Earth, as we found out in “Caves of Steel,” is over populated and mankind is forced to live in vast underground cities. Robots, once banned on earth, are slowly making their way into the everyday lives of the people in these cities.

However, earth is not the only planet humans call home. On fifty worlds out in space, humans have colonized and established various societies that are now more advanced than the lowly home of humanity. On these worlds robots are the norm. In fact, on Solaria, the population is held steady at twenty thousand people, but there are over two hundred million working positronic robots. That is a ratio of ten thousand to one.

[One cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a robot or finding the robot programmed to swing the dead cat]

The story opens with Detective Baley summoned to Washington. There has been a murder on Solaria and they have requested the help of the detective who solved another murder involving a “spacer.”

Washington has two reasons for assigning Elijah Baley to the case. The first is that the “spacers” requested him and earth is in no position to turn down such a request. The second reason is that little is known on earth about the “Spacer” worlds. Space travel is forbidden to any Earthman and the planet lives in isolation from the rest of the galaxy. Baley’s superiors see this as an opportunity to gather information on another planet.

Baley takes the assignment and is taken to the planet Solaria where he meets his former partner, R. Daneel Olivaw. This is a surprise to Baley because Daneel is not from Solaria, but from another spacer world called Aurora, and Daneel is not a human, but a humaniform robot. A fact that Baley alone seems to know about.

Solaria is a world of isolation. In many ways Asimov made it the direct opposite of the earth he created. Earth is overcrowded, as we learned in intimate detail in the previous novel. There is almost no time that a person is alone. Also, because the people of earth live in underground cities, they suffer from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces. On Solaria each person has their own estate, and usually live alone. Robots tend to their every want, and advanced three- dimensional viewing is the only contact they have with other people. In fact “viewing” is such an accepted for of personal interaction that it takes a special effort to “see” someone in the flesh. Some Solarians can only take personal contact from a distance, and others become violently ill at the thought of a person actually being within their sight.

In this setting then comes the mystery. A prominent scientist is brutally murdered in his home, surrounded by robots that must not allow any harm to come to him. The only witness to the murder is a robot that can no longer function and has been destroyed. The only other human on the estate; his wife. A woman he can barely stand to be with.

This is a more mature novel than “Caves of Steel” in that it shows a development in Asimov’s novel style. In “Caves,” Asimov spent a large amount of time establishing the society of earth. In “Naked Sun,” Solaria’s society, knowledge of which is important to the mystery, is developed with the story. Baley, like the reader, is unfamiliar with this brave new world and must learn about it as he goes along. In this way, the reader, like the detective, must search through the information to see what is an important clue, and what is an abstract piece of information. In some cases, R. Daneel Olivaw is a source of information, but in reality, he plays a minor role in the overall story. It is the Plainclothesman Elijah Baley, with his policeman instincts that must solve the mystery and catch the killer.

Asimov has also sharpened his mystery writing skill a bit more for this novel. The solution is not as obvious and is not revealed as early as in “Caves of Steel.” There is a larger collection of suspects and they must all be examined in different ways. A fact that is itself a clue to the mystery (no, I am not giving anything away).

In the end, even though this story is set over a thousand years into the future, and over a hundred light years from earth, in the final chapter the intelligent detective must gather all of the suspects into “the library” to explain how the crime was committed, how the case was solved, and who the murderer is. Why Asimov resorted to this well-established cliché is unknown to me. He may have felt that it was obligatory for a murder mystery, but by this time in his career, he was more than able to challenge established propriety. It was well done and did not detract from the overall story, but it did reduce it a notch on the originality meter.

In the end “Naked Sun” is an excellent example of what Asimov thought science fiction should be. Not spaceships and laser guns, but a look at how technology affects society. Asimov successfully creates a planet where robots are so prevalent and human contact is so absent. A world where the basic needs of humans are bread out, but the basic needs of humans are the deciding factors in the case.

This was the second, and for the most part, last of the Elijah Baley mysteries. As stated above, Asimov was moving away from science fiction and more toward non-fiction. He would return to the Baley/ Daneel partnership thirty years later, but by that time he was using them to connect his “Robot” and “Foundation” stories and Asimov’s reason for the original pairing was lost. For this author it was a great loss indeed.

“The Naked Sun,” is a very good murder mystery and a very good science fiction novel. Isaac Asimov once again demonstrated how seamlessly these two genres’ could be fused together. He explores some pressing sociological issues without being heavy-handed

or preachy, and he provides a good story to boot.

How he does it so successfully is another mystery to be unraveled.