29. Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel

Asimov wrote a four part trilogy (I know...) of science fiction-detective fusion centered around Lije Bailey. This is the fist book of the series.

Many many years ago humans began colonizing nearby planets. At first, the colonists, known as Spcaers, and the earthmen were on friendly terms but as the Spacers adapted to their new environment and developed new cultural mores a certain friction built up between the two. The author alludes to, but never details, this friction culminating in some kind of war between the two groups which left the earthmen in the losers camp and in a position of inferiority to the Spacers.

The Spacer worlds were homogenous, somewhat fearful, societies which embraced technology. Consequently their weapons were much more powerful than the earthmen's weapons and their usage of robots in their society was much more prevalent than the earthmen's usage of the robots.

Earth developed in a very different way. The remaining residents of earth shunned further colonization; after seeing the Spacer societies' mores the population began to aggregate under a few massive domed cities. New York, for example, became one city that stretched from Boston down to Washington, DC with a small Spacer city, called Spacetown, sitting adjacent to it. As the earth's population grew its food supplies dwindled to the point that most people ate cubes of high protein food not real food.

The earth was run by a united nations like political body and each person was classified in levels, almost a caste system. A low classification meant that you could not even have an appartment whereas a higher classification got you an appartment and special food rations. There was also a strong Medievalist political force which advocated outdoor living, farming and far less use of robots in general society. Asimov portrays these Medievalists as rabble rousers who were out of touch with reality. They did not understand that living outside would be harmful to the population (he never says why) and that farming wouldn't yield nearly enough food to feed the billions of people living on earth.

The book opens with the murder of a prominent Spacer robot designer in Spacetown. Lije Bailey is paired up with an advanced humanoid Spacer robot to solve the crime.

The story is all about Lije: his issues with working with a robot, his personal life with his wife, his inner fears, his secret Medievalist tendencies and how he overcomes them and, finally, how he solves the crime and convinces humanity that in order to save itself it needs to begin colonizing new planets and introducing robots into its culture. I can't get into too many details without blowing the story but suffice it say that it was a cool book worth reading.