Book Review: Caves of Steel
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 5/25/2010 5:16 PM 
Categories: Hebrew Bible, Asimov, book review, Old Testament, SF, Science Fiction
Tags: Science Fiction three laws of robotics Asimov robots book review SF Old Testament mystery Hebrew Bible
Categories: Hebrew Bible, Asimov, book review, Old Testament, SF, Science Fiction
Tags: Science Fiction three laws of robotics Asimov robots book review SF Old Testament mystery Hebrew Bible
I recently re-read Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel (which, for no good reason, I had mixed up with Pebble in the Sky.) I had completely forgotten that this carefully crafted mystery involved a slice of (still largely accurate) Biblical scholarship about the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible figure of Jezebel. (Among Asimov's many books were his general introductions to a surprising range of topics, including Biblical Scholarship.) This is not some Metropolis-like symbolic figure, but an actual character who must live down this name.
One of my favorite moments in the book, this time, was a scene where a scientist must test whether a robot has been programmed with the First Law of Robotics. Does he ask the robot to point a blaster at any human in the room? No — this is essentially a question of computer programming — so decades before computers became common, Asimov has his scientist testing minor functions of the robot's brain whose correct performance depends upon that law.
I liked this, this was Dr. Isaac Asimov (a Chemist by training) writing, and it is one of the little details that writers who feature specialists often get wrong. Most diagnostic work, most problem-solving, does not occur in great dramatic moments but many small, ordinary, sometimes dull ones. I have read too many books that favor the quick and flashy over the realistic and that moment gave the book grounding (especially since many of Asimov's shorter robot mysteries are logic puzzles, not meditations on computer programming).
I wish there were a good mystery about my field which was half as realistic: most of the time I cannot get past the front flap of such books. Something too unlikely appears in the book's premise and I have to put it down, even if I am in the mood for some light-as-air reading. Most schools have a list of faculty who are willing to answer journalists' and researchers' questions: many would be glad to catch these howlers before authors have spun hundreds of pages around them.
Science fiction is a genre that has done very well walking the line of what is scientifically plausible and telling excellent and thoughtful stories despite that limitation. I wish other genres would learn the same lesson.
-Kushana
One of my favorite moments in the book, this time, was a scene where a scientist must test whether a robot has been programmed with the First Law of Robotics. Does he ask the robot to point a blaster at any human in the room? No — this is essentially a question of computer programming — so decades before computers became common, Asimov has his scientist testing minor functions of the robot's brain whose correct performance depends upon that law.
I liked this, this was Dr. Isaac Asimov (a Chemist by training) writing, and it is one of the little details that writers who feature specialists often get wrong. Most diagnostic work, most problem-solving, does not occur in great dramatic moments but many small, ordinary, sometimes dull ones. I have read too many books that favor the quick and flashy over the realistic and that moment gave the book grounding (especially since many of Asimov's shorter robot mysteries are logic puzzles, not meditations on computer programming).
I wish there were a good mystery about my field which was half as realistic: most of the time I cannot get past the front flap of such books. Something too unlikely appears in the book's premise and I have to put it down, even if I am in the mood for some light-as-air reading. Most schools have a list of faculty who are willing to answer journalists' and researchers' questions: many would be glad to catch these howlers before authors have spun hundreds of pages around them.
Science fiction is a genre that has done very well walking the line of what is scientifically plausible and telling excellent and thoughtful stories despite that limitation. I wish other genres would learn the same lesson.
-Kushana
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