Book Review: "The Naked Sun" by Isaac Asimov

This book is a follow up of “The Caves of Steel” though there are no plot overlaps and introduces us to the outworld planets just as the last one showed us the ins and outs of Earth. Asimov gives us a glimpse us what a completely roboticized society might be like and demonstrates some of the attendant consequences on human psychology. We’re still in the early history of earth and the “Foundation series”, though chronologically this book was written after many Foundation novels.

I’m getting used to Asimov’s detective type stories. The mystery serves as a backdrop for his main exploration of whatever the theme of the book is – in this case, the play between robots and the dependent humans. The society is one where humans have almost forgotten what it’s like to do anything by themselves. On a newly colonized planet, there is so much space that drastic underpopulation is the result and people have developed a phobia about seeing other people in person. Instead they use “viewing” much like teleconferencing today.

Some nuances of the three laws of robotics are also explained here. Specifically situations where a robot can harm a human despite the first law without knowing it. But on the whole, it’s pretty clear that Asimov doesn’t go for the “dangerous robot” theme. His three laws make them safer than any human could possibly be.

The next book is “The Complete Robot” which is all of Asimov’s short robot stories compiled in one place. Perhaps I’ve read some of them in “I, Robot”. I guess I’ll find out.