Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov

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⭐ 8.0/10

(Originally written by Will)

A murder mystery, set in Asimov's universe. The twist is that this murder mystery is set in a time where there are high tensions between humans and robots/AI, and the detective here has been assigned a robot as a partner.

Asimov is so good at telling a story that is pretty narrow in scope (i.e. murder mystery), all the while slowly teasing out more of the broader universe.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it wasn't the best thing I've read in Asimov's universe. I did find it slightly more predictable than some of his other stuff, though I may have just been spoiled by some of his absolutely fantastic twists in other writings.

I still find it incredible that Asimov was able to map out humanity's progress with robotics/AI in so much detail, and anticipate so many of the potential problems that would come up along the way. This is even more incredible to me because there is no such thing as software in his world (everything is just very, very complex hardware), and yet he still managed to get so much right.


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