33. The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun. (Robot #2) Isaac Asimov. 1958. 271 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: Stubbornly Elijah Baley fought panic. For two weeks it had been building up. Longer than that, even. It had been building up ever since they had called him to Washington and there calmly told him he was being reassigned.

Premise/plot: The Naked Sun is the second Robot novel starring detectives Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. The Caves of Steel was a mystery detective novel set on a futuristic Earth. The Naked Sun has this pair traveling to the planet Solaria. The pair have been requested to come solve a murder.

My thoughts: I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one. It is science fiction AND a murder mystery. I appreciated the world-building of the Outer Colony Solaria. Though the original colonists were from Earth--way, way, way, way, way back when--the culture and society is night and day different. And it isn't only because the proportion of humans to robots is so large...

You see, the Solarians have evolved into a culture where you never actually SEE or interact (physically) with another human being. Marriages are arranged, but duty-driven, somewhat distasteful, practically repulsive. A husband and wife may live on the same estate, but never actually see each other face-to-face for weeks or even months at a time. All Solarians find SEEING distasteful and "wrong." Solarians, well, they've evolved into a culture that VIEWS. One uses technology to VIEW one another. All relationships are maintained through viewing. Viewing has COMPLETELY different rules (or protocols) than seeing.

If humans absolutely *have* to be in the same physical room, then it's polite to stand twenty feet (or so) away.

Quotes:

Gruer said, "No, I cannot say the murderer is completely unknown. In fact, there is only one person that can possibly have done the deed." "Are you sure you don't mean only one person who is likely to have done the deed?" Baley distrusted overstatement and had no liking for the armchair deducer who discovered certainty rather than probability in the workings of logic. But Gruer shook his bald head. "No. Only one possible person. Anyone else is impossible. Completely impossible." "Completely?" "I assure you." "Then you have no problem." "On the contrary. We do have a problem. That one person couldn't have done it either." Baley said calmly, "Then no one did it." "Yet the deed was done. Rikaine Delmarre is dead." 

"You said something about interviewing people face to -----" He shook his head, his tongue dabbing quickly at his lips. "I would rather not say it. I think you know what I mean. The phrase conjured up the most striking picture of the two of us breathing--breathing one another's breath." The Solarian shuddered. "Don't you find that repulsive?" "I don't know that I've thought it so." "It seems so filthy a habit. And as you said it and the picture rose in my mind, I realized that after all we were in the same room and even though I was not facing you, puffs of air that had been in your lungs must be reaching me and entering mine. With my sensitive frame of mind---"

Anything could be found in figures if the search were long enough and hard enough and if the proper pieces of information wre ignored or overlooked.

© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews