Why did I love this book?
As early as 1954, Asimov was already playing with the limits of genre.
He specifically wanted to prove that SF wasn’t just a limited set of tropes, but that it could tell any kind of story, so he set out to invade the murder mystery, long considered the most elevated branch of the genre family tree. The result is a fun adventure story about robots… and murder.
Though it can feel a little dated now this genre mashup paved the way for some incredible books to follow. Asimov returned to this idea, and these characters, many times in his career and those books proved to be some of his best.
3 authors picked The Caves of Steel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Isaac Asimov's Robot series - from the iconic collection I, Robot to four classic novels - contains some of the most influential works in the history of science fiction. Establishing and testing the Three Laws of Robotics, they continue to shape the understanding and design of artificial intelligence to this day.
In the vast, domed cities of Earth, artificial intelligence is strictly controlled; in the distant Outer Worlds, colonists and robots live side by side.
A Spacer ambassador is found dead and detective Elijah Baley is assigned to find the killer. But with relations between the two cultures in the…