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A review by wolvenbolt
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.75
This book was not at all what I was expecting after coming from The Complete Robot, but that's not a bad thing! After coming from a collection of short stories set in the same universe as Asimov's The Robot, after experiencing all sorts of sciencey stories, technological tales and philosophical fictions, I was expecting a more grand tale in this main book.
Instead I found a neat little detective story, that was cleverly written to give as much detail on lore and world-building as it could, such as societal norms, different superstitions and perspectives, and make this world full of robots, ironically, feel as alive as possible.
However, it was not perfect. It suffers from what many detective books, shows and movies often do; leaving little clues around to make the reader at the end go "Oh yeah! I remember, oh yeah that makes sense now!" when what's actually happening is the detective at the end out of nowhere explains this huge speculation of how the killer did it, and why, and we never made these connections ourselves with the detective. It really did feel like Elijah vomited up a wad of exposition dumps at the end and explained what happened, with 5% breadcrumb evidence and 95% pure speculation that cannot really be proved without a confession.
I found myself saying "Holy shit, that makes sense!" and "Oh yeah it makes sense now", but then I took a step back from the moment afterwards and realised this all came out of nowhere, Elijah was pulling all of this out of his ass from 4 or 5 bits to be remembered from the story. And honestly that saddens me, if I was Asimov, I'd have got to the point at the end and then took parts of the speculation and added more detail throughout the overall narrative so it would feel less out of nowhere at the end exposing the killer.
I believe Asimov spent more time on world-building, lore and character development, than the plot itself, and I believe it suffered and became evident at the end.
Overall? It was a neat little book that made me think a lot about how we treat others and how we view ourselves, I really enjoyed this book and I have no idea where the next book in the series is going to take me, but I'm here for it 😊
Instead I found a neat little detective story, that was cleverly written to give as much detail on lore and world-building as it could, such as societal norms, different superstitions and perspectives, and make this world full of robots, ironically, feel as alive as possible.
However, it was not perfect. It suffers from what many detective books, shows and movies often do; leaving little clues around to make the reader at the end go "Oh yeah! I remember, oh yeah that makes sense now!" when what's actually happening is the detective at the end out of nowhere explains this huge speculation of how the killer did it, and why, and we never made these connections ourselves with the detective. It really did feel like Elijah vomited up a wad of exposition dumps at the end and explained what happened, with 5% breadcrumb evidence and 95% pure speculation that cannot really be proved without a confession.
I found myself saying "Holy shit, that makes sense!" and "Oh yeah it makes sense now", but then I took a step back from the moment afterwards and realised this all came out of nowhere, Elijah was pulling all of this out of his ass from 4 or 5 bits to be remembered from the story. And honestly that saddens me, if I was Asimov, I'd have got to the point at the end and then took parts of the speculation and added more detail throughout the overall narrative so it would feel less out of nowhere at the end exposing the killer.
I believe Asimov spent more time on world-building, lore and character development, than the plot itself, and I believe it suffered and became evident at the end.
Overall? It was a neat little book that made me think a lot about how we treat others and how we view ourselves, I really enjoyed this book and I have no idea where the next book in the series is going to take me, but I'm here for it 😊