Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition) (22 page)
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Authors: James Gunn
BOOK: Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition)
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Dr. Han Fastolfe, spokesman for the Spacers who want to break Earthmen free of the home planet to settle some of the hundred million uninhabited planets in the Galaxy, presents the overriding image of the novel: ". . . Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever. . . . Civism is ruining Earth."
The Cities . . . civism . . . these concepts are what
The Caves of Steel
is about. Asimov alternated exposition about the City and its culture with narrative about the murder investigation, complicating events, and character development. His writing skills had developed to the point that he was able to allow each of these elements to fall naturally and unobtrusively into place. The first extensive discussion of the development of the Cities, for instance, occurs as Baley is riding the expressway toward Spacetown to meet his robot partner for the first time and thinking about the differences between Spacetown and New York, between Spacers and Earthmen.
The Caves of Steel
is about. Asimov alternated exposition about the City and its culture with narrative about the murder investigation, complicating events, and character development. His writing skills had developed to the point that he was able to allow each of these elements to fall naturally and unobtrusively into place. The first extensive discussion of the development of the Cities, for instance, occurs as Baley is riding the expressway toward Spacetown to meet his robot partner for the first time and thinking about the differences between Spacetown and New York, between Spacers and Earthmen.
Efficiency had been forced on Earth with increasing population. Two billion people, three billion, even five billion could be supported by the planet by progressive lowering of the standard of living. When the population reaches eight billion, however, semistarvation becomes too much like the real thing. . . .
The radical change had been the gradual formation of the Cities over a thousand years of Earth's history. Efficiency implied bigness. . . .
Think of the inefficiency of a hundred thousand houses for a hundred thousand families as compared with a hundred-thousand-unit Section; a book-film collection in each house as compared with a Section film concentrate; independent video for each family as compared with video-piping systems.
For that matter, take the simple folly of endless duplication of kitchens and bathrooms as compared with the thoroughly efficient diners and shower rooms made possible by City culture. . . .
City culture meant optimum distribution of food, increasing utilization of yeasts and hydroponics. New York City spread over two thousand square miles and at the last census its population was well over twenty million. There were some eight hundred Cities on Earth, average population, ten million.
Each City became a semiautonomous unit, economically all but self-sufficient. It could roof itself in, gird itself about, burrow itself under. It became a steel cave, a tremendous, self-contained cave of steel and concrete.
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