The Robot Chronicles

This is the first in a series of the Robot Novels by Isaac Asimov. The main characters in this book are Elijah “Lije” Baley, a plainclothes cop, and R. Daneel Olivaw, a humaniform robot. The story takes place on futuristic Earth, approximately 3021 AD. Earth is heavily populated and most cities are mostly underground and interconnected. The major Cities such as New York are referred to with the capital C because of their massive size. New York City’s population is somewhere around 20million and Earth’s population tops 8 billion. Some people criticize Asimov by because Earth’s population will top 8 billion by 2020 according to many calculations. We have to remember that this is just a fiction book written in the 1950’s after all. These massive Cities are essentially enclosed underground and agoraphobia is common among most of the population. (more…)

This is the second book in the Robot Novel series by Asimov. A year has passed since The Caves of Steel. Lije Baley is summoned once again to solve a murder. The Department of Justice received a request from the Spacers asking specifically for Baley’s help with the case. This time the murder is not on Earth, but on the 50th Spacer world, Solaria. (more…)